Across Unknown South America

We struck the River Arinos at a point called Porto Velho. There were at that place the miserable sheds of three seringueiros (rubber-collectors). I had made for that particular spot because I had heard that a big canoe carved out of the trunk of a tree probably existed there. I was told that the canoe was large enough to carry many people. It had been constructed, it seemed, some ten years previously by a rubber-collecting expedition which came to grief, was abandoned, and had since been taken possession of by seringueiros. I had purchased it on chance from its last owner for Rs. 300,000. With accessories I gave about Rs. 450,000, or roughly, £30. It was the only canoe upon that river.

I considered myself lucky, when I arrived at Porto Velho, to find that the canoe actually existed at all. There she was, floating more or less gracefully upon the water. She had a total length of 42 ft., was 3½ ft. wide, and had been roughly scooped out of a giant tree which was not quite straight. Her lines, therefore, were not as elegant as might have been expected. For instance, her starboard and port sides were not absolutely straight lines, but described curves—in fact, the port side almost an angle. That gave the canoe an original appearance, which to my practical mind at once suggested great difficulty of steering. Her sides, coarsely cut with an axe, were from 3 to 5 in. thick; her bottom from 6 in. to 1 ft. thick. The two extremities were solid blocks, so that her weight—she was carved out of unusually heavy wood—was altogether over 2,000 lb.

When I went down to the water to examine my purchase I found that the vessel was in a pitiful condition and needed sound repairing before she could proceed on a long journey. She was sufficiently good for crossing the stream—that was all she was used for by the seringueiros—but it would be a different matter to go down rapids for some thousands of kilometres. It took all the strength of my men, the seringueiros, and myself combined to pull the canoe out of the water upon the beach and to turn her over. We worked hard for two days with saws and hammers, knives, tar and wadding, in order to stop up a gigantic crack which extended from one end of the canoe to the other under her bottom. Although the crack did not go right through, I could well imagine that a hard knock against a rock might be quite sufficient to split the canoe in two. We scraped her and cleaned her; we overhauled and strengthened her thoroughly; we cut rough seats inside, and built an elevated deck upon which the baggage might be comparatively safe from moisture.

We were proud of our work when we launched her. Wiping the dripping perspiration from our foreheads, necks and arms, we looked just as if we had come out of a bath, we sweated so in our efforts to push her back into the water, the heat near the water, screened as it was from the breeze by the high banks and trees, being suffocating! We gazed at her—the queen of the Arinos River. She looked lovely in our eyes. On her stern I fixed the steering gear, a huge paddle 12 ft. long; and upon a neatly-made staff, which I had cut myself, I hoisted the British flag, which had hitherto flown over my tent. It was, I think, the first time the British flag had waved over that river. The canoe was baptized the "Elfrida," after my sister's name.

It will be remembered that only four men remained with me. Not one of them had ever been in a canoe before—except to be ferried across a river, perhaps—not one had the slightest idea of navigation, and it followed, of course, that not one had ever used a paddle or steered a canoe.

As the river had never been surveyed, it was my intention to make an accurate map of its entire course as far as its junction with the Tres Barras, several thousand kils. away, from which point I imagined the river must be slightly better known. Therefore, as I should be busy all day long with the prismatic compass and watch, constantly taking notes of the direction of the stream and the distances covered (checked almost daily by astronomical observations) I should not be able to take an active part in the navigation.

The canoe was undermanned. Imagine her length—42 ft.—with only two men to paddle. A third man was stationed on her bow to punt when possible and be on the look-out for rocks; while Alcides, whom I had promoted to the rank of quartermaster, was in charge of the steering. I had taken the precaution to make a number of extra paddles. We carried a large quantity of fishing-lines with hooks of all sizes, and cartridges of dynamite.

The river was most placid and beautiful, and the water wonderfully clear. Unlike rivers elsewhere, the Arinos did not show a branch or a twig floating on its waters, not a leaf on its mirror-like surface. That did not mean that branches of trees—sometimes even whole trees—did not fall into the river, but, as I have stated already, the specific gravity of woods in that part of Brazil was so heavy that none floated. Hence the ever-clean surface of all the streams.

We were then in a region of truly beautiful forest, with figueira (Ficus of various kinds), trees of immense size, and numerous large cambará. The bark of the latter—reddish in colour—when stewed in boiling water, gave a refreshing decoction not unlike tea and quite good to drink.

Most interesting of all the trees was, however, the seringueira (Siphonia elastica), which was extraordinarily plentiful in belts or zones along the courses of rivers in that region. As is well known, the seringueira, which grows wild in the forest there, is one of the most valuable lactiferous plants in the world. Its latex, properly coagulated, forms the best quality of rubber known.

Rubber Tree showing Incisions and the Collar and Tin Cup for the Collection of the Latex.

