e wind
rarely moved the hot, humid air. There were few flowers or birds.
Insects were altogether too abundant, and even when travelling slowly
it was impossible always to avoid them--not to speak of our constant
companions the bees, mosquitoes, and especially the boroshudas or
bloodsucking flies. Now while bursting through a tangle I disturbed a
nest of wasps, whose resentment was active; now I heedlessly stepped
among the outliers of a small party of the carnivorous foraging ants;
now, grasping a branch as I stumbled, I shook down a shower of fire-
ants; and among all these my attention was particularly arrested by
the bite of one of the giant ants, which stung like a hornet, so that
I felt it for three hours. The camarades generally went barefoot or
only wore sandals; and their ankles and feet were swollen and inflamed
from the bites of the boroshudas and ants, some being actually
incapacitated from work. All of us suffered more or less, our faces
and hands swelling slightly from the boroshuda bites; and in spite of
our clothes we were bitten all over our bodies, chiefly by ants and
the small forest ticks. Because of the rain and the heat our clothes
were usually wet when we took them off at night, and just as wet when
we put them on again in the morning.

All day on the 13th the men worked at the canoe, making good progress.
In rolling and shifting the huge, heavy tree-trunk every one had to
assist now and then. The work continued until ten in the evening, as
the weather was clear. After nightfall some of the men held candles
and the others plied axe or adze, standing within or beside the great,
half-hollowed logs, while the flicker of the lights showed the tropic
forest rising in the darkness round about. The night air was hot and
still and heavy with moisture. The men were stripped to the waist.
Olive and copper and ebony, their skins glistened as if oiled, and
rippled with the ceaseless play of the thews beneath.

On the morning of the 14th the work was resumed in a torrential tropic
downpour. The canoe was finished, dragged down to the water, and
launched soon after midday, and another hour or so saw us under way.
The descent was marked, and the swollen river raced along. Several
times we passed great whirlpools, sometimes shifting, sometimes
steady. Half a dozen times we ran over rapids, and, although they were
not high enough to have been obstacles to loaded Canadian canoes, two
of them were serious to us. Ou