On the third day the road began to wind down an incline, and before them lay the beautiful Kuluene River. There was the group of Brazilian surveyors with whom they would travel up river to the territory of the wild Indians. Senhor Rodriguez, the Brazilian in charge, greeted them pleasantly. “How soon do we leave?” asked Harry. “Well, now.” Senhor Rodriguez squinted his eyes speculatively. “You know the canoes aren’t quite ready as we had expected they’d be. The men have kind of had the flu, and the work has been held up. But we’ve cut down the trees, and it won’t take long to hollow them out. We’ll have to wait a few days.” Had they known it, this was predictive of almost endless frustrating delays and impediments which lay before them. As the place where the canoes were being prepared was about a mile downstream, they went to see for themselves how far along the work was. There was one enormous dugout some six feet wide and twenty feet long. The other two canoes were as yet only felled trees which must be hollowed out by fire, hammer, and chisel. The whole venture was dependent upon these crude means of transportation. They must wait. The missionaries, penetrating raw jungle, needed companions with whom to face the perils of river and forest, but as they watched the canoes taking slow shape during the ensuing days, they realized that the other party had made little effort for orderly planning. Sacks of rice and hampers of grated manioc root lay about awaiting embarkation, without so much as a wrapping.
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