Coagulating Rubber into a Ball.

There are, of course, many latex-giving plants of the Euphorbiæ, Artocarpæ and Lobeliæ families, but no other are perhaps such abundant givers of latex as the Brazilian seringueira (of the Euphorbiæ family), a tree plentiful not only in Matto Grosso on all the head-waters and courses of the rivers flowing into the Amazon, but also abundant in the Provinces of Para and the Amazon. In less quantities the seringueira is also to be found in Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte and Maranhão.

The seringueira prevailed chiefly near the water, in swampy places, or in places inundated when the river was high. Never was the tree to be found at a distance away from water.

The height of the seringueira varies from 25 ft. to 50 ft. Its diameter is seldom more than 35 in. Its leaf is composed of three elongated leaflets, smooth-edged and complete in themselves. The seed is smooth-skinned, and of a reddish tone. The fruit consists of a well-rounded wooden capsule enclosing three cells which contain white oily almonds not disagreeable to eat. From the almonds an oil of a light red colour, not unlike the colour of old port wine, can be extracted. That oil can be substituted for linseed oil, and has the further advantage of not desiccating so quickly. Mixed with copal and turpentine it gives a handsome varnish. It can be used advantageously in the manufacture of printing-ink and soap. So that every part of the seringueira can be put to some use or other.

Among the other more important trees which produce rubber may be mentioned the Siphonia brevifoglia, the Siphonia brasiliensis, Siphonia rhytidocarpa, and the Siphonia lutea, all found chiefly in the State of Para. In other parts of Brazil grow the Ficus anthelmintica, the Ficus doliaria (or gameilleira), the Ficus elastica, Ficus indica, Ficus religiosa, Ficus radula, Ficus elliptica, Ficus prinoides, the Plumeria phagedenica, the Plumeria drastica, the Sorveira or Collophora utilis, and the Mangabeira or Harncornia speciosa.

At present we shall be chiefly interested in the seringueira (Siphonia elastica).

The collection of the latex from the seringueira and the subsequent process of coagulation were simple enough. A seringueiro, or rubber-collector, started from his hut early every morning carrying with him a small steel axe or pick, the head of which was 3 in. long and shaped like a bird's beak; a tin bucket, and some barro—soft clay which had been soaked in water. He walked along the estrada or track which he had cleared for himself, leading from one rubber tree to the next. There may be twenty, thirty, fifty or more rubber trees that have been tapped on one estrada, according to the district and the activity of the seringueiro. In the case of a new tree a collar of the fibre of burity palm was in the first instance nailed with pegs of hard wood round the stem, not horizontally, but at an angle: sometimes, when necessary, in a spiral. In other cases a similar band of clay was made to encircle the tree. These collars served as channels, compelling the latex, as it exuded from cuts made in the tree, to flow into a small tin cup suspended at the lowest point of the collar. The incisions were never made lower than 2 or 3 ft. from the ground. They must not penetrate deeper than the entire thickness of the bark of the tree, and they must on no account touch or wound the actual wood, or the tree would suffer greatly—even die. In some regions the incisions were made longitudinally, in others transversely. The operation was repeated by the seringueiro each time on every rubber tree as he went along the estrada, the latex flowing freely enough into the tin cup after each fresh incision had been made.

The seringueiro thus tapped each tree on his way out along the estrada, which in some cases may be several miles long; in other cases, where rubber trees were plentiful, only a few hundred yards in length. On his return journey the seringueiro emptied each small tin cup—by that time filled with latex—into the large bucket which invariably accompanied him on his daily round. Rubber-trees possess in a way at least one characteristic of cows. The more milk or latex one judiciously extracts from them, the more they give, up to a certain point. But, indeed, such a thing is known as exhausting a tree in a short time. A good seringueiro usually gives the trees a rest from the time they are in bloom until the fruit is mature. In some regions even a much longer respite is given to the trees—generally during the entire rainy season. In some localities, too, in order to let the latex flow more freely, a vertical incision is made above and meeting a horizontal one. At intervals oblique incisions are cut next to the vertical ones, but in Matto Grosso I never saw that complicated system of incisions adopted—only vertical incisions parallel to one another at a distance of 0·25 m. (9⅞ in.) being made there, and in rows one above another. Some of the trees had actually hundreds of those cuts—many, of course, healed. Each cut only exudes latex for a comparatively short time, merely an hour or so.

During the first month after a tree is tapped, the supply of latex is generally plentiful; the second month it gives less; less still the third month. On an average twenty trees give about one litre of latex a day. Three litres of latex are necessary in order to obtain one litre of rubber. At the head-waters of the Arinos River 600 trees gave from 30 to 35 arobas (450 to 525 kils.) of fine rubber in the first month, and about 20 arobas (300 kils.) of sarnambé (second quality with impurities). One aroba is 15 kils.

