304 DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER [chap, ix 



dogs were on watch, and the belongings showed that a 

 man, a woman, and a child lived there, and had only 

 just left. Another hour brought us to a similar house 

 where dwelt an old black man, who showed the innate 

 courtesy of the Brazilian peasant. We came on these 

 rubber-men and their houses in about latitude 10° 24'. 



In mid-afternoon we stopped at another clean, cool, 

 picturesque house of palm-thatch. The inhabitants all 

 fled at our approach, fearing an Indian raid ; for they 

 were absolutely unprepared to have any one come from 

 the unknown regions up-stream. They returned and 

 were most hospitable and communicative ; and we spent 

 the night there. Said Antonio Correa to Kermit : " It 

 seems like a dream to be in a house again, and hear the 

 voices of men and women, instead of being among those 

 mountains and rapids." The river was known to them as 

 the Castanho, and was the main affluent, or rather the 

 left or western branch, of the Aripuanan ; the Castanho 

 is a name used by the rubber-gatherers only ; it is 

 unknown to the geographers. We were, according to 

 our informants, about fifteen days' journey from the 

 confluence of the two rivers ; but there were many 

 rubber-men along the banks, some of whom had become 

 permanent settlers. We had come over three hundred 

 kilometres, in forty-eight days, over absolutely unknown 

 ground ; we had seen no human being, although we had 

 twice heard Indians. Six weeks had been spent in 

 steadily slogging our way down through the inter- 

 minable series of rapids. It was astonishing before, 

 when we were on a river of about the size of the upper 

 Rhine or Elbe, to realize that no geographer had any 

 idea of its existence. But, after all, no civilized man of 

 any kind had ever been on it. Here, however, was a 

 river with people dwelling along the banks, some of 



