314 TO THE AMAZON AND HOME [chap, x 



fifty-two kilometres. Lyra took observations where we 

 camped ; we were in latitude 8° 49'. At this camping- 

 place the great, beautiful river was a little over three 

 hundred metres wide. We were in an empty house. The 

 marks showed that in the high water, a couple of 

 months back, the river had risen until the lower part of 

 the house was flooded. The difference between the 

 level of the river during the floods and in the dry season 

 is extraordinary. 



On the 21st we made another good run, getting down 

 to the Infernao rapids, which are in latitude 8° 19' south. 

 Until we reached the Cardozo we had run almost due 

 north ; since then we had been running a little west of 

 north. Before we reached these rapids we stopped at a 

 large, pleasant, thatch house, and got a fairly big and 

 roomy, as well as light boat, leaving both our two 

 smaller dugouts behind. Above the rapids a small river, 

 the Madeirainha, entered from the left. The rapids had 

 a faU of over ten metres, and the water was very wild 

 and rough. Met with for the first time, it would doubt- 

 less have taken several days to explore a passage and, 

 with danger and labour, get the boats down. But we 

 were no longer exploring, pioneering, over unknown 

 country. It is easy to go where other men have pre- 

 pared the way. We had a guide ; we took our baggage 

 down by a carry three-quarters of a kilometre long ; and 

 the canoes were run through known channels the follow- 

 ing morning. At the foot of the rapids was a big house 

 and store ; and camped at the head were a number of 

 rubber-workers, waiting for the big boats of the head 

 rubber-men to work their way up from below. They 

 were a reckless set of brown daredevils. These men 

 lead hard Uves of labour and peril ; they continually face 

 death themselves, and they think little of it in connec- 



