profession the crossing of the Bar of Frias, where the
current was increased in force by its decrease in depth, had often given
him trouble. The narrowness of the channel and the elevation of the bed
made the passage exceedingly difficult, and many a raft had there come
to grief.

And so Araujo was right in declaring that if the corpse of Torres was
still retained by its weight on the sandy bed of the river, it could
not have been dragged over the bar. It is true that later on, when,
on account of the expansion of the gases, it would again rise to
the surface, the current would bear it away, and it would then be
irrevocably lost down the stream, a long way beyond the obstruction. But
this purely physical effect would not take place for several days.

They could not have applied to a man who was more skillful or more
conversant with the locality than Araujo, and when he affirmed that the
body could not have been borne out of the narrow channel for more than a
mile or so, they were sure to recover it if they thoroughly sounded that
portion of the river.

Not an island, not an islet, checked the course of the Amazon in these
parts. Hence, when the foot of the two banks had been visited up to the
bar, it was in the bed itself, about five hundred feet in width, that
more careful investigations had to be commenced.

The way the work was conducted was this. The boats taking the right and
left of the Amazon lay alongside the banks. The reeds and vegetation
were tried with the poles. Of the smallest ledges in the banks in
which a body could rest, not one escaped the scrutiny of Araujo and his
Indians.

But all this labor produced no result, and half the day had elapsed
without the body being brought to the surface of the stream.

An hour's rest was given to the Indians. During this time they partook
of some refreshment, and then they returned to their task.

Four of the boats, in charge of the pilot, Benito, Fragoso, and Manoel,
divided the river between the Rio Negro and the Bar of Frias into four
portions. They set to work to explore its very bed. In certain places
the poles proved insufficient to thoroughly search among the deeps, and
hence a few dredges--or rather harrows, made of stones and old iron,
bound round with a solid bar--were taken on board, and when the boats
had pushed off these rakes were thrown in and the river bottom stirred
up in every direction.

It was in this difficult task that Benito and his com