All these disasters following one another within a few hours were rather trying to us, the loss of the provisions particularly giving me a great shock, as I realized now that we had practically nothing else left to eat except what we could find by shooting or fishing.
When the canoe had been made lighter we succeeded by constantly jerking her in moving her slightly, and eventually, at two o'clock in the morning—the accident having occurred at half-past four in the afternoon—we were able to release her and bring her to safety along the bank.
A great hole had been opened in the side of the canoe where she had struck the rock, and we had to beach her in order to keep her afloat till the morning. Then came the heavy task of taking all the baggage from the rocks in the centre of the stream along the great barrier of sharp cutting stones as far as the bank.
The Salto Augusto from Above.
We were prostrate with fatigue when we had accomplished all the work. I lay down on the ground to rest; my men fortunately had saved their hammocks, as they were the first things they always took care to save whenever there was a calamity. Not once during the whole journey did my men offer me one of their hammocks when they saw me sleeping with great discomfort on packing-cases or on the ground. Certainly I was too proud to ask them for any favour.
I had hardly gone to sleep when I thought I heard a curious noise by my side, as of something dragging along the ground. I immediately jumped up, and saw a huge snake some 20 ft. long inquisitively looking at me, only half a metre away. I do not know which of us two was more surprised. The snake with sinuous grace moved away from me with gradually accelerated speed, and, passing right under the hammocks of my men, disappeared in the forest behind.
Taking all things into consideration, that was a night worth remembering. What was worst of all was the fact that, with the excitement and the fatigue, I had forgotten to wind the chronometer at the usual hour of seven o'clock in the evening, and when I woke up startled in the morning, remembering the fact, I found the chronometer had stopped altogether. That was the greatest blow of all, after all the trouble I had taken to keep the Greenwich mean time for my observations of longitude. The mishap was not irreparable, as I got the time fairly accurately by using the previous observations at local noon and working out the difference with Greenwich mean time.
So many had been the obstacles we had found that day that, before reaching the rapid where we had the disaster, we had made a progress of 39 kil. 500 m.—poor work indeed as compared to the wonderful distances we had been able to cover on the first days of our navigation of the Arinos River. Considering all, however, it was really marvellous that we could cover even that distance, short as it was.