Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

CANELOS TO BANGS 157
we must pass one by one with slow and cautious
steps, where one slip might be fatal. Though the
bamboos were scarcely so thick as one's leg and
completely wetted, the natural asperity of their
cuticle rendered passing along them less insecure
than I had feared ; but
the longest bridge bent so
low when we reached the middle that beyond this
it was like climbing a hill, and in this part a surging
wave wetted me to the knees, but I stood firm and
allowed it to pass. The river was obviously rising
and our bridge must soon be swept away.
Those who have escaped from death by hunger
or drowning may understand what a load was taken
across the
off my heart when we had all got safely
Topo, although I had been obliged to abandon so
which to me were more valuable
many things
than money. On the following clay we might
hope to reach the Rio Verde, where is a hacienda
for the fabrication of cane-brandy, and the first
habitation on the skirts of the Montana. The rain
came down heavier than ever, and the forest was
like a marsh, but we dashed on as quickly as we
could. The track lay mostly along nearly level
ground, with a high cliff to our left, and the Pastasa
roaring along its base. In one part we had to wade
for nearly a mile though fetid mud in which grew
beds of gigantic horse-tails 18 feet high, and nearly
as thick as the wrist at the base. At length we
came to where we had to descend to the beach of
the Pastasa, or " Arenal" as it is called. Here it
be said
"
C'est le premier pas qui
might truly
coute," for the descent began by a ladder merely
a notched pole down a rock which overhung the
very Pastasa at a height of 1 50 feet above it ; and.