I felt myself being lifted off the boat, and as I blindly held on I had time to wonder whether the tree would keep me out of the water, or lower me into the waiting jaws of some late alligator.  But it did better than that for me.  The branches sagged under my weight, and I soon saw that they were going to lower me upon the trailing canoes.  I did not wait to choose any particular canoe, but, as the first one came beneath me, I dropped off, landing directly on top of a sleeping rubber-worker and giving him probably as bad a scare as I had had.  For the remainder of the night I considered the case of cognac, previously referred to, a marvellously comfortable and safe place to stay.

During the next day we made two stops, and at the second took on board eighteen more passengers.  It seemed to me that they would have to sleep in a vertical position, since, as far as I could discover, the places where it could be done horizontally were all occupied.  At five in the afternoon of this day, we arrived at a small rubber estate called Boa Vista, where the owner kept cut palm-wood to be used for the launch, besides bananas, pineapples and a small patch of cocoa-plants.  The firemen of our launch were busily engaged in carrying the wood, when one of them suddenly threw off his load and came running down the bank.  The others scattered like frightened sheep, and only with difficulty could be brought to explain that they had seen a snake of a poisonous variety.  We crept slowly up to the place under the wood-pile which they had pointed out, and there about a foot of the tail of a beautifully decorated snake was projecting.  I jammed my twenty-four-inch machete through it longitudinally, at the same time jumping back, since it was impossible to judge accurately where the head might come from.  It emerged suddenly about where we expected, the thin tongue working in and out with lightning speed and the reptile evidently in a state of great rage, for which I could hardly blame it, as its tail was pinned down and perforated with a machete.  We dispatched it with a blow on the head and on measuring it found the length to be nearly nine feet.  The interrupted loading of wood continued without much additional excitement and we were soon on our way again.

That night I passed very badly.  My female neighbour insisted on using the edge of my hammock for a foot-rest, and, to add to my general discomfort, my hammock persisted in assuming a convex shape rather than a more conventional and convenient concave, which put me in constant danger of being thrown headlong into the river, only a few inches away.  Finally, I took my hammock down from its fastenings and went aft where I found a vacant canoe among those still trailing behind.  I threw my hammock in the bottom and with this for a bed managed to fall asleep, now and then receiving a blow from some unusually low branch which threatened to upset my floating couch.

The next morning it was found that we had lost two canoes, evidently torn loose during the night without anybody noticing the accident.  Luckily, I had not chosen either of these to sleep in, nor had anyone else.  I cannot help thinking what my feelings would have been if I had found myself adrift far behind the launch.