On account of its large size, work on the dugout progressed slowly; a section of the trunk, some thirty feet long, had been cut off where the tree had fallen, and this was being hollowed out with adzes, while short-handled axes were used in dressing down the exterior. After twelve days of continuous hewing the dugout began to assume the appearance of a seaworthy craft, and we figured that she would be ready to launch at the end of another two weeks; but the next day a _batelão_ arrived. Her captain had been fighting his way up the Gy-Paraná over three months in his efforts to reach Barão de Melgaço, having been sent from the Madeira by order of Colonel Rondon.
We loaded our meagre outfit into the _batelão_, which was a good-sized craft built of boards nailed over heavy wooden ribs, and with a squared tree-trunk for a keel; an arched palm-leaf roof covered a section in the centre, under which we sat to avoid the rain or sun. This style of boat is in general use on the larger tropical rivers and corresponds with the _falca_ of the Orinoco and the _champan_ of the Magdalena. A crew of eighteen men was mustered, all of whom were more than willing to leave their pestilential environs, and we were soon shooting down-stream with the rapid current. Captain Amilcar had gone on ahead with the small canoes in order to survey the river. They carried a sighting-rod with red disks and a telemeter for measuring distances; a compass gave them the direction.
A quarter of an hour after starting we reached the camp of the telegraphic commission and made a short stop to take aboard a number of men who were suffering with fever and beri-beri; shattered wrecks of humanity whose only hope of life lay in flight. I saw a number of the _camaradas_ who had come across Matto Grosso with us, and it was surprising to note the great change which only two weeks in the steaming, insect-infested forest had wrought; several of them were already suffering from violent attacks of malaria, and their faces were colorless and sallow; others who had been in the region longer stared at the _batelão_ with sunken, lustreless eyes in which not even a vestige of interest in our visit or of hope was evident; a few had apparently reached the stage where the sight of the twelve newly made mounds on the hilltop no longer aroused feelings of dread or apprehension, but rather of indifference tempered with longing for a welcome release.