e. We could not
tell whether or not we would meet hostile Indians, although no one of
us ever went ten yards from camp without his rifle. We had no idea how
much time the trip would take. We had entered a land of unknown
possibilities.

We started down-stream again early in the afternoon of March 5. Our
hands and faces were swollen from the bites and stings of the insect
pests at the sand-flat camp, and it was a pleasure once more to be in
the middle of the river, where they did not come, in any numbers,
while we were in motion. The current was swift, but the river was so
deep that there were no serious obstructions. Twice we went down over
slight riffles, which in the dry season were doubtless rapids; and
once we struck a spot where many whirlpools marked the presence
underneath of boulders which would have been above water had not the
river been so swollen by the rains. The distance we covered in a day
going down-stream would have taken us a week if we had been going up.
The course wound hither and thither, sometimes in sigmoid curves; but
the general direction was east of north. As usual, it was very
beautiful; and we never could tell what might appear around any curve.
In the forest that rose on either hand were tall rubber-trees. The
surveying canoes, as usual, went first, while I shepherded the two
pairs of lashed cargo canoes. I kept them always between me and the
surveying canoes--ahead of me until I passed the surveying canoes,
then behind me until, after an hour or so, I had chosen a place to
camp. There was so much overflowed ground that it took us some little
time this afternoon before we found a flat place high enough to be
dry. Just before reaching camp Cherrie shot a jacu, a handsome bird
somewhat akin to, but much smaller than, a turkey; after Cherrie had
taken its skin, its body made an excellent canja. We saw parties of
monkeys; and the false bellbirds uttered their ringing whistles in
the dense timber around our tents. The giant ants, an inch and a
quarter long, were rather too plentiful around this camp; one stung
Kermit; it was almost like the sting of a small scorpion, and pained
severely for a couple of hours. This half-day we made twelve
kilometres.

On the following day we made nineteen kilometres, the river twisting
in every direction, but in its general course running a little west of
north. Once we stopped at a bee-tree, to get honey. The tree was a
towering giant, of the kind called milk-