The latex of the seringueira in the Arinos region was of a beautiful white, quite liquid, and with a pungent, almost sickening, odour. When a new tree was tapped, the lower towards the ground the incisions were made the better. If after considerable tapping the tree did not yield much, it was advisable to incise the tree higher up. In that region the trees exuded latex more abundantly when they began to have new leaves in October. Late in the dry season the latex flowed less freely. When the weather was windy all the latex seemed to contract to the summit of the trees and hardly flowed at all from the incisions. When it rained, on the contrary, it flowed freely, but was spoilt by being mixed with water; so that a good seringueiro must know well not only where and how, but also when to tap the trees, in order to get good results.

Balls of Rubber outside a Seringueiro's Hut.

Method of Pressing Rubber into Cakes.

The alum process of coagulation being used.

Several ways were employed in order to coagulate the latex. The simplest was the one used in Matto Grosso. The latex was poured into a rectangular wooden mould, 0·61 m. long (2 ft.), 0·46 m. wide (1½ ft.), and 0·15 m. deep (about 6 in.). Upon the latex was placed a solution of alum and warm water. Then coagulation took place. In order to compress the coagulating latex into solid cakes, a primitive lever arrangement was used—merely a heavy wooden bar, one end of which was inserted into the cavity of a tree, above the wooden mould, while at the other end of the bar heavy logs of wood were suspended. One night was sufficient for the latex to coagulate thoroughly and be properly compressed into cakes, weighing each about 22½ kils. The cakes were lifted out by belts of liane which had been previously laid into the moulds.

The discoverer of the method of coagulating rubber with alum was Henry S. Strauss. He also found that by keeping the latex in hermetically sealed vessels it could be preserved in a liquid state. The same result could be obtained with ammonia.

In the Amazon and Para Provinces a different process was used. The latex was coagulated by placing it near the fire. The heat evaporated the aqueous part and coagulated the vegetable albumen. In order to make what was called a garrafa, or large ball of rubber—some weighed 20, 30, 40 kils. and more—a small ball of latex was made to coagulate round a horizontal bar of wood. That ball was gradually increased in circumference by smearing it over with more latex, which became gradually coagulated and dried by the heat and smoke produced by the burning of certain woods, and of the oily seeds of the urucuri palm, technically known as the Attalea excelsa. In this process the rubber did not remain white, as with the alum process; in fact, it became dark brown, almost black, owing, of course, to the smoke. Locally, the smoking process was said to be the better of the two, for the coagulation with alum took away somewhat from the elasticity of the rubber.

Interesting was the sorveira (Collophora utilis), a tree which gave latex that was quite delicious to drink, but could not be coagulated. The trees, to any untrained person, closely resembled the seringueira, only the leaves were more minute and differently shaped. It must be remembered that nearly all the trees of the Brazilian forest had leaves only at a very great height above the ground, and it was not always easy to see their shape, especially when close to other trees where the foliage got interwoven into an almost solid mass. We frequently enjoyed the sweet milk of the sorveira—it tasted slightly of fresh walnuts with sugar on them. It was unsafe to drink too much of it, as it had injurious effects upon one's digestive organs.

There was there also the leiteiro (or producer of milk), a smaller tree, and the liana macaco, which both produced abundant milk, but in neither case had a way, so far, been found to coagulate it.

The two days spent at Porto Velho were interesting. The four men who had remained with me behaved fairly well, principally owing to the prospect, that, in drifting down stream, they would not have to work, and would be saved the heavy trouble of grooming, packing and unpacking the animals, and the tedious job every morning of riding miles through the country in order to recover those that had strayed away during the night.

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Antonio, as he gazed at the canoe, "we shall not have to hunt for her every morning!"

"Yes," answered Filippe, "no more pack-saddles to fix, no more leading the animals to drink. She"—pointing to the canoe—"can drink all the time if she likes...."

Filippe was a prophet. The canoe did "drink" all the time, much to our concern. Little did my men suspect before we started that they would have the hardest time of their lives—so hard, indeed, that it was amazing humans could endure it at all.

One of the three seringueiros at Porto Velho interested me greatly. He was a tall, gentlemanly, refined person, who seldom uttered a word. I noticed that he avoided meeting me, and, although extremely civil, seemed afraid to enter into conversation. The little shed he had built himself (7 ft. by 4 ft., and 7 ft. high) was extraordinarily neat, and open on all sides—quite unlike the sheds Brazilian rubber collectors build themselves.

From my tent I watched him. The man got up before sunrise every day, going at once to the river for a swim. Humming some sort of a song, he would then go through a series of gymnastic exercises, interrupted by sonorous slaps upon different parts of his anatomy to kill impertinent mosquitoes, of which there were swarms on the Arinos River. That done, he would assume a suit of working-clothes, and, returning to his shed, would pick up his tools and noiselessly depart, so as not to disturb our sleep! At sunset, when he returned, he immediately proceeded to the river to have another swim and to get rid of the many insects which always collected upon one's person in going through the forest. Then he put on a clean suit of clothes, and, saluting us from a distance, went to his shed to rest.

