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But on this day during which we made twenty-five kilometres after running two hours and a half we found on the left bank a board on a post, with the initials J. A., to show the farthest up point which a rubberman had reached and claimed as his own. An hour farther down we came on a newly built house in a little planted clearing; and we cheered heartily.
We met several batelaos, and the houses on the bank showed that the settlers were somewhat better off than was the case farther up. At the rapids was a big store, the property of Senhor Caripe, the wealthiest rubberman who works on this river; many of the men we met were in his employ. He has himself risen from the ranks.
Each was longing for the homely things that were so dear to him, for the home people who were dearer still, and for the one who was dearest of all. Our adventures and our troubles were alike over. We now experienced the incalculable contrast between descending a known and travelled river, and one that is utterly unknown. After four days we hired a rubberman to go with us as guide.
We expected to meet them somewhere below the next rapids, the Inferno. The trader or rubberman brings up his year's supply of goods in a batelao, starting in February and reaching the upper course of the river early in May, when the rainy season is over.
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