SAVED 
Filippe’s joy and mine was intense when we perceived 
that not only one boat, but two — three canoes were 
approaching. 
We had already travelled some eight kilometres on 
our raft when we came close to the boats we had ob¬ 
served. Their crews stood up in them, rifles in hand, as 
we floated down. I shouted that we were friends. 
Eventually they came to our help, their amazement being 
curious to watch as they got near us. They were unable 
to understand how we could float down the river merely 
by sitting on the surface. By that time the raft was 
almost altogether submerged. When they took us on 
board, and a portion of the raft came to the surface again, 
the amusement of those crews was intense. 
I explained who we were. The strangers could not 
do enough for us. In a moment they unloaded the bag¬ 
gage from our craft and put it on board their boats. 
They halted near the right bank, and on hearing of our 
pitiful plight immediately proceeded to cook a meal 
for us. 
The people belonged to the rubber-collecting expe¬ 
dition of a trader named Dom Pedro Nunes, who went 
only once every year with a fleet of boats up to the head¬ 
waters of that river in order to bring back rubber. The 
expedition — the only one that ever went up that river 
at all — took eight or ten months on the journey there 
and back. It was really an amazing bit of luck that we 
should owe our salvation to meeting that expedition in 
an almost miraculous way, brought about by an extra¬ 
ordinary series of fortunate coincidences. 
Had we not constructed that raft — had we not been 
on board at that moment — we should have missed the 
expedition and certainly should have died. Had we been 
following the bank of the river on foot, we never could 
have seen the boats nor heard them, as the banks were 
extremely high, and it was never possible to keep close 
297 