I was certain the man was not a Brazilian, but as curiosity is not one of my chief characteristics I took no special notice of him. This brought him round to my tent one evening. The man was a German by birth, of a good family and excellent education. He could speak German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese to perfection, and was well versed in the literature of those languages. He had evidently drifted about for many years in many parts of South America in search of a fortune, in the Argentine, in Uruguay, and had ended by becoming a slave in Brazil. Yes, the poor old man was a voluntary slave. He had borrowed from his employer and was unable to repay. He was therefore a slave in the true sense of the word, as his employer could, according to local custom, sell him to any one he chose.

The Upper Arinos River.

The Arinos River above the Rapids.

I was terribly upset to see a European in such a position, and, what was worse, I was not in a position to help. Nor indeed was help asked for or wanted. The old fellow bore the burden bravely, and said he had never been happier in his life. Supposing he were made to return to his own country—from which he had been absent so many years—he philosophically argued, what could he be, with no money and no friends, but a most unhappy man? All his relatives and friends must have died; the habits he had acquired in the wilds were not suitable for European cities; he was too old to change them. The German was an extraordinarily fine type of a man, honest, straightforward, brave. He spoke in the kindest and fairest way of his master. He had sold himself because of necessity. It was now a matter of honour, and he would remain a slave until it was possible to repay the purchase money—some four hundred pounds sterling, if I remember rightly—which he never expected to be able to repay at all.

The German told me some interesting things about the immediate neighbourhood of the camp. The Indians of the Cayapo tribe, who lived close by, did not interfere with the seringueiros. He had been there several years in succession, and he had never seen an Indian. The seringueiros only went to collect rubber during some three or four months each year, after which time they returned to the distant towns south as far as Cuyabá and Corumbá. At the beginning of the rainy season, when the time came for them to retire, the Indians generally began to remind the seringueiros that it was time to go, by placing obstacles on the estrada, by removing cups or even the collars from the rubber trees. But so far in that region, although footmarks of Indians and other signs of them had been noticed, not one individual had been actually seen. Their voices were frequently heard in the distance singing war songs.

"Hark!" said the German to me, "do you hear them?"

I listened attentively. Far, far down the river a faint chorus of voices could just be heard—intermittent sounds of "huá ... huá ... huá ... huá." In the stillness of the night the sound could be distinguished clearly. It went on until sunrise, when it gradually died out.

There was a big lagoon to the west of Porto Velho, formed by the river at high water. The lagoon dried up during the dry season. It was separated from the river only by a narrow tongue of land, 80 ft. high.

I took careful and repeated observations for latitude, longitude, and altitude, the latter by a boiling-point thermometer, from our point of departure at the headwaters of the Arinos River. The elevation of the river was there 1,200 ft. by aneroid, 1,271 ft. by the hypsometrical apparatus. The latitude was 14° 2′·2 South; the longitude 56° 17′ West of Greenwich.

We were having beautiful, clear skies. Only on July 4th at sunset a solitary streak of mist extended to the summit of the sky.

I had two plans in my mind when I decided to descend the Arinos River. One was to abandon that river at the point where it met the Juruena River and strike across country westward until the Madeira-Mamore Railway was met. The other plan—even more difficult—was to continue down the river as far as its junction with the Tres Barras, from which place I would strike across the virgin forest as far as the Madeira River. I had not the faintest idea how I could realize either plan with the ridiculously meagre resources at my disposal. I had money enough, but unfortunately that was one of the few spots on earth where money was of little use. Again I trusted in Providence to come to our help. Both plans involved thousands of kilometres of navigation of a diabolical river, in an almost uncontrollable canoe, with an insufficient and absolutely incapable crew. Then would come the crossing of the virgin forest on foot, for some hundreds of kilometres—nobody knew how many. The least number of men necessary in order to be able to carry provisions sufficient to execute either plan was thirty. I only had four. Yet I started. The second plan was successfully carried out, but necessarily at the cost almost of all our lives, and with sufferings unimaginable.

CHAPTER II

I had provided the canoe with a number of improvised paddles we had cut ourselves. There were no two of equal size, shape, or weight. We had chopped them with an axe from sections of a tree. They were originally all intended to be the same, but what we intended to have and what we got were two different matters, as the five of us each worked on a separate paddle.

The seringueiros stood on the high bank, waving their arms in the air. One of them blew plaintive sounds on one of the horns used by them for calling their companions while in the forest. Those horns could be heard enormous distances. Filippe the white man, who was not paddling, fired back a salute of ten shots. There was nothing my men loved more than to waste ammunition. Fortunately we had plenty.

