Part 49 (1/2)
It was with some relief that we were able to extricate ourselves, and eventually reached the outer edge of the whirlpool, where the water changed direction, and the canoe was swung violently, entering a patch of comparatively placid water. Paddling with our hands we slowly reached the bank, and nearly an hour later--it having taken us all that time to go about 150 m.--we baled the water out of the canoe and proceeded to examine the amount of our loss.
Nearly all the cooking utensils, as I have said, had disappeared; two boxes of tinned provisions had gone overboard and were lost for ever; a bag of flour and a bag of rice had vanished in those terrible waters; a package containing a great part of my clothes had also gone for ever, as well as some of the clothing of my men. What was worse than all for me, my camp-bed and all my bedding were lost, which would compel me in the future to sleep either on the ground--which was practically impossible in that region owing to the number of ants and other insects--or else do as I did, sleep on four wooden packing-boxes, which I placed in a line. They made a most uneven and hard bed, as I had, of course, no mattress and no covering of any kind. A despatch-box, with some money, a lot of important official letters and other doc.u.ments, were lost, and also my mercurial artificial horizon and one of my chronometers. A number of other things of less importance were also gone and quite beyond recovery.
We worked hard all that afternoon and the greater part of the night in shaping new paddles out of trees we had cut down with the axes, which were fortunately not lost. The new paddles were even more primitive and clumsy than those we had before.
We dried what remained of our baggage in the sun during the afternoon.
The beautiful sandy beach on which we had landed looked very gay with all the articles I had spread out from some of my trunks, including a dress-suit which I hung on a young palm, and other such articles, which looked rather incongruous in that particular region. All the white linen clothes I possessed had gone, and there only remained some good serge clothes which I had kept for my arrival in civilized places again. My water-tight boxes had been knocked about so much that they had got injured and let in a good deal of moisture.
One of my valuable cameras was badly damaged in the accident, and one of my s.e.xtants was soaked to such an extent that it took me the best part of two hours to clean it all up again. I saved the negatives which were in the damaged camera by developing them at once during the night while they were still wet.
My men were greatly excited over the accident, especially the two who had fallen into the water. In a way I was glad it had happened, as I was in hopes it might be a good lesson to them and they might be a little more careful in the future. Had Alcides obeyed my orders we should have gone through safely. I pointed that out to him, but it was no use; even then he maintained that in order to be safe you must steer right into the whirlpool and not out of it--which really made me begin to feel rather nervous, as I fully expected, as we went along, to find worse rapids than those we had negotiated so far, since we still had to get down from 1,000 ft. or so to the sea level.
We halted for the remainder of the day. I spent a miserable night sleeping on the packing-boxes, now that my bed had gone for ever. I did not deserve that bit of ill-luck, for indeed my camp-bed was the only thing I possessed which gave me a little comfort. After working hard all day and the greater part of the night, a few hours spent lying down flat on the stretched canvas of the bed were most enjoyable; although never, throughout the entire journey, was I able to sleep soundly, as I always had to be on the alert, never knowing what might happen.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Cataract in the River Arinos.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Author's Canoe among Great Volcanic Rocks.]
The night of July 22nd was fairly cool, the minimum temperature being 58 F. When we proceeded on our journey in the morning we pa.s.sed an island 1,500 m. long--Arabella Island. The river was now flowing due west. Again we came upon rocks in the centre and upon the right side of the river, with a strong _corrideira_ and with dangerous submerged rocks close to the surface. There was an islet 150 m. long on the right side in a basin 500 m. broad. A hill 100 ft. high stood on the left side of the stream, while a hill range 300 ft. high was now visible to the W.N.W.
We had little time to admire the beautiful scenery, for we soon found ourselves upon another great barrier with a terrible-looking rapid. I asked my men if they preferred to shoot it, as the exertion of loading and unloading the canoe was certainly heavy.
”No, no, no, no!” they all cried in a chorus.
We therefore unloaded the canoe, and with considerable trouble and waste of time we led her down the rapid by means of ropes. Even led in that fas.h.i.+on with the greatest care, the canoe was entirely filled with water.
