The rapids at the Falls of Macaos we ran and then below there remained but the last. We had expected to portage about the Falls of San Antonio, but as we scanned the distance below, there, against the brilliant green of the forest, was the rusty funnel of the river steamer, with a slender, wispy feather of steam rising beside it. Steam was already up, and how much time had we to portage? If we portaged, it might mean six long weeks of dreary waiting in a frontier village that had none too pleasant a reputation. Should we run the rapids? The pilot shook his head doubtfully, but said he would try. As we paddled along in the swifter current it did not look bad—a few curling waves crested with spray and then long, oily stretches of coiling, boiling water. It seemed possible, and it was worth the chance. We would try, and the pilot swung the canoe for the crested wave and the channel.

We threw off our shoes, unbuckled our belts, and stripped, to be ready to swim in an emergency. We emptied our rifles and revolvers in a fusillade, hoping to attract the steamer’s attention and hold it, but no answering whistle came back. An instant later we struck the long plunge down the glassy slope of water at the entrance to the rapids, and a foaming cataract burst over the bow, drenching us with spray. Then came the slower strain and wrestle with boiling waters that burst upward from below, while the crew paddled like mad, with the pilot braced in his cramped quarters aft and chattering at them for still greater effort. The boiling water threw us broadside on, and the whirlpools caught us in a grip that the frantic paddling could not seem to break. It seemed as though we were standing still in the turmoil, and yet a glance at the rocky, boulder-strewn sides showed that they were shooting past like a train.

Broadside on we darted for a second glassy slope of water, and only in the last moment did the canoe swing round so as to take it bow on, while the wave that broke over us half filled the canoe. Had we been heavily loaded, we would have had our swim. It was the last of the rapids, and a second later we drifted out into the calm current, where before us loomed the high decks of the river steamer. We could have made a portage without risk, and with ample time, for she did not leave until the next day.

With San Antonio village fading behind us in the soft, blue distance of the tropic morning, civilization began slowly to reconstruct itself, though still side by side with the most primitive. Brazilian ladies teetered foolishly over the gangplank that was run out to the mud-bank shore with their high heeled shoes radiant with suggestion of the highly cultured centers of fashion; again I beheld silks and fancy parasols and poudre de riz and heard the frou-frou of real garments, immaculate and bristling with frills. Sallow gentlemen of wealth and haughtiness came aboard with their retinue of family who, in turn, had their retinue of half savage servants, to escort their rubber shipments and sling their hammocks from the stanchions of the cool forward deck along with mine.

All day we broiled sociably together and in the nights—when we anchored in the river—slept softly in the balmy night airs. Together we listened to the Madeira pilots swear as they ran us on a mud-bank and then clattered aft bossing the dumping of the anchor from the steamer’s dinghy in order to warp us off again. In perfect harmony we used the bathroom together and splashed in the overhead shower early in the morning, for later the sun warmed the tank above to a stinging heat, and threaded our way among the score of turtles that were herded there until sacrificed to our appetites. Closer we moved to the equator and hotter blazed the sun. And then, at last, early in the dawn we swung steadily out of the great mouth of the Madeira River and into the greater waters of the Amazon, hugging the shore. The little river steamer breasted the current up to Manaos, while on either side the little dugouts of the Indians dotted the river in the cool morning shooting turtles with a bow and arrow for the market at Manaos. And then in that city, still almost a thousand miles from the Atlantic, there was civilization at last—trolleys, electric lights, little cafés, with their highly colored syrups, a theater and gay shops with all the gimcrack luxuries and necessities, a band and the shimmering, swaying endless parade that encircled it weaving in the dense black shadows and on into the luminous mosaics cast by the arclights in the leaves overhead. Dim, in the background, the chaperons purred together but with an unrelaxed and rigid vigilance. It was civilization—all but the vernacular.

La Paz seemed half the world away, for it had been three months and twenty-one days since I climbed the long trail to the high plateau above that Bolivian capital.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes