286 DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER [chap, ix 



veteran in the work of the tropic wilderness. We talked 

 together often, and of many things, for our views of life, 

 and of a man's duty to his wife and children, to other 

 men, and to women, and to the state in peace and war, 

 were in aU essentials the same. His father had served 

 all through the Civil War, entering an Iowa cavalry 

 regiment as a private and coming out as a Captain ; 

 his breast-bone was shattered by a blow from a musket- 

 butt, in hand-to-hand fighting at Shiloh. 



During this portage the weather favoured us. We 

 were coming toward the close of the rainy season. On 

 the last day of the month, when we moved camp to the 

 foot of the gorge, there was a thunder-storm ; but on the 

 whole we were not bothered by rain until the last night, 

 when it rained heavily, driving under the fly so as to 

 wet my cot and bedding. However, I slept comfortably 

 enough, rolled in the damp blanket. Without the 

 blanket I should have been uncomfortable ; a blanket 

 is a necessity for health. On the third day Ljrra and 

 Kermit, with their daring and hard-working watermen, 

 after wearing labour, succeeded in getting five canoes 

 through the worst of the rapids to the chief fall. The 

 sixth, which was frail and weak, had its bottom beaten 

 out on the jagged rocks of the broken water. On this 

 night, although I thought I had put my clothes out of 

 reach, both the termites and the carregadores ants got 

 at them, ate holes in one boot, ate one leg of my 

 drawers, and riddled my handkerchief; and I now had 

 nothing to replace anything that was destroyed. 



Next day Lyra, Kermit, and their camaradas brought 

 the five canoes that were left down to camp. They 

 had in four days accomplished a work of incredible 

 labour and of the utmost importance ; for at the first 

 glance it had seemed an absolute impossibility to avoid 



