248 THE RIVER OF DOUBT [chap, viii 



big rapids, down which the canoes could not go ; and 

 we returned to the landing. All the canoes had 

 gathered there, and Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit started 

 down -stream to explore. They returned in an hour, 

 with the information that the rapids continued for a 

 long distance, with falls and steep pitches of broken 

 water, and that the portage would take several days. 

 We made camp just above the rapids. Ants swarmed, 

 and some of them bit savagely. Our men, in clearing 

 away the forest for our tents, left several very taU and 

 slender accashy palms ; the bole of this palm is as 

 straight as an arrow, and is crowned with delicate, 

 gracefully curved fronds. We had come along the 

 course of the river almost exactly a hundred kilometres ; 

 it had twisted so that we were only about fifty-five 

 kilometres north of our starting-point. The rock was 

 porphyritic. 



The 7th, 8th, and 9th we spent in carrying the loads 

 and dragging and floating the dugouts past the series 

 of rapids at whose head we had stopped. 



The first day we shifted camp a kilometre and a half 

 to the foot of this series of rapids. This was a charming 

 and picturesque camp. It was at the edge of the river, 

 where there was a little shallow bay, with a beach of 

 firm sand. In the water, at the middle point of the 

 beach, stood a group of three burity palms, their great 

 trunks rising like columns. Round the clearing in 

 which our tents stood were several very big trees ; 

 two of them were rubber-trees. Kermit went down- 

 stream five or six kilometres, and returned, having shot 

 a jacu, and found that at the point which he had 

 reached there was another rapid, almost a fall, which 

 would necessitate our again dragging the canoes over 

 a portage. Antonio, the Parecis, shot a big monkey ; 



