CHAPTER VII. 
AT PUERTO MENDEZ. 
At Puerto Mendez the river had become 
unnavigable. It boiled in furious whirlpools, 
that caught the stern of the little launch as she 
threaded her way amongst them, and shook her 
as a leaf in the wind. The wall of the forest 
had first given place to banks of plumed 
reeds, and then to higher ground. The river 
narrowed, and cleft its way with sudden turns 
and twists through a ravine which shut out the 
daylight. At one of them a large tree hung 
over the water, its branches weighed down with 
blue and red macaws feeding upon the fruit, 
and tearing off leaves and branches with their 
powerful beaks. At the sound of a shot they 
rose screaming, and disappeared heavily into 
the green. 
A few miles on we reached the furthest point 
to which the launch could venture; and she 
crept, panting, to a small landing stage under 
the shelter of the cliff. Round the next bend, 
only ten days before, a tug, with a raft in tow, 
had gone down alive into the whirlpools with 
E 
