WATER TRAIL FROM GEORGETOWN TO AREMU. 273 



tacubas with but little hindrance. The cost of opening it 

 had been more than $15,000. Huge tree-trunks had to be 

 sawn through, but even then, the wood of many species 

 having greater specific gravity than water, the trunks would 

 sink to the bottom like stones, offering a greater obstruction 

 than before. Dynamite was then used to clear them from 

 the bed of the stream. 



In the early afternoon, a beautiful dull-red passion flower 

 on a climbing vine became common, and we found that its 

 fruit was edible and called by the natives Simitii. Although 

 apparently so much at home here, this plant, known as the 

 Water Lemon {Passiflora laurifolia), is really an escape from 

 cultivation. 



The river twisted and turned in every direction and the 

 banks were four to eight feet in height with sloping bars of 

 sand on the inside bends. Palms were rather scarce, their 

 place, in appearance at least, being taken by the tall, slender 

 Congo pump trees with deeply serrated rosettes of leaves. 

 Tree-ferns appeared in ever increasing numbers and stretched 

 their graceful fronds from the banks far out over our heads. 



During midday, silence filled these river glades, both birds 

 and insects resting quietly in the heat, and the only sound was 

 the regular scraping of the poles against the sides of the 

 ballyhoo. The heat was not oppressive except in the glar- 

 ing sunshine on the water, but such exposure was rare in 

 these deeply forested recesses. We had had no rain thus 

 far and the temperature of the mornings and evenings was 

 delightfully cool. At night we could scarcely keep warm 

 rolled in a hammock in a thick blanket. Unpleasant insects 

 were entirely absent, and yet we were travelling in the heart 

 of a tropical wilderness, which most of us have pictured as 

 a sizzling, steaming hot-house, teeming with venomous rep- 

 tiles and stinging bugs of all descriptions. 



About three o'clock, the Goldbirds "■' began calling and 



