DIFFICULTIES OF EXPLORERS 245 



We were still wholly unable to tell where we were 

 going or what lay ahead of us. Round the camp-fire, 

 after supper, we held endless discussions and hazarded 

 all kinds of guesses on both subjects. The river might 

 bend sharply to the west and enter the Gy-Parand. high 

 up or low down, or go north to the Madeira, or bend 

 eastward and enter the Tapajos, or fall into the Canumd 

 and finally through one of its mouths enter the Amazon 

 direct. Lyra inclined to the first, and Colonel Rondon 

 to the second, of these propositions. We did not know 

 whether we had one hundred or eight hundred kilometres 

 to go, whether the stream would be fairly smooth or 

 whether we would encounter waterfalls, or rapids, or 

 even some big marsh or lake. We could not tell 

 whether or not we would meet hostile Indians, although 

 no one of us ever went ten yards from camp without 

 his rifle. We had no idea how much time the trip 

 would take. We had entered a land of unknown pos- 

 sibilities. 



We started down-stream again early in the afternoon 

 of March 5. Our hands and faces were swollen from 

 the bites and stings of the insect pests at the sand-flat 

 camp, and it was a pleasure once more to be in the 

 middle of the river, where they did not come, in any 

 numbers, while we were in motion. The current was 

 swift, but the river was so deep that there were no 

 serious obstructions. Twice we went down over slight 

 riffles, which in the dry season were doubtless rapids ; 

 and once we struck a spot where many whirlpools 

 marked the presence underneath of boulders which 

 would have been above water had not the river been so 

 swollen by the rains. The distance we covered in a day 

 going down-stream would have taken us a week if we 

 had been going up. The course wound hither and 