The average width of the river was there from 80 to 100 metres, with a fairly swift current. It was lucky that ours was the only boat on that river, for indeed we needed all that breadth of water in our snake-like navigation. I remonstrated with Alcides, who was at the helm, and advised him to keep the nose of the canoe straight ahead, as we were coming to a corrideira or small rapid.

Alcides, who could never be told anything, became enraged at my words of warning, and also at the derision of the other men, as we were drifting side on and he could not straighten her course. Just as we were entering the rapid, in his fury Alcides, in disgust, let go the steering-gear, which he said was useless. We were seized by the current and swung round with some violence, dashing along, scraping the bottom of the canoe on rocks, and bumping now on one side, now on the other, until eventually we were dashed violently over a lot of submerged trees, where the bank had been eroded by the current and there had been a landslide. The canoe nearly capsized, the three dogs and some top baggage being thrown out into the water by the impact. We got stuck so hard among the branches of the trees that we all had to remove our lower garments and get into the water trying to get the canoe off.

My men used pretty language. That small accident was lucky for us. The shouts of my men attracted to the bank a passing man. Half-scared, a wild figure of a mulatto with long, unkempt hair and beard, his body covered by what must have once been a suit of clothes, stood gazing at us, clutching a double-barrelled gun in his hands.

"Is there a revolution in Matto Grosso?" he inquired when I caught sight of him. "Why do you fly the red flag?"

"That is not the flag of revolution, that is the flag of peace. It is the English flag."

"The English flag! The English flag!" he exclaimed, running down the slope of the river bank. "You are English!... Oh, sir, take me with you! I entreat you take me with you! I am an escaped slave.... I owe my master much money.... I can never repay it.... I am a seringueiro. My estrada is some miles down the river. I have been there alone suffering for months. I had no more food, nothing. There is very little fish in the river. The life is too terrible. I can stand it no more. If you do not take me with you I shall kill myself."

I tried to persuade the strange figure to return to his master—the master lived in comfort in the city of Cuyabá. "If you chose to borrow money and sell yourself, it was only right that you should repay your debt." That was the only way I could look at it. But the man would not hear of it. If I did not take him he would kill himself—there, before me, he repeated; that was all.

So difficult a dilemma to solve—at so inconvenient a moment, when we were as busy as busy could be, trying to disentangle the canoe—was rather tiresome. The strange man, having laid his gun upon the ground, helped us with all his might in our work. When the canoe got off, the strange man, gun and all, jumped clumsily into her and nearly capsized her a second time. He implored me with tears in his eyes to take him along. He would work day and night; he would present me with his double-barrelled gun (an old muzzle-loader); he did not want pay—he only wanted to get freed from his master, who, he said, robbed and ill-treated him.

"Do you swear upon all that is most sacred that you have made up your mind not to go back to your master?"

"Yes. If you say 'No' to me, I shall kill myself now."

Benedicto—that was his name—spoke with quiet determination.

"Very good, Benedicto. You can remain. What is more, you shall receive from this moment the same pay as the other men. You can keep your old gun, too."

Benedicto embraced and kissed my hands, then my feet. The poor man's joy was so great that it was really worth living to see that such moments of happiness could be procured in a man's lifetime.

Benedicto was a free man again, and for the first time in his life was earning genuine money! He was handed a paddle, and he paddled away for all he was worth, splashing with water those in front and behind him. He was in a state of great excitement, tears flowing freely down his cheeks and beard, and dripping on to his knees as he sat in the bottom of the canoe. He sobbed to his heart's content, and kept on splashing us all over with his paddle. We were all so touched by that pathetic scene that we preferred getting wet to remonstrating.

Fortunately the river was placid enough under the corrideira. When things had quieted down a little, I taught Benedicto and the others how to paddle properly, and Alcides how to steer straight. I had then five men. That improved matters greatly, as four could paddle while the fifth was steering.

The Arinos River flowed from Porto Velho in a south-westerly, then in a due westerly direction, then north, then again west, from which last point it doubled, as it were, and proceeded east and south-east, returning to within quite a short distance of our original point of departure. We sounded our horn, and immediately heard in reply the horn of the seringueiros at Porto Velho. Judging by the sound, the distance could not have been more than a few hundred metres, although we had travelled some six thousand metres down stream.

The First Rocks in the Arinos River.

Enormous Globular Rocks typical of the Arinos River.

For the first time I noticed swallows flying swiftly over the river, close to the water. Another easy corrideira was encountered. When we had been out several hours my men were already beginning to get into the right way of paddling, and Alcides was commencing to understand the capricious mysteries of the steering-gear.

