The 7th, 8th, and 9th we spent in carrying the loads and dragging and floating the dugouts past the series of rapids at whose head we had stopped.

The first day we shifted camp a kilometre and a half to the foot of this series of rapids.  This was a charming and picturesque camp.  It was at the edge of the river, where there was a little, shallow bay with a beach of firm sand.  In the water, at the middle point of the beach, stood a group of three burity palms, their great trunks rising like columns.  Round the clearing in which our tents stood were several very big trees; two of them were rubber-trees.  Kermit went down-stream five or six kilometres, and returned, having shot a jacu and found that at the point which he had reached there was another rapids, almost a fall, which would necessitate our again dragging the canoes over a portage.  Antonio, the Parecis, shot a big monkey; of this I was glad because portaging is hard work, and the men appreciated the meat.  So far Cherrie had collected sixty birds on the Duvida, all of them new to the collection, and some probably new to science.  We saw the fresh sign of paca, agouti, and the small peccary, and Kermit with the dogs roused a tapir, which crossed the river right through the rapids; but no one got a shot at it.

Except at one or perhaps two points a very big dugout, lightly loaded, could probably run all these rapids.  But even in such a canoe it would be silly to make the attempt on an exploring expedition, where the loss of a canoe or of its contents means disaster; and moreover such a canoe could not be taken, for it would be impossible to drag it over the portages on the occasions when the portages became inevitable.  Our canoes would not have lived half a minute in the wild water.

On the second day the canoes and loads were brought down to the foot of the first rapids.  Lyra cleared the path and laid the logs for rollers, while Kermit dragged the dugouts up the bank from the water with block and tackle, with strain of rope and muscle.  Then they joined forces, as over the uneven ground it needed the united strength of all their men to get the heavy dugouts along.  Meanwhile the colonel with one attendant measured the distance, and then went on a long hunt, but saw no game.  I strolled down beside the river for a couple of miles, but also saw nothing.  In the dense tropical forest of the Amazonian basin hunting is very difficult, especially for men who are trying to pass through the country as rapidly as possible.  On such a trip as ours getting game is largely a matter of chance.

On the following day Lyra and Kermit brought down the canoes and loads, with hard labor, to the little beach by the three palms where our tents were pitched.  Many pacovas grew round about.  The men used their immense leaves, some of which were twelve feet long and two and a half feet broad, to roof the flimsy shelters under which they hung their hammocks.  I went into the woods, but in the tangle of vegetation