UNPLEASANT MARCHING 
had thrown away. I warned them that if they threw 
away any more we should certainly all die of starvation. 
During the night one of the Indians ran away, carrying 
with him a quantity of our provisions. 
On August twenty-seventh I once more proceeded on 
the march westward, this time with no picada at all to 
follow, but cutting our way all the time through the forest. 
Mr. Julio Nery, who had been sent with me, was an 
enthusiastic and brave man, but in trying to help he made 
us waste a great deal of energy and time. After marching 
eight hours we had gone only ten kilometres in the right 
direction, having made many deviations in order to find 
what he called a more suitable way. We travelled occa¬ 
sionally over thickly wooded, slightly undulating country, 
but generally the land was flat. 
In the afternoon, when we arrived at the foot of a 
small hill, we were caught in a drenching storm, the foliage 
letting the water down upon us in profusion. The walk¬ 
ing became heavy. In order to make the loads lighter, 
my men had removed from the packages the waterproof 
coverings I had made for them from waterproof sheets. 
The result was that in that storm nearly our entire 
supply of salt — some fifty pounds of it — was lost. The 
powdered sugar, too, suffered considerably, and became 
a solid sticky mass. 
We arrived at a stream ten metres broad, flowing from 
north to south, where we had to halt, as my men said they 
were absolutely exhausted and could not go another step. 
The water of that stream was simply delicious. We killed 
a monkey, which my men ate eagerly for dinner. 
On August twenty-eighth we left that stream at eight 
o’clock. We were confronted by a succession of steep hills 
with vertical rocks of immense size, on the summit of 
which were great slabs also of rock, not unlike the roofs 
of houses. It was most difficult, I confess, for my men 
to take the loads up and down those giant rocks, especially 
248 
