256 THE RIVER OF DOUBT [chap, viii 



then. The work continued until ten in the evening, 

 as the weather was clear. After nightfall some of the 

 men held candles and the others plied axe or adze, 

 standing within or beside the great, half-hoUowed logs, 

 while the flicker of the lights showed the tropic forest 

 rising in the darkness round about. The night air was 

 hot and still and heavy with moisture. The men were 

 stripped to the waist. Olive and copper and ebony, 

 their skins glistened as if oiled, and rippled with the 

 ceaseless play of the thews beneath. 



On the morning of the 14th the work was resumed 

 in a torrential tropic downpour. The canoe was 

 finished, dragged down to the water, and launched soon 

 after midday, and another hour or so saw us vmder way. 

 The descent was marked, and the swollen river raced 

 along. Several times we passed great whirlpools, some- 

 times shifting, sometimes steady. Half a dozen times 

 we ran over rapids, and, although they were not high 

 enough to have been obstacles to loaded Canadian 

 canoes, two of them were serious to us. Our hea\Tly 

 laden, clumsy dugouts were sunk to within three or 

 four inches of the surface of the river, and, although 

 they were buoyed on each side with bundles of burity- 

 palm branch-stems, they shipped a great deal of water 

 in the rapids. The two biggest rapids we only just 

 made, and after each we had hastily to push ashore in 

 order to bail. In one set of big ripples or waves my 

 canoe was nearly swamped. In a wilderness, where 

 what is ahead is absolutely unknown, alike in terms of 

 time, space, and method — for we had no idea where we 

 would come out, how we would get out, or when we 

 would get out — it is of vital consequence not to lose 

 one's outfit, especially the provisions ; and yet it is of 

 only less consequence to go as rapidly as possible lest 



