CHOOSING CAMP SITES 
that they discarded them when they saw that the canoe 
would actually float on the water, and packed them away 
inside a wooden box, which they then screwed down tight. 
The belts remained in that box most of the time, except 
once when a man put one on, as I had given him 
instructions to go some way off in the centre of the stream 
where the current was rather swift. By misadventure he 
lost his footing, and had we not been quick in going to 
his rescue he certainly would have been drowned. 
We tested the life-belts, and I found that not only 
would they not float after they had been a minute or two 
in the water, but they became so heavy when soaked with 
moisture that they would have dragged to the bottom 
even a fair swimmer. They were evidently old discarded 
ship belts. The cork, enclosed in a canvas cover, had 
become decomposed and pulverized, and therefore ren¬ 
dered useless. 
As we are referring to the strange ways of looking 
at things by different nations, I might as well include 
the endless arguments I had with my men in selecting 
our camps. I naturally always chose the cleanest spots 
with a flat ground, so that the tents could be pitched 
satisfactorily without extra trouble, where there was little 
vegetation, and where the water was good. My men 
always quarrelled over this, and insisted on stopping in 
the filthiest places, either where some trees, rotted away, 
had fallen down, where the vegetation on the edge of the 
river needed cutting, and where the ground had to be 
levelled before I could pitch my camp-bed. They always 
preferred sleeping under the stifling vegetation to where 
there was an open space and we had the clear sky over us. 
They all slept in hammocks, the favourite resting 
arrangement of the Brazilian, to my mind the most un¬ 
comfortable and absurd fashion of resting, especially in 
tropical regions. First of all, it is almost an impossibility 
to assume a perfectly horizontal position for your entire 
75 
