GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION

Our adventures and our troubles were alike over. We now experienced
the incalculable contrast between descending a known and travelled
river, and one that is utterly unknown. After four days we hired a
rubberman to go with us as guide. We knew exactly what channels were
passable when we came to the rapids, when the canoes had to unload,
and where the carry-trails were. It was all child's play compared to
what we had gone through. We made long days' journeys, for at night we
stopped at some palm-thatched house, inhabited or abandoned, and
therefore the men were spared the labor of making camp; and we bought
ample food for them, so there was no further need of fishing and
chopping down palms for the palmtops. The heat of the sun was blazing;
but it looked as if we had come back into the rainy season, for there
were many heavy rains, usually in the afternoon, but sometimes in the
morning or at night. The mosquitoes were sometimes rather troublesome
at night. In the daytime the piums swarmed, and often bothered us even
when we were in midstream.

For four days there were no rapids we could not run without unloading.
Then, on the 19th, we got a canoe from Senhor Barboso. He was a most
kind and hospitable man, who also gave us a duck and a chicken and
some mandioc and six pounds of rice, and would take no payment; he
lived in a roomy house with his dusky, cigar-smoking wife and his many
children. The new canoe was light and roomy, and we were able to rig
up a low shelter under which I could lie; I was still sick. At noon we
passed the mouth of a big river, the Rio Branco, coming in from the
left; this was about in latitude 9 degrees 38 minutes. Soon afterward
we came to the first serious rapids, the Panela. We carried the boats
past, ran down the empty canoes, and camped at the foot in a roomy
house. The doctor bought a handsome trumpeter bird, very friendly and
confiding, which was thenceforth my canoe companion.

We had already passed many inhabited--and a still larger number of
uninhabited--houses. The dwellers were rubbermen, but generally they
were permanent settlers also, homemakers, with their wives and
children. Some, both of the men and women, were apparently of pure
negro blood, or of pure Indian or south European blood; but in the
great majority all three strains were mixed in varying degrees. They
were most friendly, courteous, and hospitable. Often they refused
payment