1883.] Heath's Bolivian Explorations . 539 
toward the southern shore, making a dangerous whirlpool, 
which was passed with great difficulty, his frail bark being 
almost swamped. The Dodtor found a little bank below the 
Falls, where the two Indians managed to sleep while he sat 
in the boat all night writing and inking over his pencil notes 
made during the day, and occasionally bailing out the water 
from the boat, which had sprung a leak from the concussions 
received on the rocks the previous day. About 7 o’clock the 
next morning he passed a number of rocks in the river cor- 
responding with the Rapids Palo-Grande of the Mamore ; 
for here he recognised the range of hills which he had seen 
while ascending the other river. Just below this point there 
is a large island, where Palacios spent the night in 1846, and 
the last point probably arrived at by Bursa, the Prussian 
explorer. 
Dr. Heath now informed his Indian companions that they 
were near the termination of their voyage, as he recognised 
from the hills, and the island 4 miles below the Falls, that 
they had passed what corresponded to the fourth Falls in 
the Mamore River. Ildifongo then asked if there was now 
hope for their lives ? When informed that there was, he 
said he would call the falls Esperanza, or Hope. From 
this place they had an unmolested passage to the mouth of 
the Beni River, where they arrived October nth, 1880. 
Here they found the chacra which the Doctor had made in 
August, 1879. There were over two hundred bunches of 
bananas, ripe and decaying, which furnished them an abun- 
dance of food. As the bananas had not been touched, the 
Dodtor inferred the absence of Indians. Loading the boat 
nearly to the water’s edge, they began the ascent of the 
Mamore, and passed the first night at the foot of the first 
Rapids. But his Indian companions, having gorged them- 
selves with food, were taken sick, and were unable to proceed 
for two days. 
In ascending the Mamore Dr. Heath met with a serious 
accident at the Falls of Palo Grande, where his boat was 
overturned and submerged in a fearful whirlpool, his cutting 
utensils lost, and ail his provisions thrown into the river. 
The situation was critical in the extreme, and the Indians 
were stupefied with terror. Dr. Heath first secured his 
boat ; then, seeing his farinha sewed up in an ox-hide, and 
two of his paddles floating around in the centre of the dan- 
gerous whirlpool, he plunged into the river. The Indians 
beheld this hazardous aft with amazement, and uttered a 
cry of terror. Should the Dodtor be drowned, how could 
they escape from the wilderness ? and, if they should escape, 
z 7 * 2 
