between them. It was late when we made our camp on the edge of the Pine Ridge, a few hundred yards from the stream, and a party of men was at once sent off to cut a path down to the water and bring back a supply for the night. As the men left the thicket on their return to camp, one of them, wearied with the work of cutting his way through the camalote which grew thick by the river's edge, threw his lighted torch into the reeds and within a few moments the thicket was a mass of crackling flames. Luckily for us the wind was in our favour and the fire was carried swiftly along the river-bank to the westward. I turned into my cot and slept soundly until about 4 a.m., when I woke to find that the wind had changed and that the fire was rapidly coming down upon us. The camalote immediately to windward of us had already been burnt up, but the thin wiry grass which covered the Pine Ridge and grew to the height of one's knees was as dry as tinder, and we could see in the distance some of the pine-trees catching fire and blazing up as the long line of flames swept past them. We were soon all of us at work firing the grass just around the camp and beating it out again with green boughs torn from the trees, until we had burnt a broad band round the camp, so that no fire could reach us. It was a hot job and we all worked like niggers, and must have looked nearly as black, from the smoke and ashes, before we felt at all secure. Then as the burning edge of the grass was lost to sight in a dip of the ground, and as the dawn had not yet come, I turned into my cot again and woke later to find the sun shining and to hear that the wind had again shifted just before the fire reached us, so that the long line of flame was being carried away to the north.
During the next few days we passed the time in a way that a school-boy fresh from Robinson Crusoe would have considered almost perfect, for we attempted to make a raft and float our baggage down the stream, whilst the mozos unencumbered with loads should cut their way through the thickets that lined the banks. However, it was not a success, as the following extracts from my scrappy journal will show:—"29th April. The Pine Ridge is still burning to the N.E. of us. Have seen many tracks of tapir and deer, but cannot catch sight of the animals themselves. Started with the raft in the afternoon. Hard work hauling it over a shallow rapid before putting the luggage on board. Rapids rather close together. At the last rapid the raft caught on a snag and the food-box went overboard: recovered with difficulty biscuits all sodden.—30th April. Lashed more cross pieces to the raft, and then gave each mozo a small load to carry so as to lighten the cargo, but after a hard day's work only succeeded in rafting about a mile and a half, and had to unload the raft once in that short distance. Very hard work in the shallow rapids: determined to abandon the raft. Shot many large
