Amidships was piled our luggage and we distributed ourselves over and around the clothing bags and larder boxes. Mr. and Mrs. Wilshire and we two composed the list of passengers, and the unceasing pleasure of those five days was a good test of mutual congeniality and adaptability to “bush-travel.” The stroke adopted by our Indians was a peculiar one, which we were to hear all day and often throughout the night, for these men of the wilderness, short and stocky in build, seemed tireless, and hour after hour they would keep hard at work, sometimes for as much as thirty-six hours at a stretch, with only a brief nap or two. The Indian paddle rhythm set by little Pedro, the younger boy in the bow, accentuated every other stroke, the tempo of the strokes becoming more and more rapid, until, when further speed was impossible, one stroke was suddenly omitted, and the gap thus formed marked the new slow tempo, which in turn, in the course of fifteen to twenty strokes of the paddle, would work up to a climax and the former rhythm begin again. All kept perfect time, the new change not being inaugurated on any exact stroke, but the others seeming to know instinctively when it would come. Whether they were eating, talking or looking behind them it was the same, all changed as one man. Two or three hours after starting, we made a landing in order that the Indians could cook their breakfast, invariably composed of a combination of pork, dried fish, rice and cassava. This menu was varied only when one or more of the ingredients happened not to be procurable. Sometimes for many days the Guiana Indians worked hard upon nothing but cassava. The jungle was thick about the little clearing which they made for a fire, and word passed rapidly along the lines of parasol ants that manna was available in the form of rice and bread crumbs. A few minutes after a bit of food was thrown down it would mysteriously take legs to itself and begin to walk away, the motor power being myriads of these interesting insects. Big-headed soldiers patrolled all along the winding trail of foragers, troubling no one unless they were disturbed or the workers attacked. Several species of orchids, Brassias and others unknown to us, were in blossom all about us. On we went again, becoming more and more delighted with our method of travel. There was no puffing, smelly kerosene engine, no clatter of many tongues; and we were close to the water with nothing overhead between us and the sky, or the overhanging branches. The typical river birds paid little attention to our silent craft; and we were able to watch Giant Kingfishers,[67] Guiana Cormorants,[47] Snake-birds,[48] Parrakeets and Swallows at close range.