The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-06-09

would come out of. He had directed Lieutenant Pyrinez to send the boat up on the chance of meeting us, directing him to go up until he found big af- fluent entering the river and stop there, because he could not tell which one we would be coming down. And Lieutenant Pyrinez went up to about degrees 15 minutes and waited for us. We said goodby to MT. Mueller and his associates here on Feb 27. After exactly sixty days of canoeing work we met Lieutenant Pyrinez.
 On the trip of OUT six members. Mr. Cherr1e. my son, the doctor and Lieu tenant Lira kept diaries day by day About every half degree or degree we took astronomical observations.
 The different portions of the course that we followed varied widely in difa- cufty. For four days we ran, survey Ing for the river very accurately. We ran rather slowly before encounterfnr any rapids. We then struck our first serious rapids. After that, which was n about II degrees 45 minutes soU+h. we spent forty-two days, during which we slept every day at the head or Foot of rapid, and during the forty two days we only covered one deQree Oo&I0eS 40 minutes south We had by that time gone not more than sixth of t1e distance that we expected to 20 and nad used up about three-fourths or Iour-hfths of our food; had been on nalr rations pretty much all the time, eked. out with parrots and monkeys, which we enjoyed there.
 Then during that time we lost of the seven canoes five in the rapids. We built three others and lost one of those.
 Then we came out the last success sion of rapids, having been gone forty- six days. We struck a long stretch of smooth water. The river was very broad and very big in that part, and after two days more we struck the up- permost camp or house of any of the rubber men. We were able to get food-sugarcane sometimes rice or bananas, occasionally a chicken or a duck, not very often. and in the eleven days. if remember rightly, we got eight eggs.
 But sH our df11culties were over. and we made the entire remaining dis tance in fourteen days. We went down to below the junction of the up- per Aripone and the so called Cas- tania, and then in thirty-stx hours on the steamer went down to the mouth of the river, down the Amazon and a little way up the Rio Machado to Ma naos- The serious work was the first "a little less than seven weeks going down through the rapids. After that there was no dIfaculty
 We were fortunate enough on our trips down the river not to lose any of our instruments or any Of the speci- mems or notebooks or anything elsa that was of consequence to the expe- dition, bue we had to cut all our per sonaI belongings down to the bone.
 On the upper course of the river there were Indians. They were afraid of us and somewhat hostile I think their hostility was due only to ttnidity.
 Rondon's Dog Shot by Indians.
 Colonel Rondon was nearly shot. He was out hunting for monkeys, because we were hungry, and he had a dog with him. He heard what he thought was the bowling of spider monkeys. The dog went ahead, and he followed It proved to be a couple of Indians, who were initiating the calling of the spider monkeys, probably to attract ; him. The first thing he knew about was hearing the dog yell, then coming toward him. then yelling again and then silence, and he was sure-and 1t afterward proved he was right that it had been killed by Indians. He fired his revolver in the air, and the Indians ran. We afterward went out ourselves and found the dead body Of the dog with two arrows throughsft.
 The camarades, the men who were with us, normally went barefooted- At one place where we stopped to build the canoes the borcchuda flies were such torment that the feet of the men swelled until they were un- able to work They had to wrap them in gunnysacks and everything of that kind in order to go on with their work eT
 The expedition was not undertaken sn pursuance of any plan or idea form ed here in this country. It was under taken at the suggestion of Lauro Null fer on behalf of the Brazilian govern ment in Rio. I feel very grateful to him, to the Brazilian government and to my Brazilian associates for having given me the chance to take part in exploring the upper course of and put ting on the map an unknown river of the size of the Rhine or the Elbe, a chance that from now on, in the pres ent state of the worlds geography, can come to only limited number of men