space which contains also six smaller buildings scattered around.  The house had seven medium-sized rooms, equipped with modern furniture of an inexpensive grade.  There was also an office which, considering that it was located about 2900 miles from civilisation, could be almost called up-to-date.  I remember, for instance, that a clock from New Haven had found its way here.  In charge of the office was a secretary, a Mr. da Marinha, who was a man of considerable education and who had graduated in the Federal capital.  Several years of health-racking existence in the swamps had made him a nervous and indolent man, upon whose face a smile was never seen.  The launch stopped here twenty-four hours, unloading several tons of merchandise, to replenish the store-house close to the river front.  I took advantage of the wait to converse with Coronel da Silva.  He invited me cordially to stop at his house and spend the summer watching the rubber-work and hunting the game that these forests contained.  It was finally proposed that I go with the launch up to the Branco River, only two days’ journey distant, and that on its return I should disembark and stay as long as I wished.  To this I gladly assented.  We departed in the evening bound for the Branco River.  On this trip I had my first attack of fever.  I had no warning of the approaching danger until a chill suddenly came over me on the first day out from Floresta.  I had felt a peculiar drowsiness for several days, but had paid little attention to it as one generally feels drowsy and tired in the oppressive heat and humidity.  When to this was added a second chill that shook me from head to foot with such violence that I thought my last hour had come, I knew I was in for my first experience of the dreaded Javary fever.  There was nothing to do but to take copious doses of quinine and keep still in my hammock close to the rail of the boat.  The fever soon got strong hold of me and I alternated between shivering with cold and burning with a temperature that reached 104 and 105 degrees.  Towards midnight it abated somewhat, but left me so nearly exhausted that I was hardly able to raise my head to see where we were going.  Our boat kept close to the bank so as to get all possible advantage of the eddying currents.

I was at length aroused from a feverish slumber by being flung suddenly to the deck of the launch with a violent shock, while men and women shouted in excitement that the craft would surely turn over.  We were careened at a dangerous angle when I awoke and in my reduced condition it was not difficult to imagine that a capsize was to be the result.  But with a ripping, rending sound the launch suddenly righted itself.  It developed that we had had a more serious encounter with a protruding branch than in any of the previous collisions.  This one had caught on the very upright to which my hammock was secured.  The stanchion in this case was iron and its failure to give way had caused the boat to tilt.  Finally