A DILEMMA 
question for me to work the huge canoe alone going down 
such terrific rapids, if they had all died. 
Some four hours were spent in deepest reflection, a 
little distance off from my men. I had done my best, 
and I could do no more for them. I returned every little 
while to see how they were progressing, but for the first 
three hours they were in so pitiful a condition that I really 
thought they could not possibly recover. 
When Alcides was almost unconscious, I applied to 
him also the remedy I had used for the other men. 
It was only after some five hours or so that Filippe 
the negro began to feel a little better. Gradually one 
after another the men, half-dazed, were able to get up, 
swaying about as if badly intoxicated. They said they 
saw all the things in front of them moving up and down. 
Evidently the poison had affected their vision and also 
their hearing, as they said they could hear me only faintly 
when I spoke to them. 
Late in the evening I persuaded them to get once 
more into the canoe, as it was not possible to camp on 
those rocks. We floated down — fortunately for us the 
river was placid for some fifteen kilometres, and we let 
the current do most of the work — I steering, while all 
my men lay flat in the bottom of the canoe. We passed 
by two or three beautiful islands with quantities of rubber 
upon them. 
My men felt very bad the entire night, but by the 
next morning they were a little better, although in a 
most exhausted condition. We had a minimum tem-i 
perature of 72 ° Fahrenheit during the night of August 
seventeenth. 
We had some luck that evening, for we came to the 
hut of a seringueiro, a negro, and his wife, who had cut 
down a portion of the forest near their hut and cultivated 
some mandioca. Their amazement at seeing us appear 
was curious to watch, especially when they looked at our 
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