more seriously of the Englishman's letter, but I told him that I had
fully made up my mind to penetrate the mystery of those little known
regions. I use the term "little known" in the sense that while they
are well enough known to the handful of Indians and rubber-workers
yet they are "terra incognita" to the outside world. The white man
has not as yet traversed this Itecoahy and its affluents, although
it would be a system of no little importance if located in some other
country--for instance, in the United States.

My object was to study the rubber-worker at his labour, to find out the
true length of the Itecoahy River, and to photograph everything worth
while. I had with me all the materials and instruments necessary--at
least so I thought.

The photographic outfit consisted of a Graflex camera with a shutter
of high speed, which would come handy when taking animals in motion,
and a large-view camera with ten dozen photographic plates and a
corresponding amount of prepared paper. In view of the difficulties
of travel, I had decided to develop my plates as I went along and make
prints in the field, rather than run the risk of ruining them by some
unlucky accident. Perhaps at the very end of the trip a quantity
of undeveloped plates might be lost, and such a calamity would
mean the failure of the whole journey in one of its most important
particulars. Such a disastrous result was foreshadowed when a porter,
loaded with my effects, clambering down the sixty-foot incline extreme
low water made at Remate de Males, lost his balance in the last few
feet of the descent and dropped into the water, completely ruining
a whole pack of photographic supplies whose arrival from New York I
had been awaiting for months. Luckily this was at the beginning of
this trip and I could replace them from my general stock.