Islets of rock of considerable beauty rose from the river on the right-hand side. As we got a little way farther, slightly more to the north-west, another hill range, perhaps a little higher than the one we had already observed, began to disclose itself to the north-west, on the right side of the river. As we advanced I further ascertained that the first range extended in a general direction from south-west to north-east. The river had actually eroded its way through this range.
Strong rapids were again met with at that point, the channel being strewn with innumerable sharp-edged rocks, most unpleasant if you were to come in contact with them.
A small islet with a picturesque spur of rock on the north side was here seen; then a larger island, 300 m. long--Evelina Island--also on the left side. The river flowed for 3,000 m. in a N.N.W. direction, and at the end of that distance a rectangular island, 200 m. long and 80 m. wide--Eileen Island--embellished it. Like most of the islands in that particular portion of the river it had a beautiful spur of rock on its eastern side, preceded by a little islet also of rock. We pa.s.sed to the left of this island. It was separated by a channel 80 m. wide from another narrow island, 200 m. to the west of it--Diana Island.
Just before getting to a third range extending from south-west to north-east, and, like the other two, about 300 ft. high, we came upon a long barrier of rock spreading diagonally for about 1,000 m. from south-west to north-east. A long narrow island (200 m. long)--Bertha Island--began from that point close to the right bank, and another had been separated by the water from the bank itself. A tributary 2 m. wide was observed on the left side. We kept close to the left bank and pa.s.sed on our right an island 300 m. long--Sophia Island.
So numerous were the islands following one another that I was beginning to have great difficulty in supplying sufficient names for them all.
More rapids were reached, and were of terrific force--especially in the centre of the river. It took me some little time to find a suitable pa.s.sage, but at last I found a channel 25 m. wide through which I got the canoe among innumerable rocks. We went over a great _filare_--by which word the Italians cleverly define an extensive alignment in the stratum--of rock of extreme hardness which had evidently been fractured in some violent commotion of the earth, and had left sharp edges which cut just like knives close to the surface of the water. This rocky obstacle extended as usual from south-east to north-west.
A tiny streamlet entered the river on the left not far from the hill range on that same side. The trees in that particular region had a most peculiar appearance: their high, perfectly straight stems, quite free from branches or leaves up to their very summit, looked like so many columns, mostly of a whitish colour. Many, however, were encircled, others absolutely smothered with creepers. The scenery was really beautiful; it was like travelling through fairyland.
In the centre of the basin 400 m. wide to which we next came was an island, 80 m. in diameter--Gingillo Island--and to the south-west of it a small islet with an extensive beach and acc.u.mulation of rocks in a northerly direction. On the southern side of the river a sand beach, interspersed with rocks, spread almost across, as far as the latter island.
I took 55 astronomical sights in order to get the exact lat.i.tude and longitude (lat. 10 30'7 S.; long. 58 19' W.), and to check the time of the second chronometer, which still remained in my possession. We had made poor progress that day as far as the distance went--only 17 kil. 100 m.
We had come to some nasty rapids, which at first looked quite impa.s.sable by water, some of the waves shooting up so high in the air as to make it out of the question for any canoe to go through.
There was another extensive _filare_ of rock, so beautifully polished that it looked almost as if it had been varnished over. It was evidently an ancient flow of lava, with great holes in it here and there. The flow spread from south-west to north-east, was of a brilliant s.h.i.+ning yellow, and most beautiful to look at.
I had to make my camp on the rocks near this rapid, where we unloaded the canoe in order to take her down by means of ropes by the eastern channel--very narrow and very unpleasant, but it was the only one possible. It was all we could do to hold the canoe as she tobogganed down the incline, and we had some nasty falls on the slippery rock trying to hold her.
We had a dangerous bit of work to do the moment we had descended the rapid, for we had then to navigate the canoe right across the basin, where whirlpools of some magnitude were formed, directly over a waterfall of some height and pouring down great volumes of water with a terrific roar on the north-east side of the basin; then along the really terrifying rapid on the south-west side. It was necessary to do that, as I had observed that it was only on the opposite side of the river that we could possibly take the canoe down, and no other course was open to us than to go across that dangerous spot.