ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
When that job was done I explored the district care¬ 
fully, in order to discover which was the easiest point over 
which the canoe could be made to climb the hill range. 
Having found a way which I thought suitable, I myself 
took one of the large knives, and ordered the other men 
to come with me with all the implements we could use in 
order to clear a sufficiently wide road through which the 
canoe could pass. This work lasted many hours, and was 
certainly trying. 
On August third we worked the entire day, from 
sunrise until seven in the evening, cutting a way through 
the forest. Then, when we had done that, I constructed, 
with the longer trees we had cut down, a small railway 
from the water, where the canoe was. I used the rollers 
on these rails made of the smoothest trees I could find. 
When my men grasped the idea, of which they had never 
dreamed, they became very excited and in a good humour. 
They worked extremely hard. It was a portentous effort 
to get the canoe on to the first roller, but once we had got 
her on the first and second and third rollers, and were 
able to lift her stern out of the water with levers and pieces 
of wood we gradually placed under her, she began to move 
along on the rollers with comparative ease. We moved 
the rails in front as we went along, and all went well until 
we got to the foot of the hill. 
There the trouble began: first of all because it was 
difficult to keep the rollers in position on the rails; then 
also because the moment we started to push the canoe up 
the hill she would slide back almost as far as, and some¬ 
times farther than, we had pushed her up. By a judicious 
use of ropes which we made fast to trees on either side, 
and by a careful study of the laws of leverage, we 
managed to push up the canoe a few inches at a time. 
We had some narrow escapes once or twice, when the 
ropes, under the excessive strain, snapped, and the canoe 
slid down again, dragging us with her. One tree, to which 
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