ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
and fro with the violent pressure of the water. Before 
we could realize where we were, Alcides steered us straight 
into the branches and foliage of the fallen tree. As we 
were travelling at an accelerated speed with the strong 
current, our hats were scraped off our heads, and, what 
was worse, our scalps, faces, and arms had patches of 
skin torn off as we crashed among the branches. It took 
us some time before we were able to disentangle ourselves, 
resume navigation, and recover, as we went along, the 
various headgear floating independently down the stream. 
Another little tributary, two metres wide, entered the 
Arinos on the left side. No sooner had we freed ourselves 
from the rapids than we were in a circle eighty metres 
across, with nasty-looking eddies, which swung the under¬ 
manned canoe now to one side, then violently to the other, 
in a dangerous way. We could not have struck a worse 
time for navigating the river. It was then the end of the 
dry season and the water at its lowest, so that every possible 
obstacle that could be found in that river stood to impede 
our progress. This would not have been the case at high 
water, when navigation in that portion of the stream would 
have been comparatively smooth and easy. We were 
thanking our stars that we had passed the vicious eddies 
safely, when we were confronted by more rapids, with 
treacherous submerged rocks. Yet another basin, 150 
metres wide, was crossed, with large blocks of black rock 
showing through on the left bank. More rapids were met, 
quite easy to negotiate. The sky was half covered with 
feathery radiations from the south. 
To the north another hill, 120 feet high, eroded by 
water, stood on the left hank of the stream, where red 
volcanic rock was also visible in a stratum 15 feet thick, 
covered by a thick layer of yellow earth. Strong rapids 
came next. We had had so much luck in the descent of 
the rapids, which, bad as they were, really were so far 
quite unimportant as compared to what we were to find 
30 
