ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
another, which we followed, 50 metres broad, northeast. 
On emerging from this channel at the end of the island 
we were in a basin 140 metres in diameter. Some three 
kilometres farther, another great basin was crossed, very 
shallow, only two feet deep, with a gravel bottom. The 
current was swift. Then, two kilometres beyond, yet 
another basin, 100 metres wide, one and a half feet deep, 
with strong eddies, was crossed. The river, which had 
so far kept more or less in a northerly direction, at that 
point actually swung round in two consecutive angles 
from 350° north to due south, in which direction it flowed 
for 1,000 metres. An immaculately white beach was on 
the right of us, on which we duly stranded. It was quite 
enough for Alcides to see an obstacle of any kind in the 
river for him to send the canoe right over it. I seized that 
opportunity to land and commence a most interesting 
collection of the innumerable minute sand plants which 
were to be found on those beaches. 
Where the river turned north once more there stood 
a hill 100 feet high, the lower half of which was of red 
volcanic rock, the upper half of yellow earth. Along the 
water’s edge a thick and florid growth of bamboo could 
be seen in many places, while on the edge of the forest 
hung myriads of purple convolvuli. For hundreds of 
kilometres the Arinos was indeed one of the most ideally 
beautiful rivers I have ever seen. Its banks of alluvial 
formation, 25 to 30 feet high, had chapada on their tops. 
Farther on the chapada gave way once more to dense 
forest with plentiful rubber trees. Another basin, 150 
metres in diameter, was met with, after which we entered 
a channel from 40 to 50 metres wide, through which the 
stream was compressed. 
A pretty little islet of gravel, 100 metres long, 20 
metres wide, and rising 6 feet above the water, had a 
tuft of trees growing on it, and a spur, also of gravel, 
extending westward for more than another 100 metres. 
38 ' 
