When we returned several weeks later, the shooting of these rapids was as exciting as had been the ascent. There was no slow difficult paddling or dragging up of the ballyhoo, but a swift shooting downward, giving fleeting views of tall walls of verdure, innumerable islets, great smooth-faced rocks around which our canoe slid, perilously close, her keel sometimes scraping the algæ on the bottom. We shot here and there from side to side of the river, back and forth, guided by the stolid-faced Indian in the bow. Now and then we would turn completely around in order to keep to a deep channel which bent on itself at an acute angle. Then a moment’s breathing in slack water before the men gave way again, either to hold back with all their might or to put every ounce of strength into their work to keep the boat steady in her course, as we ran parallel to a double line of seething, trembling waves, to enter which would have been instant destruction. We would pass by a half dozen smooth-looking false channels, to enter the single safe one, perhaps far across under the lee of the opposite shore. A pilot not acquainted with every foot of the way would have overturned us instantly. The Indian would head our bow into the roughest part of the water apparently in sheer foolhardiness, but always the waves broke under us and tossed us like a chip over the jagged rocks. A cross current in the maelstrom would tear our bow out of its course, and at a cry from the steersman, all ten backs would bend as one and fairly lift the boat back into her course. As before, Macaws shrieked overhead, Cocoi Herons[31] stood watching us like statues and the little living fish rose from our bow and ploughed their furrows to right and left. But all passed as a swiftly-moving kaleidoscope, as instantaneous side-lights upon the great white tumbling mass of water which ever boiled and surged about us. At noon of the day of our ascent we entered the Big Aremu River, a side tributary of the Cuyuni not more than a hundred feet wide, and an hour later we grounded at Aremu Landing. Here we said good-by to Sproston’s launch and paddlers, and from here on were transported by Mr. Wilshire’s own men and boats. We slung our hammocks that night in an open-work, thatched and wattled house, the company’s storehouse, after a delicious swim in the cool water. No insects came about the vampire-discouraging lantern at night and no evening choruses of birds were heard except a family of Red-billed Toucans.[81] The iridescent rough-backed green beetles, known to jewelry makers as Brazilian Beetles (_Mesomphalia discors_), were abundant on a vine near the house. As on our former expedition on the rivers of the northwest we found that as the streams became smaller, their interest increased. The Cuyuni is awe-inspiring and grand beyond words, but the banks of the Aremu, closing in little by little as we ascended, brought us into more intimate contact with the creatures of jungle and forest.