A WINDING CHANNEL 
yellow, which showed vividly against the heavy black 
clouds directly above our heads. The river reflected the 
red tints, so that we appeared to be working in a river of 
blood. 
As we had nothing to eat, I thought I would spend 
my time in taking the correct elevation of that place with 
the boiling-point thermometers. The man X, the hu¬ 
mourist of the party, remarked that if I were killed and 
went to Heaven or some other place, the first thing I 
should do would be to take the exact elevation with what 
he called “ the little boiling stove ” (the hypsometrical 
apparatus). 
We had a minimum temperature of 62° Fahrenheit 
during the night of August tenth. 
Next morning I sent my men to reconnoitre, in order 
to see if they could get some edible fruit. As they stayed 
away a long time, I knew they had found something. In 
fact, they came back in quite a good humour, as they had 
found some Jacob a or jacuba trees, with abundant fruit 
on them, most delicious to eat. 
In the meantime I had explored the rapids, endeavour¬ 
ing to find a more suitable channel. Eventually, on the 
east side of the stream, I found a place where we could 
take the canoe down. Even there there was a fall of 
nine feet down which we let the canoe with considerable 
difficulty; then it had to pass over a number of smaller 
terraces and down winding channels, where we sweated 
for some hours before we got through our work. In¬ 
numerable channels separated by sand mounds twenty to 
thirty feet high had formed along that rapid and also 
beside the vertical wall of the cutting, volcanic rock which 
formed the entire rapid. Below the fall were two long 
sand banks, one with some burity palms upon it. 
The river flowed 20° west of north for some 4,000 
metres. We had gone but 2,000 metres of that distance 
when we came to another rocky barrier, spreading from 
197 
