At the telegraph office we received news that the voyage of Lauriado and Fiala down the Papagaio had opened with a misadventure.  In some bad rapids, not many miles below the falls, two of the canoes had been upset, half of their provisions and all of Fiala’s baggage lost, and Fiala himself nearly drowned.  The Papagaio is known both at the source and the mouth; to descend it did not represent a plunge into the unknown, as in the case of the Duvida or the Ananas; but the actual water work, over the part that was unexplored, offered the same possibilities of mischance and disaster.  It is a hazardous thing to descend a swift, unknown river rushing through an uninhabited wilderness.  To descend or ascend the ordinary great highway rivers of South America, such as the Amazon, Paraguay, Tapajos, and, in its lower course, the Orinoco, is now so safe and easy, whether by steam-boat or big, native cargo-boat, that people are apt to forget the very serious difficulties offered by the streams, often themselves great rivers, which run into or form the upper courses of these same water highways.  Few things are easier than the former feat, and few more difficult than the latter; and experience in ordinary travelling on the lower courses of the rivers is of no benefit whatever in enabling a man to form a judgement as to what can be done, and how to do it, on the upper courses.  Failure to remember this fact is one of the obstacles in the way of securing a proper appreciation of the needs and the results, of South American exploration.

At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras, very friendly and sociable, and very glad to see Colonel Rondon.  They were originally exceedingly hostile and suspicious, but the colonel’s unwearied thoughtfulness and good temper, joined with his indomitable resolution, enabled him to avoid war and to secure their friendship and even their aid.  He never killed one.  Many of them are known to him personally.  He is on remarkably good terms with them, and they are very fond of him—­although this does not prevent them from now and then yielding to temptation, even at his expense, and stealing a dog or something else which strikes them as offering an irresistible attraction.  They cannot be employed at steady work; but they do occasional odd jobs, and are excellent at hunting up strayed mules or oxen; and a few of the men have begun to wear clothes, purely for ornament.  Their confidence and bold friendliness showed how well they had been treated.  Probably half of our visitors were men; several were small boys; one was a woman with a baby; the others were young married women and girls.