On account of my men's inexperience—and due credit being given to the current—we went at the rate of 13 kils. an hour. Innumerable were the rubber trees all along the banks. Occasionally small sand beaches were met with. Here and there a fallen giant tree obstructed part of the river. Families of ariranhas (Lutra brasiliensis) played in the water. The pretty little animals—not unlike otters—raised their heads above water, and, hissing loudly, frequently came to attack the canoe. They were extraordinarily brave. They were greatly attracted by the vivid red of the British flag, which in their imagination suggested blood. They became wildly excited when I waved the flag at them, and when I placed it near the water they would charge the canoe—so much so that two or three times my men were able to kill them by striking them on the head with the heavy wooden paddles.

The river was at its lowest when I descended it, which made it all the more difficult for us, as we were treated to innumerable small rapids which would otherwise have been entirely covered over with water. A great island (80 m. long) of pebbles and beautiful crystals was passed in the centre of the stream, which there formed two channels; one entirely blocked by fallen trees and accumulated rolling material, the other, 40 m. wide, very deep and swift.

The banks of the river were about 20 ft. high, generally of red earth, with a stratum of white sand above. The vegetation was luxuriant and extraordinarily tidy along the summit of the banks. The water was quite crystal-like, it was so clear. All the time our nostrils were fully expanded to inhale the delicious scent of the forest, which closely resembled that of jessamine. Masses of violet-coloured convolvuli were festooned from the trees. That was a great treat for me, after the months I had gone through when my entire days were spent eating up dust raised in clouds by the troop of animals marching in front of me.

When you came to survey a river it was really amazing what zigzags water could make in cutting its way through a country. From north-west the Arinos veered south-west, and from south-west to north-east.

By one o'clock we were in a spacious basin, 200 m. in diameter, close to which a small tributary, 2 m. wide, entered the Arinos on the left bank. Farther down on the right bank were neat beaches of white and red sand. We stopped for a few moments at a seringueiro's shed. The poor fellow—a negro—was in a pitiable condition from malarial fever.

Those martyrs of labour were much to be pitied, and also admired. There, hundreds of miles away from everybody, they stayed, abandoned in the forest until the agents of their masters who had dropped them there found it convenient to come and fetch them back again. If they came back at all and never failed, it was not, you can be sure, for the interest they took in human life, but because of the quantity of valuable rubber which they expected would be collected before their return. Those poor creatures had no possible way of escape, except under extraordinary circumstances. They were conveyed to their stations overland by means of pack animals, which at once were sent back and did not return until the end of the collecting season. Even then, if the seringueiro wanted to get away, he was frequently compelled to purchase an animal from his employer at three or four times its actual value—that is to say, perhaps sixty or eighty pounds sterling. So that the more a man worked or earned the more he became indebted to his master.

Like all men who have lived a great deal in exile and solitude, the seringueiros—nearly all blacks or mulattos—were extraordinarily generous. They always wanted to give you all they possessed—which was next to nothing, but meant a fortune to them. They would deprive themselves of anything if they thought they could give the slightest pleasure.

We left the seringueiro. I feared the poor man could not live long in his broken-down condition. He was most grateful for some medicine and provisions I left with him. His farewell to us was in so melancholy a voice, as he tried to lift himself out of an improvised bamboo couch, that for days it rang in my ears, and before my eyes constantly remained his skeleton-like, sunken features as he waved his farewell and fell back exhausted.

Behind a narrow barrier of sand, about 10 ft. high, as we proceeded down stream in a north-westerly direction, was a large lagoon.

The river was really too beautiful for words, the clear green water reflecting with precision in deeper tones the view before us. Only when its course was disturbed and diverted by a sharp rock or by the branches of a fallen and dying tree, the successive angular ridges of the troubled water shone like polished silver in parallel lines from the reflected light of the sun, just like a huge luminous skeleton of a fish.

The trees were truly wonderful along the river—tall and healthy, with dense deep green foliage. But Nature seemed absolutely asleep. Barring the few swallows we had seen soon after our departure, and the ariranhas, we went the whole day without hearing the song of a bird, or the howling of a wild animal. We did hear a noise resembling the bark of a dog—so much did it resemble it that my dogs barked back. But it came not from a dog at all. The peculiar noise was made by a large bird.

A Rocky Barrier in the River.

A Picturesque Double Waterfall on the Arinos River.

After passing a handsome beach of white sand on our left, the river described sharp angles, west, north-west, north-east, then north. There were rapids, fairly strong, although not dangerous in any way. The river was forced through a channel 50 m. wide, in which the current was very strong. To make things worse, a giant tree had fallen and obstructed much of the passage, compelling us to negotiate the rapid in its worst part. A large bay, 180 m. in diameter, opened out below that point. Farther came a perfectly straight stretch of water for 3,000 m. Halfway down that stretch, to the right, we passed the mouth of the Agua Clara, a charming rivulet of crystalline water, 10 m. wide. A conglomerate stratum of alluvial formation, composed of well-rounded pebbles held together by red earth, and crumbling easily under pressure of the fingers, showed through in many places. The beaches of handsome, fine white sand were most interesting.

