THE BASEBALL GOD
probably remembering that he had done so about once a week for ten years, he added, 'that is, without saving it.'
"Two days later we started on our long jaunt with Santos.
"The trip up the Amazon was uneventful and exceedingly tedious, and both Tib and I were delighted when just before reaching the mouth of the Madeira we shifted over into a small craft propelled by Moxos and set off up a side-creek. Even here there was little to vary the monotony. The scenery was uniform. Immense stretches of stonewood, cinnamon, and bow-wood screened the river-banks. A casual glimpse of the aborigines demonstrated clearly that they hadn't received the latest styles. Every time we met some of these beggars, Remigio, our captain of rowers, would sniff his squat nose and, glancing complacently at his bark shirt, growl: 'No Christianos!' My courage was considerably weakened when he explained through Santos that the many side-streams which emptied themselves into the Madeira all flowed from a wholly unknown country. He also pointed out a sand-bar where the season before three Bolivians had been captured and carried off by the Indians. After that the dark, oily waters of each tributary, now and then washing down an empty Araras bark canoe, were to me fraught with some terrible menace.
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