All the
baggage was swamped; only a portion of the canoe aft remained above the
water, many of our things being washed away altogether.

There she stuck, fortunately for us. With considerable danger we managed
to undo the ropes which were fastened to her stern. After several hours
of hard work--and of extreme peril for the men who could not swim, as we
had to work all the time with the water up to our necks in a powerful
current, which made it most difficult to keep our footing--we succeeded
in pulling her off and taking her alongside the bank.

That disaster was rather a serious one for us, as it injured many of my
instruments, particularly the aneroids; but I considered myself fortunate
in managing to save all the photographs and notebooks as well as the
instruments for taking astronomical observations, which were kept in
airtight cases. I lost my favourite pair of shoes, which were by my side
in the canoe when I jumped out.

As it so frequently happened that we had to jump into the water--in fact,
we spent more time in the water than out--I had adopted as a costume my
pyjamas, under which I always wore the belt with the heavy packages of
money. The paper money--a very considerable sum--had with the many baths
become a solid mass. I could not well spread the banknotes out in the
sun to dry, as I did not wish my men to know how much I possessed; so
that for many, many weeks I had around my waist those heavy leather
wallets soaked in water, my natural heat not being quite sufficient to
dry them.

We had worked in the stream until nearly midnight. We had nothing to eat
when we had finished our work, and the result was that the next morning
my men were still tired.

Two of my cameras were by my side when the canoe was swamped, one
containing eighteen plates, the other twelve, all of which had been
exposed. The cameras, being heavy, remained at the bottom of the canoe
and were saved, but the bath did not do them good. I did not want to lose
the plates, so there was only one course to follow, and that was to
develop them while they were still wet. While my men slept I sat up a
good portion of the night developing all those plates--quite successfully
too--and trying to clean and fix up the cameras again for use the next
day. One of my other cameras had been destroyed previously by one of my
men, who sat on it, and of course smashed it to pieces. Another camera,
which was still in excellent condition, having been in an a