The forest was getting thin on both sides. In fact, late in the afternoon we had open country on the left bank—only a few trees being visible near the water's edge, and an occasional giant jatobá (Hymencoea Courbaril L.), the latter chiefly on the right bank. The right bank was sparsely wooded, and at one time we had open campos on both sides of us.

A streamlet 3 m. wide entered the Arinos on the left. We got to one point where the river proved treacherous, although apparently almost tranquil on the surface. The Brazilians have an excellent name for such places—rebojo, or a curve formed by sudden deviation of a current. If we had not been careful in going across such places, it would have been easy for the canoe to have been turned over and sucked under.

Patches of thick forest were met on either bank, and in those patches numerous indeed were the rubber trees. In the afternoon we saw chiefly campos and chapada, or thin scrub.

Considering all, we did well—chiefly owing to the strong current—on our first day of navigation. We had gone some 70 kils. when we halted at sunset, at the junction of the very deep streamlet Quarustera with the Arinos. The elevation of our camp, 60 ft. above the river, was 1,200 ft.

The nights were cool enough—minimum 55° Fahr. on the night of June 6th—7th. There was a thick haze over the river in the morning, and as we did not know what we might be coming upon suddenly we did not make a start until 7.15. After crossing a large and shallow bay the stream was forced into a channel 50 m. wide. There was open country—campos—on the right bank. A curious isolated volcanic boulder split in two was then observed in the stream, while the banks were of alluvially deposited conglomerate. From that spot luxuriant forest was on the right bank once more, while open country was on the left. Upon examination I found that the thick forest was merely a band or zone near the water—behind was open country.

Farther, the river went through a neck 40 m. wide where the current was very swift. The banks almost all along were from 10 to 20 ft. high. Slender tucuma or tucuman palms were to be seen, which had stems only 3 to 4 in. in diameter, but were 30 to 40 ft. high, and had a ball-like tuft of leaves at the top. We then came upon open country (chapada) on both sides, and went over small corrideiras, which we got to like, as we travelled along on them at a greater speed than in the still waters, with a minimum of exertion. The river seemed to be getting narrower all the time that day, and, of course, deeper. In many spots it went through a channel not more than 30 m. wide.

We heard—but not for long—the cackling of the jacu (Penelope cristata), a handsome gallinaceous bird. The jacu made most delicious eating. Then that day flocks of small green parrots flew over our heads on several occasions.

Ariranhas gave us once more a good deal of amusement and sport. It was seldom one found such cheeky and inquisitive animals. They would pop their heads out of the water quite close to the canoe and sniff and grind their teeth at us. They had beautiful little heads—something between a cat and a seal—with lovely, but wicked, black eyes of wonderful luminosity. They had a perfect craving for blood. The Brazilians have strange tales about them—not exactly fit for publication.

The sand beaches were not so frequent as we advanced on our journey. We noticed instead extensive beaches of gravel. Another tributary stream, 10 m. wide at its mouth, entered the Arinos from the east. There was heavy forest there with plenty of rubber-trees on the right bank, whereas the country was open on the left bank.

Farther down, the banks became low, so that the slightest rise in the river would inundate the country. The forest was particularly thick, and the rubber trees plentiful, along a stretch of 4,300 m. of river in a perfectly straight line.

The river was getting more and more beautiful at every turn. We emerged into a bay 300 m. in diameter. Great blocks of conglomerate were strewn about. A great spur projected to the centre of the bay. The richness in rubber of that region was amazing. Wonderful giant trees, heavily laden with dark green foliage, were reflected in deeper tones in the water of the river—there almost stagnant because held up by some obstacle lower down. Innumerable festoons of creepers hung down from those trees. The stream was there 80 m. wide, and beautiful that day in great stretches of 4,300 m., 1,400 m., 1,000 m., 3,000 m., 1,500 m., and 1,200 m.—in a perfectly straight line. The forest was occasionally interrupted on one side or the other by great expanses of chapada.

Immense bacabeira palms, 40 to 50 ft. high, were numerous, most graceful to look at, with their ten or eleven huge compound leaves placed like an open fan. Yellow filaments of some length hung in a cluster where the petiole of the leaves met.

We arrived at a pedreria—an accumulation of rocks—extending almost right across the stream, and which was the cause of the placidity of the waters above it. There were two channels—one to bearings magnetic 330°, the other to 360°—on either side of a central island. We followed the first and larger channel. The island, which had a most luxuriant growth of trees upon it, was subdivided into two by a channel 10 m. wide at its south-eastern end.

