n it Pyrineus started down-stream
with the eleven fever patients and the starving wanderer. Colonel
Rondon kept up the morale of his men by still carrying out the forms
of military discipline. The ragged bugler had his bugle. Lieutenant
Pyrineus had lost every particle of his clothing except a hat and a
pair of drawers. The half-naked lieutenant drew up his eleven fever
patients in line; the bugle sounded; every one came to attention; and
the haggard colonel read out the orders of the day. Then the dugout
with its load of sick men started down-stream, and Rondon, Lyra,
Amarante, and the twelve remaining men resumed their weary march. When
a fortnight later they finally struck a camp of rubber-gatherers three
of the men were literally and entirely naked. Meanwhile Amilcar had
ascended the Jacyparana a month or two previously with provisions to
meet them; for at that time the maps incorrectly treated this river as
larger, instead of smaller, than the Gy-Parana, which they were in
fact descending; and Colonel Rondon had supposed that they were going
down the former stream. Amilcar returned after himself suffering much
hardship and danger. The different parties finally met at the mouth of
the Gy-Parana, where it enters the Madeira. The lost man whom they had
found seemed on the road to recovery, and they left him at a ranch, on
the Madeira, where he could be cared for; yet after they had left him
they heard that he had died.

On the 12th the men were still hard at work hollowing out the hard
wood of the big tree, with axe and adze, while watch and ward were
kept over them to see that the idlers did not shirk at the expense of
the industrious. Kermit and Lyra again hunted; the former shot a
curassow, which was welcome, as we were endeavoring in all ways to
economize our food supply. We were using the tops of palms also. I
spent the day hunting in the woods, for the most part by the river,
but saw nothing. In the season of the rains game is away from the
river and fish are scarce and turtles absent. Yet it was pleasant to
be in the great silent forest. Here and there grew immense trees, and
on some of them mighty buttresses sprang from the base. The lianas and
vines were of every size and shape. Some were twisted and some were
not. Some came down straight and slender from branches a hundred feet
above. Others curved like long serpents around the trunks. Others were
like knotted cables. In the shadow there was little noise. Th