After following the Casiquiare for one hundred and fifty miles or more we came to the parting of the ways--the point at which the Rio Negro, coming down from the foothills of the Andes, five hundred miles away, divides to feed both the Orinoco and the Amazon--and solved the mystery of the two rivers. There was no connecting canal of slack water, as the Frenchman was said to have reported. The Rio Negro, a wide and deep stream, forms the boundary between Venezuela and Colombia for nearly two hundred miles. At two degrees north latitude, or about one hundred and twenty miles from the equator, it divides, the smaller part, approximately one-third of the volume, forming the Casiquiare, which runs east for a short distance and then north to the Orinoco, while the main stream runs south and then east until it empties into the Amazon at Manaos. Though we had no map to guide us the situation seemed plain when we reached the larger river, which fed the Casiquiare, and by following the downward course of that stream until we were certain it was the Rio Negro, we settled the question. Just below the junction of the Ucayari River with the Rio Negro, almost directly under the equator, we came to a succession of falls and rapids around which we made a portage. From there on, through the same silent wilderness of natural wealth that we had traversed for weeks, we leisurely sailed and drifted down to the Amazon, for the blistering heat discouraged all physical effort that was not mandatory. It was not until we reached the lower reaches of the river that we found men gathering rubber, and they were taking only ounces where tons were at their hands. We reached Manaos early in May, 1874. We had been six months on the trip and had covered all of two thousand miles which, everything considered, was fast travelling. Aside from its educational value the exploration had been delightful, and though tired from living so long in cramped quarters we were all in better health than when we left Trinidad. My companions, who rejoiced in having been thrown in the way of greater sport and more interesting experiences than they had expected to find, were ready to return to England and I arranged to go with them. After resting for a week or two we went down to Para on a river boat and thence to Rio Janiero on one of the Lloyd Brazilero steamships. From there we sailed for England on the Royal Mail steamship “Elbe,” commanded by Captain Moir, who was in command of the “Trent” when Mason and Slidell were taken off. On the way across I compiled a full report of the exploring trip which I mailed to Guzman, with a promise that I would return to Venezuela within a few years. I left my British friends at Southampton and went to London to join Frank Norton and start for the China Sea, of which he had pictured so much that was good in my sight. CHAPTER VII PREYING ON PIRATES