ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
heavily weighted at that end, the water found its way 
down there. 
Now, loading the canoe in such a fashion, at the bow, 
had the double drawback of causing a greater resistance 
against the water, and therefore nearly doubling the work 
of the men in paddling. Then again, when we ran 
aground or struck a rock, the impact was more severe on 
the canoe, not to speak of the difficulty of getting her 
off again. The steering, too, was also much more difficult 
with the stern of the canoe so far out of the water. 
I pointed out the mistake to my men, but it was no 
use arguing, and they refused to follow my advice. Like 
all ignorant people, they thought they knew everything 
better than anybody else, and as, in a way, they were the 
chief sufferers for their own conceit, I thought I would 
avoid unpleasantness and let them do things their own 
way as long as we kept going forward on our journey. 
Alcides, too, who by now had become imbued with the 
idea that he was as good a navigator as Christopher 
Columbus or Vasco da Gama, had the strangest notions 
of navigation. He never avoided grounding the canoe 
on every bank he saw; he never avoided dashing the canoe 
into every rock which stood or did not stand in our way. 
I never could understand exactly why he did that, except 
for the mischievous pleasure he derived from giving the 
men who were sitting at the other end of the canoe a 
violent bump, which often rolled them over altogether. 
When we left Goyaz my men insisted on purchasing 
life-belts in case we should be travelling by water. As 
only one of the Goyaz men could swim, I had gladly given 
them the money to purchase those articles. On our first 
day of navigation the men amused me very much, as they 
all appeared garbed in their life-belts, as if we had been 
going to the rescue of a stranded ship in a tempest. I 
laughed heartily at the sight. The intense heat of the sun 
made the heavy cork belts so uncomfortable for them, 
74 
