ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
was also to be seen on the right of the river, where it 
described a sharp turn to 30° bearings magnetic. Then 
the river dashed through a passage of rocks only 80 metres 
broad, and emerged once more into another great basin, 
with many indentations in its rocky coast. 
Some six kilometres beyond, another basin was found, 
with more rocks strewn on and near its eastern bank, and 
a number of rocky islets. A high hill range with vertical 
cliffs stood on the west side and ended abruptly at the 
end of the basin; while low hills ran all along the river 
on the left side. 
The river had an average width here of 250 metres, 
and flowed mostly in directions between northwest and 
northeast. 
We went down all the time on troubled waters, with 
rocky banks and innumerable obstacles all the way. We 
went through another terrible and most intricate rapid 
— the Labyrinth — and passed through a channel only 
forty metres wide between high rocky banks. Then, after 
that, for 9,500 metres we had fair and smooth navigation, 
with a range of flat-topped hills 300 feet high, extending 
from west-southwest to east-northeast, in front of us to 
the northwest. Here there was a regular maze of chan¬ 
nels, all more or less bad. We did not follow the principal 
one, which was strewn with rocks, but a smaller one, at 
the end of which, unfortunately, we found a barrier of 
rocks which we could not surmount. We had all the 
trouble of dragging the canoe back up the rapid until we 
could turn her into another channel. 
We arrived at the waterfall of S. Simao, where we 
went through numerous channels, following the right 
bank as much as we could, until we arrived at a gigantic 
staircase of rock, down which the water divided itself into 
little channels. We took all the baggage over the rocks on 
the right bank — a very heavy task, as we had to climb up 
and down big boulders with sharp edges. We slipped 
212 
