ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
When we went on with our dangerous work the next 
morning we had the greatest difficulty in saving the canoe, 
as in entering the whirlpool she was swamped, and it was 
all we could do to pull her back towards the bank before 
she foundered altogether. The actual drop in that rapid 
was not less than eight feet vertically. We just managed 
to rest her on a submerged rock until we were able to 
bale some of the water out. 
That canoe was really wonderful in a way. My men 
patted her on the prow as if she had been an animal, and 
said she was a good canoe. Indeed she was, but in her 
old age she felt the strain of that exciting journey. Every 
time I looked at her I did not know how much longer she 
might last. Whatever may be said of them, my men must 
be given credit for their courage in going along in that 
canoe. I do not believe that there are six other men in 
Brazil, or perhaps in any other country, who would have 
ventured to go across even the most placid pond in a 
similar craft. 
After the rapids came a great basin 1,000 metres long, 
800 metres wide. There the river described an angle from 
20° to 45° bearings magnetic, and we perceived two 
parallel ranges before us to the north-northeast, the 
farther one much higher than the one nearer. Some five 
kilometres beyond was yet another rapid, but not so 
troublesome a one this time. The river there diverged 
from northeast to a direction due west. A hill range, from 
150 to 250 feet high, extended from west-southwest to east- 
northeast. An isolated hill, 300 feet high, could be seen 
to the east-northeast. 
We suffered agony that day from regular clouds of 
borrachudos, terrible little sand mosquitoes which made 
life an absolute burden in that region. Our faces, arms, 
and legs were a mass of ink-black marks left by the stings 
of those vicious brutes. Particularly when our hands were 
occupied in holding the canoe going down rapids or busy 
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