ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
sharply at that point, we went over a strong corrideira , 
so strewn with obstacles that in the terrific current 
we had a narrow escape from having our unmanage¬ 
able, long canoe smashed against one of the innumerable 
rocks. 
As we went on at a great speed I had just time to 
notice rocks of all sizes and shapes along both banks, and 
strange rocks in the middle of the river, one or two of 
them with stunted trees growing in fissures which had 
become filled with earth. 
Another island, 300 metres long, Martia Island, with 
a picturesque spur of rock at its southeasterly end, was 
next reached as we were going swiftly down a corrideira 
in the channel to the right which we were following. 
After the corrideira, as I was busy writing a descrip¬ 
tion of the landscape, I was thrown off my seat. My men 
also had a similar experience, the canoe nearly turning 
turtle and becoming filled with water. Alcides had steered 
us right into the centre of a whirlpool. 
These unexpected baths were not much to my taste, 
not so much for the discomfort they caused my person, as 
for the trouble they gave me in protecting my note-books 
and instruments. Also, in these accidents we lost a con¬ 
siderable amount of our supply of salt, which melted away 
in the w r ater, and the supply of flour and rice suffered 
from these unnecessary immersions. 
A channel thirty metres wide separated Martia Island 
from a second island, Camilla Island, 100 metres long, 
which must once certainly have formed part of it, but 
which had been separated by the eroding waters of the 
stream. Both islands were wooded, and were extremely 
pretty. Great heaps of rock, twenty metres in diameter 
and even more, occupied the centre of the stream after we 
had passed the last island. 
We had gone only 12 kilometres 300 metres that day, 
so difficult had been the navigation. 
92 
