Meanwhile Cherrie stayed at the head and I at the foot of the portage as guards.  Luiz and Antonio Correa brought down one canoe safely.  The next was the new canoe, which was very large and heavy, being made of wood that would not float.  In the rapids the rope broke, and the canoe was lost, Luiz being nearly drowned.

It was a very bad thing to lose the canoe, but it was even worse to lose the rope and pulleys.  This meant that it would be physically impossible to hoist big canoes up even small hills or rocky hillocks, such as had been so frequent beside the many rapids we had encountered.  It was not wise to spend the four days necessary to build new canoes where we were, in danger of attack from the Indians.  Moreover, new rapids might be very near, in which case the new canoes would hamper us.  Yet the four remaining canoes would not carry all the loads and all the men, no matter how we cut the loads down; and we intended to cut everything down at once.  We had been gone eighteen days.  We had used over a third of our food.  We had gone only 125 kilometres, and it was probable that we had at least five times, perhaps six or seven times, this distance still to go.  We had taken a fortnight to descend rapids amounting in the aggregate to less than seventy yards of fall; a very few yards of fall makes a dangerous rapid when the river is swollen and swift and there are obstructions.  We had only one aneroid to determine our altitude, and therefore could make merely a loose approximation to it, but we probably had between two and three times this descent in the aggregate of rapids ahead of us.  So far the country had offered little in the way of food except palm-tops.  We had lost four canoes and one man.  We were in the country of wild Indians, who shot well with their bows.  It behooved us to go warily, but also to make all speed possible, if we were to avoid serious trouble.

The best plan seemed to be to march thirteen men down along the bank, while the remaining canoes, lashed two and two, floated down beside them.  If after two or three days we found no bad rapids, and there seemed a reasonable chance of going some distance at decent speed, we could then build the new canoes—­preferably two small ones, this time, instead of one big one.  We left all the baggage we could.  We were already down as far as comfort would permit; but we now struck off much of the comfort.  Cherrie, Kermit, and I had been sleeping under a very light fly; and there was another small light tent for one person, kept for possible emergencies.  The last was given to me for my cot, and all five of the others swung their hammocks under the big fly.  This meant that we left two big and heavy tents behind.  A box of surveying instruments was also abandoned.  Each of us got his personal belongings down to one box or duffel-bag—­although there was only a small diminution thus made; because we had so little that the only way to make a serious diminution was to restrict ourselves to the clothes on our backs.