and then I got up to wander forward, as best I could in the dark,
across the sleeping forms and take refuge on top of my case of cognac.

We seemed to be down in a pool of vast darkness, of whose walls no
one could guess the limits. I listened to the gurgling of water at
the bow and wondered how it was possible for the man at the wheel
to guide our course without colliding with the many tree trunks that
were scattered everywhere about us. The river wound back and forth,
hardly ever running straight for more than half a mile, and the pilot
continually had to steer the boat almost to the opposite bank to keep
the trailing canoes from stranding on the sand-bars at the turns. Now
and then a lightning flash would illuminate the wild banks, proving
that we were not on the bosom of some Cimmerian lake, but following a
continuous stream that stretched far ahead, and I could get a glimpse
of the dark, doubly-mysterious forests on either hand; and now and
then a huge tree-trunk would slip swiftly and silently past us.

The only interruption of the perfect quiet that prevailed was the
occasional outburst of roars from the throat of the howling monkey,
which I had come to know as making the night hideous in Remate de
Males. But the present environment added just the proper atmosphere
to make one think for a second that he was participating in some
phantasm of Dante's.

There was no particular incident to record on the trip, till June
the 16th, in the night-time, when we arrived at Porto Alegre, the
glad harbour, which consisted of one hut. This hut belonged to the
proprietor of a _seringale_. I followed the captain and the clerk
ashore and, with them, was warmly received by the owner, when we had
clambered up the ladder in front of the hut. He had not heard from