ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
being heavy, remained at the bottom of the canoe and 
were saved, but the bath did not do them good. I did 
not want to lose the plates, so there was only one course 
to follow, and that was to develop them while they were 
still wet. While my men slept I sat up a good portion of 
the night developing all those plates, quite successfully 
too, and trying to clean and fix up the cameras again for 
use the next day. One of my other cameras had been 
destroyed previously by one of my men, who sat on it, 
and of course smashed it to pieces. Another camera, 
which was still in excellent condition, having been in an 
air-tight case, was rather too big to be used for the work 
in going down the rapids. 
During the night of August seventh the minimum 
temperature was 62° Fahrenheit. 
I worked the entire morning with Alcides, trying to 
mend the poor canoe. The hole which had been made in 
her side was so big that Alcides could insert his head into 
it with great ease. It was not until two o’clock in the 
afternoon that we started once more. Along the river, 
which flowed in that particular section to the southwest, 
was a hill range on the northwest. The range rose 300 
feet above the level of the river. We had gone only some 
2,000 metres when we came to another bad rapid stretch¬ 
ing across the river from southeast to northwest. We 
were in a hilly region, hills being visible all along the 
stream. Soon afterwards we came to another powerful 
fall over a vertical rocky wall extending from northwest 
to southeast. Such redoubtable waves were prdduced 
there by the force of the water shooting over and then 
rebounding upwards, that we had to use the greatest care 
in letting down the unloaded canoe. At one moment 
she was more than two-thirds out of the water, only her 
stern resting on the top of the fall, the rest projecting 
outward in the air for some moments until she dropped 
down again. 
188 
