numerous examples of exactly the opposite type
of work. From the days of Humboldt and Spix and Martius to the present
time, German explorers have borne a conspicuous part in the
exploration of South America. As representatives of the men and women
who have done such capital work, who have fronted every hazard and
hardship and labored in the scientific spirit, and who have added
greatly to our fund of geographic, biologic, and ethnographic
knowledge, I may mention Miss Snethlage and Herr Karl von den Steinen.

VIII. THE RIVER OF DOUBT

On February 27, 1914, shortly after midday, we started down the River
of Doubt into the unknown. We were quite uncertain whether after a
week we should find ourselves in the Gy-Parana, or after six weeks in
the Madeira, or after three months we knew not where. That was why the
river was rightly christened the Duvida.

We had been camped close to the river, where the trail that follows
the telegraph line crosses it by a rough bridge. As our laden dugouts
swung into the stream, Amilcar and Miller and all the others of the
Gy-Parana party were on the banks and the bridge to wave farewell and
wish us good-by and good luck. It was the height of the rainy season,
and the swollen torrent was swift and brown. Our camp was at about 12
degrees 1 minute latitude south and 60 degrees 15 minutes longitude
west of Greenwich. Our general course was to be northward toward the
equator, by waterway through the vast forest.

We had seven canoes, all of them dugouts. One was small, one was
cranky, and two were old, waterlogged, and leaky. The other three were
good. The two old canoes were lashed together, and the cranky one was
lashed to one of the others. Kermit with two paddlers went in the
smallest of the good canoes; Colonel Rondon and Lyra with three other
paddlers in the next largest; and the doctor, Cherrie, and I in the
largest with three paddlers. The remaining eight camaradas--there were
sixteen in all--were equally divided between our two pairs of lashed
canoes. Although our personal baggage was cut down to the limit
necessary for health and efficiency, yet on such a trip as ours, where
scientific work has to be done and where food for twenty-two men for
an unknown period of time has to be carried, it is impossible not to
take a good deal of stuff; and the seven dugouts were too heavily
laden.

The paddlers were a strapping set. They were expert rivermen and men
of