Although Materón and Gonzalez implored us to stay a week or so with them, we decided to resume our journey on the following day; but in the morning, just as we were about to start, Perkins was attacked with a heavy fever, and so our departure was postponed. We dosed him up with quinine and put him to bed, where he soon began to perspire freely, which is to be desired in these malarial attacks. Finding our patient better in the afternoon, Gonzalez, Materón, and myself took a little trip down to San José, a small Cioni town about a kilometre below La Sofía. This village and its inhabitants are very similar to Guineo and San Diego, only a trifle larger than the latter. Here we stopped some time, and I was able to obtain several souvenirs from the Indians, besides a shallow earthen pot, which I determined to fix in the canoe to cook in, thus avoiding the loss of time consequent to performing this operation on shore. On our return, while pushing the canoe upstream between the numerous stumps along the shore, in the manner already described for _surcadas_, Gonzalez, although an excellent boatman, suddenly lost his balance and fell with a thud into the deep water. Fortunately, we succeeded in pulling him out, none the worse for his wetting, and in a half-hour reached La Sofía without further adventure. Here we found Perkins somewhat better, so we fixed the pot in the fore part of the canoe in the manner I had planned and made arrangements to depart on the following day, for Gonzalez had decided to accompany us as far as Yocuropuí, the next Cioni village, to see the Indians there. Perkins better, we accordingly bade goodbye to our kind friend Materón the next morning, Thursday, December 5th; and, lashing our canoe to Gonzalez', in order to keep together and to facilitate conversation, we once more resumed our journey. Materón had thoughtfully filled the canoe with _papayas_, bananas, &c., so what with them, the conversation, and the shooting, we were kept pretty busy. [Illustration: CANOE VOYAGING ON THE AMAZON: A NOONDAY REST. To face p. 96.] The river soon became much broader, owing to the numerous tributaries, and the current much gentler, while great sand and gravel _playas_ began to appear with some frequency. Numerous beautiful birds, flying from stump to stump, lent an air of life to the otherwise silent river, while occasionally a group of monkeys could be seen making their way from tree to tree, almost hidden by the thick leaves and tangled creepers so characteristic of Amazonian vegetation. Soon the heat grew uncomfortable, so we all withdrew under the commodious _pamacari_, where it was quite agreeable.