at the intelligence and the unwearied efforts of their commanders,
one could but wonder at the ignorance of those who do not realize the
energy and the power that are so often possessed by, and that may be
so readily developed in, the men of the tropics. Another subject of
perpetual wonder is the attitude of certain men who stay at home, and
still more the attitude of certain men who travel under easy
conditions, and who belittle the achievements of the real explorers
of, the real adventures in, the great wilderness. The impostors and
romancers among explorers or would-be explorers and wilderness
wanderers have been unusually prominent in connection with South
America (although the conspicuous ones are not South Americans, by the
way); and these are fit subjects for condemnation and derision. But
the work of the genuine explorer and wilderness wanderer is fraught
with fatigue, hardship, and danger. Many of the men of little
knowledge talk glibly of portaging as if it were simple and easy. A
portage over rough and unknown ground is always a work of difficulty
and of some risk to the canoe; and in the untrodden, or even in the
unfrequented, wilderness risk to the canoe is a serious matter. This
particular portage at Navaite Rapids was far from being unusually
difficult; yet it not only cost two and a half days of severe and
incessant labor, but it cost something in damage to the canoes. One in
particular, the one in which I had been journeying, was split in a
manner which caused us serious uneasiness as to how long, even after
being patched, it would last. Where the canoes were launched, the bank
was sheer, and one of the water-logged canoes filled and went to the
bottom; and there was more work in raising it.

We were still wholly unable to tell where we were going or what lay
ahead of us. Round the camp-fire, after supper, we held endless
discussions and hazarded all kinds of guesses on both subjects. The
river might bend sharply to the west and enter the Gy-Parana high up
or low down, or go north to the Madeira, or bend eastward and enter
the Tapajos, or fall into the Canuma and finally through one of its
mouths enter the Amazon direct. Lyra inclined to the first, and
Colonel Rondon to the second, of these propositions. We did not know
whether we had one hundred or eight hundred kilometres to go, whether
the stream would be fairly smooth or whether we would encounter
waterfalls, or rapids, or even some big marsh or lak