A SERIOUS ACCIDENT 
the water* many of our things being washed away 
altogether. 
There she stuck, fortunately for us. With consider¬ 
able danger we managed to undo the ropes which were 
fastened to her stern. After several hours of hard work 
— and of extreme peril for the men who could not swim, 
as we had to work all the time with the water up to 
our necks in a powerful current, which made it most diffi¬ 
cult to keep our footing —we succeeded in pulling her 
off and taking her alongside the bank. 
That disaster was rather a serious one for us, as it 
injured many of my instruments, particularly the ane¬ 
roids; but I considered myself fortunate in managing to 
save all the photographs and note-books as well as the 
instruments for taking astronomical observations, which 
were kept in air-tight cases. I lost my favourite pair of 
shoes, which were by my side in the canoe when I 
jumped out. 
As it so frequently happened that we had to jump into 
the water, in fact, we spent more time in the water than 
out, I had adopted as a costume my pajamas, under which 
I always wore the belt with the heavy packages of money. 
The paper money, a very considerable sum, had with the 
many baths become a solid mass. I could not well spread 
the bank-notes out in the sun to dry, as I did not wish my 
men to know how much I possessed; so that for many, 
many weeks I had around my waist those heavy leather 
wallets soaked in water, my natural heat not being quite 
sufficient to dry them. 
We had worked in the stream until nearly midnight. 
We had nothing to eat when we had finished our work, 
and the result was that the next morning my men were 
still tired. 
Two of my cameras were by my side when the canoe 
was swamped, one containing eighteen plates, the other 
twelve, all of which had been exposed. The cameras, 
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