table tiny red cherries. We wasted a good deal of time picking
up the fruit instead of marching, my men complaining all day long of an
empty stomach. They would not take my advice to march quickly, so that we
might then get plenty of food on the river. During the last few days, as
I knew we must have been near the camp where I had left my men in charge
of my baggage, we had constantly been firing sets of three shots--the
agreed signal--in order to locate the exact spot where they were. But we
had received no answer. Failing that, it was impossible to locate them
exactly in the virgin forest, unless we had plenty of time and strength
at our disposal.

I made sure, by the appearance of the forest, that we were now not far
off from the stream. In fact, on October 5th, when we had marched some
distance, much to my delight as I walked ahead of my men, who were busy
picking up berries as they struggled along, I recognized a little
streamlet on which I had made my camp the first night I had started out
on our disastrous journey across the forest.

My men, when I mentioned the fact, were sceptical and said it could not
possibly be, as we must still be a long distance from the Tapajoz. But we
had only gone a few hundred metres farther when I came upon my old camp.
There an empty sardine-tin of a special mark which I carried was lying on
the ground.

I think that that spoke pretty well for the accuracy with which I could
march across the forest by compass. I knew that at that spot we were only
6 kil. from the river. We indulged there in the last tin of the sweet
_guyabada_, which I had kept for an emergency. After that we
metaphorically flew through the forest, so fast did we march--if
stumbling along constantly and even occasionally falling can be called
flying. Even at that last moment, when our hearts were rejoiced, our
progress was impeded by a thunderstorm, which broke out with such force
that we had to halt for nearly two hours until it slightly abated. The
wind howled among the trees, which shook and waved to and fro, some
crashing down, so that, with the thunder and lightning and the rush of
the water, it seemed a regular pandemonium.

"The devil is angry with us," said Benedicto the philosopher. "He does
not want us to get back."

My impatience to get quickly to the river was so great that I could not
wait for the storm to be over. In the drenching rain we continued our
tramp. My sandals had given way altogether in