Leading the Empty Canoe down a Dangerous Channel.
(Photographed a few seconds before the rope snapped and canoe escaped.)
"I prefer to die," said he, and proceeded to moan and groan, and also to dictate the name and address of his sweetheart in Araguary for me to pay to her the money which belonged to him.
In a way I was sorry to see my men suffering so much. I was already thinking of how I could get out of that difficult dilemma. If they had all died it would have been out of the question for me to work the huge canoe alone going down such dangerous rapids.
Some four hours were spent in deepest reflection, a little distance off from my men. I had done my best, and I could do no more for them. I returned every little while to see how they were progressing, but for the first three hours they were in so pitiful a condition that I really thought they could not possibly recover.
When Alcides was almost unconscious I applied to him also the remedy I had used for the other men.
It was only after some five hours or so that Filippe the negro began to feel a little better. Gradually one after another the men, half-dazed, were able to get up, swaying about as if badly intoxicated. They said they saw all the things in front of them moving up and down. Evidently the poison had affected their vision and also their hearing, as they said they could only hear me faintly when I spoke to them.
Late in the evening I persuaded them to get once more into the canoe, as it was not possible to camp on those rocks. We floated down—fortunately for us the river was placid for some 15 kil., and we let the current do most of the work—I steering while all my men lay flat in the bottom of the canoe. We passed along two or three beautiful islands with quantities of rubber upon them.