280 DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER [chap.ix 



explored both sides while camp was being pitched. The 

 rapids were longer and of steeper descent than the last, 

 but on the opposite or western side there was a passage 

 down which we thought we could get the empty dug- 

 outs at the cost of dragging them only a few yards at 

 one spot. The loads were to be carried down the hither 

 bank, for a kilometre, to the smooth water. The river 

 foamed between great rounded masses of rock, and at 

 one point there was a sheer fall of six or eight feet. We 

 found and ate wild pineapples. Wild beans were in 

 flower. At dinner we had a toucan and a couple of 

 parrots, which were very good. 



AU next day was spent by Lyra in superintending 

 our three best watermen as they took the canoes down 

 the west side of the rapids, to the foot, at the spot to 

 which the camp had meantime been shifted. In the 

 forest some of the huge sipas, or rope vines, which were 

 as big as cables, bore clusters of fragrant flowers. The 

 men found several honey-trees, and fruits of various 

 kinds, and small cocoanuts ; they chopped down an 

 ample number of palms for the palm-cabbage ; and, 

 most important of all, they gathered a quantity of big 

 Brazil-nuts, which when roasted tasted hke the best of 

 chestnuts, and are nutritious ; and they caught a number 

 of big piranhas, which were good eating. So we aU had 

 a feast, and everybody had enough to eat and was happy. 



By these rapids, at the fall, Cherrie found some 

 strange carvings on a bare mass of rock. They were 

 evidently made by men a long time ago. As far as is 

 known, the Indians thereabouts make no such figures 

 now. They were in two groups, one on the surface of 

 the rock facing the land, the other on that facing the 

 water. The latter were nearly obhterated. The former 

 were in good preservation, the figures sharply cut into 



