uld not do when they wished!

Those forty hours of steady hard work out of the forty-eight hours we had
stopped at the falls had seen us over that obstacle, and we were now
ready to proceed once more by water.

We had suffered a great deal during those terrible hours from the bees,
mosquitoes, hornets, _piums_, ants, and all kinds of other insects which
stung us all over. A glance at the photographs which illustrate this
volume, of the canoe being taken across the forest, will show all my
men--I, naturally, not appearing, as I was taking the photographs--with
their heads wrapped up in towels, notwithstanding the great heat, in
order to avoid the unbearable torture as much as possible.

The minimum temperature during the night of August 3rd had been 61 deg. F.;
during the night of August 4th 72 deg. F. During the day the temperature was
88 deg. F. in the shade, but the air was quite stifling, as the sky was
overcast with heavy clouds.

I took careful observations for latitude and longitude in order to fix
exactly the position of the great falls. The latitude was 8 deg. 51'.1 S.;
the longitude 58 deg. 50' W.

The whirlpool and eddies which extended for 1,000 m. below the great fall
were formidable. Never in my life have I seen waters so diabolical. They
filled one absolutely with terror as one looked at them.

The river flowed there to bearings magnetic 120 deg.; then to 140 deg. b.m. for
3,000 m., where it was comparatively smooth. To the south-east of us was
a hill range fully 600 ft. high. What appeared to me to be a small
tributary seemed to enter the river on the left, but my men were so tired
that I did not cross over to the other side in order to make certain. On
looking behind us I could see that the hill range at the fall extended
from north-west to south-east, while another smaller hill range, only 250
ft. above the level of the river, stretched from north to south on the
left of the stream. The river was 300 m. wide.

We went no more than 9,200 m. that day.

CHAPTER XIII

A Double Whirlpool--Incessant Rapids of Great Magnitude--A
Dangerous Channel--Nothing to Eat--Another Disaster

WE had halted on a lovely island--Adelaide Island--with a rocky and sandy
extension. The night of August 5th had been stifling, with a minimum
temperature of 72 deg. F.

I found my work too much for me now. There was too much to observe on all
sides. We were travelling quickly with the swift current. A h