CHAPTER VIII 
Magnificent Basins — Innumerable Rapids — Narrow Escapes — The 
Destructive Sauba Ants — Disobedient Followers — A Range of 
Mountains — Inquisitive Monkeys — Luck in Fishing — Rocky 
Barriers—Venus 
W E left at eight a.m. on July twentieth, the mini¬ 
mum temperature during the night having been 
57° Fahrenheit. We had hardly gone one and a 
half kilometres when we came to another island, 500 metres 
long, Mabel Island, quite as beautiful as the one on which 
we had camped. Small rapids were encountered where 
we just managed to avoid dangerous submerged rocks 
close to the right bank, near the entrance of a basin 900 
metres wide. 
All those basins were really magnificent to look at. 
This one, for instance, displayed a superb island, Noailles 
Island, 500 metres long, and 200 metres wide on its left 
side. Picturesque rocks of a vivid red colour peeped out 
of the water and broke the current, the spray that rose in 
the air forming pretty rainbows. There was a channel, 
300 metres wide, after passing the last island. Then 
came one more great basin, 700 metres wide, and yet 
another pretty island, with a rocky spur. 
We followed a course of 10° bearings magnetic on the 
left side of the island, Margie Island, which was 500 
metres long, and had a number of subsidiary islands 
formed by picturesque groups of rock. 
We then came to one more great basin, with an 
immense quantity of rock in its western part. Many of 
the boulders showed a foliation in their strata with a dip 
Vol. II. — 7 onr 
