ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
which I had been fortunate enough to save in our 
accidents. 
When I offered the chocolate to Alcides, he handed 
his cup to Filippe to bring to me, and when it was handed 
back to him he flung it away, saying he would prefer to 
die rather than drink the filthy English stuff. 
Matters were a little critical. A great number of 
rollers were required and a number of wooden rails. 
Curiously enough, the man X, who had been the most 
violent that day, was the only one who came to thank me 
for the chocolate, and offered to work, the others all 
refusing to move. 
He and I cut down three or four trees, when the other 
men, ashamed of themselves, took the axes and proceeded 
to work also. But instead of cutting down trees which 
were straight, they cut down the knottiest trees they could 
find, and made rollers which were absolutely useless. It 
was their silly way of wasting the little energy they had 
left. The result was that they had to do the work over 
again and cut other trees and other rollers. 
Eventually we succeeded in pushing the canoe over 
the rocks until we were some twenty metres from the water 
again. With some effort we succeeded in shoving her 
along eighteen metres out of those twenty metres. There 
only remained the last two metres — unfortunately uphill, 
which made our effort a little greater. Here the men 
again stopped work and refused to give that last push to 
get the canoe over those rocks and then into the water. 
Once more they said they would shoot me and then 
proceed through the forest on foot. 
Matters looked bad indeed. Those two metres, with 
a sharp angle upward, made an insurmountable obstacle 
which I could not negotiate alone. With the corner of 
my eye I saw the rifles of my men levelled at me. There 
was only one way out of that difficulty — to give my men 
a little excitement. 
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