THE CHRONOMETER STOPS 
in the evening, and when I woke up startled in the morn¬ 
ing, remembering the fact, I found the chronometer had 
stopped altogether. That was the greatest blow of all, 
after all the trouble I had taken to keep the Greenwich 
mean time for my observations of longitude. The mishap 
was not irreparable, as I got the time fairly accurately by 
using the previous observations at local noon and working 
out the difference with Greenwich mean time. 
So many had been the obstacles we had found that day 
that, before reaching the rapid where we had the disaster, 
we had made a progress of 39 kilometres 500 metres — 
poor work indeed as compared to the wonderful distances 
we had been able to cover on the first days of our naviga¬ 
tion of the Arinos River. Considering all, however, it 
was really marvellous that we could cover even that 
distance, short as it was. 
157 
