Young Ralph, on the contrary, a true mountaineer, knew nothing of either, and therefore counted for nothing among the crew of the galatea. To him and the little Rosa was assigned the keeping of the pets, with such other light duties as they were capable of performing.
For the first day the voyage was uninterrupted by any incident, at least any that might be called unpleasant. Their slow progress, it is true, was a cause of dissatisfaction; but so long as they were going at all, and going in the right direction, this might be borne with equanimity. Three miles an hour was about their average rate of speed; for half of which they were indebted to the current of the river, and for the other half to the impulsion of their paddles.
Considering that they had still a thousand miles to go before reaching Gran Pará, the prospect of a protracted voyage was very plainly outlined before them.
Could they have calculated on making three miles an hour for every hour of the twenty-four, things would not have been bad. This rate of speed would have carried them to their destination in a dozen days, a mere bagatelle. But they knew enough of river-navigation to disregard such data. They knew the current of the Solimoës to be extremely slow; they had heard of the strange phenomenon, that, run which way the river might, north, south, east, or west, and it does keep bending and curving in all these directions, the wind is almost always met with blowing up stream !
For this reason they could put no dependence in their sail, and would have to trust altogether to the paddles. These could not be always in the water. Human strength could not stand a perpetual spell, even at paddles; and less so in the hands of a crew of men so little used to them.
Nor could they continue the voyage at night. By doing so, they would be in danger of losing their course, their craft, and themselves!
You may smile at the idea. You will ask a little scornfully, perhaps how a canoe, or any other craft, drifting down a deep river to its destination, could possibly go astray. Does not the current point out the path, the broad waterway not to be mistaken?
So it might appear to one seated in a skiff, and floating down the tranquil Thames, with its well-defined banks. But far different is the aspect of the stupendous Solimoës to the voyager gliding through its Capo .
I have made use of a word of strange sound, and still stranger signification. Perhaps it is new to your eye, as your oar. You will become better acquainted with it before the end of our voyage; for into the Gapo it is my intention to take you, where ill-luck carried the galatea and her crew.
On leaving
reach, with no other boundary than that afforded by a flooded forest .
There was nothing in all this to excite alarm, at least in the mind of Tipperary Tom. The Mundurucú, had he been awake, might have shown some uneasiness at the situation. But the Indian was asleep, perhaps dreaming of some Mura enemy, whose head he would have been happy to embalm.
Tom simply supposed himself to be in some part of the Solimoës flooded beyond its banks, as he had seen it in more places than one. With this confidence, he stuck faithfully to his steering oar, and allowed the galatea to glide on. It was only when the reach of water upon which the craft was drifting began to narrow, or rather after it had narrowed to a surprising degree, that the steersman began to suspect himself of having taken the wrong course.
His suspicions became stronger, at length terminating in a conviction that such was the truth, when the galatea arrived at a part where less than a cables length lay between her beam-ends and the bushes that stood out of the water on both sides of her. Too surely had he strayed from the mane sthrame. The craft that carried him could no longer be in the channel of the mighty Solimoës!
The steersman was alarmed, and this very alarm hindered him from following the only prudent course he could have taken under the circumstances. He should have aroused his fellow-voyagers, and proclaimed the error into which he had fallen. He did not do so. A sense of shame at having neglected his duty, or rather at having performed it in an indifferent manner, a species of regret not uncommon among his countrymen, hindered him from disclosing the truth, and taking steps to avert any evil consequences that might spring from it.
He knew nothing of the great river on which they were voyaging. There might be such a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding. The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on.
The channel did widen again; and the galatea once more rode upon open water. The steersman was restored to confidence and contentment. Only for a short while did this state of mind continue. Again the clear water became contracted, this time to a very strip, while on either side extended reaches and estuaries, bordered by half-submerged bushes, some of them opening apparently to the sky horizon, wider and freer from obstruction than that upon which the galatea was holding her course.