ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
grey colour, and some 300 metres in length along the 
river. 
We had wasted so much time, and the men rowed 
so badly, that we made poor progress. We went only 
twenty-one kilometres that day. We halted for the night 
near a seringueiro’s hut at the small rapid of Meia Carga, 
or Half-charge Rapid, because at low water the boats 
have to be half unloaded in order to get over that spot. 
The minimum temperature during the night was 69° 
Fahrenheit. We slept in the boat, and were simply de¬ 
voured by mosquitoes. The chief of the Indians who 
had been lent me by the fiscal agent became seriously ill 
during the night with a severe attack of fever. All my 
men, with no exception, also became ill, and were shivering 
with cold, owing to fever. The chief of the police, Luiz 
Perreira da Silva, who had been placed by Mr. Barretto 
in charge of the Indians who were to accompany me, in 
jumping from the boat that night on to the shore hurt 
his foot, the pain caused by that slight injury giving him 
also a severe attack of fever. So that of the entire crew 
there remained only two men in good health — viz. Mr. 
Julio Nery and myself. 
Amid moans and groans we got the boat under way 
at 6.45 the next morning, the men paddling in a half¬ 
hearted manner. As the current was strong we drifted 
down fairly quickly in a northerly direction, the river 
there being in a perfectly straight line for some 8,000 
metres. The width of the river was 1,300 metres. 
Behind a little island on the left side, and approached 
through a circle of dangerous rocks, was the hut of a 
seringueiro called Albuquerque, a man in the employ of 
Colonel Brazil, the greatest rubber trader on the river 
Tapajoz. We landed at that point and made prepara¬ 
tions so that I could start at once on the journey on foot 
across the virgin forest. 
The loads the men were to carry were not heavy — 
238 
