Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

CANELOS TO BANGS 155
work at once we went. Though the crossing these
frail bridges is a ticklish operation, it may
well be
supposed that the fixing them is far more perilous.
A bamboo was placed resting towards the base on
a stone by the margin ;
its point was then elevated
considerably by two or three men weighing down
the end by their united force ; in this position it
was swung round till it hung over the rock on
which it was intended to rest, when the point was
gradually lowered till the bamboo lay
required. By the same process
as it was
a second bamboo
was placed alongside the first, and then a man at
the imminent risk of his life crawls along them till
reaching the rock whereon they
rest. He carries a
liana rope attached to the root - end of a third
bamboo, which he now, with some help from those
on shore, draws after him and places alongside the
other two ; the bridge is thus stronger than if all
the points were laid the same way. Finally, the
bamboos were lashed tightly together by lianas at
about every 2 feet, and stones laid on them at
each end to keep them firmer. So deafening was
the roar of the waters that all these operations were
carried on through the medium of signs. A movement
by the hand to imitate chopping was the
signal that a knife or cutlass was wanted, and the
hands twirled round one another asked for a roll of
liana. The first bridge was short and completed
without difficulty, but when they came to throw the
bamboos to the second rock, which, as I have said,
was much more distant and higher out of the water,
it was found that their points merely reached the
sloping side of the rock and not to its summit, and
that the surging waves every now and then washed