AN AWE-INSPIRING SCENE 
language of my men was pretty enough, but as long as 
they worked I had to put up with it. Alcides, who was 
really a great worker, and whose principal fault was that 
he would never save himself, worked with tremendous 
vigour that day. Somehow or other the men seemed to 
think the work hard. 
When we had taken the canoe safely to the end of 
the rapid through the channel we had cleared, I went 
back to the top of the rapid to gaze once more on the 
wonderful sight where the two principal channels met. 
The water dashed against a rock in the centre with most 
impressive fury. 
On returning to the bottom of the rapid where I had 
left the canoe, another most impressive sight was to be 
seen. In the vertiginous waters emerging from the 
channel high waves — most unpleasant-looking and in the 
greatest confusion — clashed against one another for a 
distance of over 500 metres below the rapid. 
My men would not camp that night near the rapid, 
which they said was the devil’s home, so during the night 
we went two kilometres down the stream, where, simply 
worn out, we made our camp. We never could get any 
fish from the stream now. We had gone only 6,000 metres 
that day. I reckoned that, travelling at that rate, I should 
perhaps reach my goal, Manaos, in five or six years’ time 
— and all the provisions I had left for seven men, all 
counted, were now eight tins of sardines. 
We had a minimum temperature of 64° Fahrenheit 
on the night of August eleventh. 
We had halted just above another big and beautiful 
waterfall — twenty feet high, and of immense width. 
The great rush of water curled over a gigantic dome of 
volcanic rock with many big holes and fissures. The 
waterfall was followed by a ghastly rapid 500 metres long. 
It was impossible to go over the fall, and the only way 
left us — a most dangerous one — was to let the canoe 
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