The eventful day arrived at last, when the expedition must separate;
we had looked forward in eager anticipation to the end of the long
ride across the Brazilian _chapadão_ and the beginning of river work,
but now that the goal had been attained without serious mishap,
thirty-seven days after leaving the Upper Paraguay, the division of the
expedition seemed to have come all too soon.
To better organize the two different forces, our party had halted at
a point called Sete de Setembro, ten kilometres this side of the Rio
da Duvida, while the other division had pushed on to the point of
embarkation. We reached their camp early February 27, 1914, just as
the tents were being taken down and the canoes loaded, preparatory
to the plunge into the unknown. A short time later everything was in
readiness, and farewells were exchanged with Colonel Roosevelt and with
the Brazilian officers. Then, with a parting “Good luck!” their dugouts
swung into the current and were whisked away. For several minutes we
stood upon the fragile structure that bridged the unexplored river and
stared at the dark forest that shut our erstwhile leader and his
Brazilian companions from view; and then, filled with misgivings as to
whether or not we should ever see them again, we turned our thoughts to
the task before us.
[Illustration: Sketch map of the south-central part of the Amazon
drainage system.
Scale, °1:12,000,000.
The party of which the writer was a member descended the Rio
Commemoração and the Gy-Paraná to the Madeira. From here Manaos
on the Amazon was reached by the regular steamer route down the
Madeira.
The drainage between the Upper Paraguay and the Madeira is based
on the surveys of the Brazilian Telegraph Commission, so far as
available. Note the recently explored course of the Rio Ananás
(_The Geographical Review_, January, 1916, p. 50, and February, pp.
143–144), and the completed telegraph-line from Cuyabá to Santo
Antonio (_Bulletin American Geographical Society_, September, 1915,
p. 693). The latter is taken from a map in the Rio de Janeiro
newspaper _A Noite_ for October 25, 1915.
]