For purposes of identification I named all the islands we saw. The larger of these two I called Esmeralda Island. In order to establish its exact position I landed and took observations for latitude and longitude. Lat. 13° 15′·6 S.; long. 56° 46′ W.

An Island of the Arinos River.

Vegetation on an Island in the River Arinos.

We were then at an elevation of 1,150 ft. The temperature in the shade was 77° Fahr. and 98° in the sun. Six-tenths of the sky was covered with thick globular clouds, which made the air heavy, although the temperature was not excessively high. It must be remembered that we in the canoe were in the sun all the time and suffered a good deal in the morning and afternoon, when the sun was not high, by the refraction of the sun's rays from the water. The refracted light was so powerful that it interfered a good deal with the navigation. The river looked like a molten surface of boiling silver, which absolutely blinded us at times, and made it impossible to see what was ahead in the water.

Esmeralda Island was formerly joined at its most south-westerly point to the western bank of the river. From that point the river described an arc of a circle as far as bearings magnetic 20° (N.N.E.). We negotiated successfully two small rapids with large volcanic rocks just under the surface of the water. We just escaped going over one of them, which would have certainly capsized the canoe. As it was we merely scraped the side of the canoe against it.

The left bank, which had crumbled down, showed strata of conglomerate and yellow sand, with upper alluvial deposits of a light grey colour.

We were travelling due north in a straight line of 1,800 m. when we came upon the entrance of a lakelet on the west side of an islet. A huge fish—some 5 ft. in length—unaccustomed to the unusual sight of human beings, played about under our canoe for some time, much to the excitement of my men. Birds of superb metallic blue, vivid yellow, and iridescent plumage played about among the trees. On the left bank farther down was a great growth of high bamboos, then again forest with plenty of vigorous rubber trees.

Again small and fairly swift rapids were encountered in a turn of the river from bearings magnetic 70° to 250°. A tributary stream which came from the south entered the Arinos on its left bank. Then we came to another island forming two channels—one (N.W.) 20 m. wide, with some rough-looking rapids; the other channel (N.), larger and shallower, divided in its turn in two by a mound of yellow gravel.

Alcides, who steered, had an idea that in going down rapids you should always send the canoe over places where the water broke and foamed, which meant rocks underneath, and not keep her in the centre of the channel where the water was deeper. This idea was, I think, suggested by his inability to swim, and the hope that if we got wrecked he could touch bottom with his feet, so that his life might be in comparative safety. I tried to argue the point with him, but it was no use. It invariably led to such unpleasantness that once more I decided to trust in Providence, as long as we went forward.

I had just shouted to Alcides to keep in the centre of the channel. Of course he disobeyed. We were caught in the strong current. One moment later there was a violent bump which knocked us all off our seats and sent us sprawling in the bottom of the canoe. We had stuck fast between two rocks. The canoe, being of such great length, vibrated to and fro with the current forcing it at the side. Laden as she was with baggage, in a few moments she became filled with water, and it was only after working hard for the best part of an hour that we were able to extricate ourselves from our position. We had hardly finished baling the water out on resuming our course than, 1,500 m. farther, we came to more rapids, then 700 m. beyond yet other rapids.

The forest was fairly thick all along on both banks, with innumerable healthy rubber trees. Although the forest seemed impenetrable at first sight, I always found that it was easy enough to go through it if one knew how. Quite close to the water naturally the vegetation was somewhat entangled. In many places were extensive patches of bamboos of considerable height; but there is a way of disentangling the most confused growth, if you happen to understand how those plants and liane grow and get twisted. Any one with a keen sense of observation should experience no difficulty whatever in going through the densest forest anywhere in the world—even without using a knife—although, of course, the latter is useful when you wish to keep up a certain speed in your marching.

Eleven kilometres and a half from the last rapids—having travelled north-west, south-west, east, and even due south, so winding was the course of the river—we came to a tributary stream 10 m. wide, on the left side of the Arinos. Eight kilometres farther we passed the inlet—then dry—of a small lagoon fed by the stream. The river banks, where eroded by the water, showed a lower layer of reddish-brown rock with a bright red ferruginous stratum above it. The top layer, 10 ft. thick, seemed formed of lime and alluvial deposits.

We emerged into a large basin 200 m. across, with a charming little island in the centre forming two channels with fairly strong rapids. We followed the channel on the right. At that point the river folded over itself into a great elbow. A cliff, 120 ft. high, towered on one side in brilliant red and yellow. The lower half of the strata was perfectly horizontal; the upper half at an angle of 45° to the lower. The vivid colouring was intensified by contrast with a beautiful beach of immaculate white sand on the left side of the great elbow.

I observed a wonderful double lunar halo on the night of July 7-8, the outer circle in successive tints of most delicate yellow, orange, pale blue and white—the yellow being nearest the centre.

CHAPTER III