Six days later, having meanwhile traversed about a hundred miles of stifling tropical forest, travelling all the while in a due southerly direction, and having crossed two important streams running in an easterly direction, to say nothing of numberless rivulets, they came to the bank of a third stream, also running almost due east; and here Vilcamapata announced that it would be necessary to build a canoe, as he now proposed to take to the water again. Upon Stukely pointing out to him that this river, like those others that they had recently crossed, flowed east, whereas he understood that their own route lay to the southward, the Peruvian replied that such was certainly the case; but that although the river which they had now reached ran eastward, it eventually discharged into another, by travelling up which they would in process of time come very near to their destination; and that although the distance which they would have to travel by water was very much greater than the direct overland route, they would be able to accomplish it in a much shorter time, and with considerably more ease and comfort to themselves. With this reply the Englishmen were obliged to be content; accordingly while Dick and the Peruvian proceeded to hunt for a suitable tree out of which to construct a canoe, within a reasonable distance of the river bank, Stukely, taking his bow and arrows, went off into the forest in search of game. There had been a time when he would have hesitated to go very far into those depths of green shadow alone, for fear of losing himself; but that time was now long past for both the young Englishmen. They had grown quite accustomed to travelling through the pathless forest, to wandering hither and thither in it in pursuit of game, and mechanically to note while doing so a thousand signs, quite imperceptible to the novice, whereby they were enabled to return with certainty to the spot where they had temporarily fixed their camp. Therefore on this occasion, as on many others, Stukely, with a word of explanation to his companions, plunged unhesitatingly into the labyrinth of tangled undergrowth which covered the soil between the boles of the giant trees, instinctively taking the direction in which he would be likely soonest to come upon the track of game.