dragging
the canoes through unmade channels. Indeed, nearly all of these first
four miles demanded frequent leaps from the boats to direct their swift
and crooked course, until we came to a stretch of savanna country,
through which the river washes its way in serpentine windings for nine
miles with a gentle current from thirty to sixty feet wide, bordered by
high grass, bearing the appearance and having the even depth of a
canal. An easy, monotonous paddle through these broad meadows brought
us to the head of the first rapids, the scene of our two days' upward
struggle. These rapids extend about twelve miles as the river runs,
alternating between rattling, rocky plunges and swift, smooth water,
for the most part through a densely-wooded ravine cleft through low but
abrupt hills, and as lonely and cheerless as the heart of Africa. The
solitude is of that sort which takes hold upon the very soul and weaves
about it hues of the sombrest cast. From our parting with the Indians
on first reaching the river we had neither seen nor heard a human
being, nor were there save here and there remote traces of man's hand.
No men dwell there: nothing invites men there. A few birds and fewer
animals hold absolute dominion. Wandering there, one's senses become
intensely alert. But for the hoot of the owl, the caw of the crow, the
scream of the eagle, the infrequent twitter of small birds, the mighty
but subdued roar of insects, the rush of water over the rocks and the
sigh and sough of the wind among the pines, the lonely wanderer has no
sign of aught but the rank and dank vegetation and a gloomy, oppressive
plodding on and on, without an instant's relief in the sights and
sounds of human life. We entered upon the descent of the rapids in no
very cheerful mood.

The downward way was easier, and we had cleared away, in the upward
struggle, such obstructions as were within our control. Still, we
travelled slowly and wearily, and came out of our first day's homeward
work wet and worn into a camp in the high grass a good twenty miles
from the start of the morning. We drew the canoes from the water, made
our beds of blankets inside, lashed our paddles to the masts for
ridge-poles, thatched our little cabins with our rubber blankets, hung
our mosquito-bars beneath, then cooked and ate under the flare of our
camp-fire, and sought our canoe-beds for that sweet sleep which comes
of weariness of body, but not of mind, under the bright stars and