THE LAST OF THE RAPIDS 317 



Indians, were working on the Canumd at about that 

 level. It is a difficult stream to ascend or descend. 

 They made excursions into the forest for days at a time 

 after caoutchouc. On one such trip, after fifteen days, 

 they, to their surprise, came out on the Aripuanan. 

 They returned and told their " patron " of their dis- 

 covery, and by his orders took their caoutchouc overland 

 to the Aripuanan, built a canoe, and ran down with 

 their caoutchouc to Manaos. They had now returned, 

 and were working on the upper Aripuanan. The 

 Mundurucus and Brazilians are always on the best 

 terms, and the former are even more inveterate enemies 

 of the wild Indians than are the latter. 



By mid-forenoon on April 26 we had passed the last 

 dangerous rapids. The paddles were plied with hearty 

 good will, Cherrie and Kermit, as usual, working like 

 the camaradas, and the canoes went dancing down the 

 broad, rapid river. The equatorial forest crowded on 

 either hand to the water's edge ; and, although the river 

 was falling, it was still so high that in many places little 

 islands were completely submerged, and the current 

 raced among the trunks of the green trees. At one 

 o'clock we came to the mouth of the Castanho proper, 

 and in sight of the tent of Lieutenant Pyrineus, with 

 the flags of the United States and Brazil flying before it ; 

 and, with rifles firing from the canoes and the shore, we 

 moored at the landing of the neat, soldierly, well-kept 

 camp. The upper Aripuanan, a river of substantially 

 the same volume as the Castanho, but broader at this 

 point, and probably of less length, here joined the 

 Castanho from the east, and the two together formed 

 what the rubber-men called the lower Aripuanan. The 

 mouth of this was indicated, and sometimes named, on 

 the maps, but only as a small and unimportant stream. 



