Dick Sand hoped that it would soon become navigable, or that it would before long reach a more important river, tributary to the Atlantic.
Cost what it might, the young novice was determined to follow this stream of water.

Neither did he hesitate to abandon this opening; because, as ending by an oblique line, it led away from the rivulet.
The little party a second time ventured through the dense underwood.
They marched, ax in hand, through leaves and bushes inextricably interlaced.
But if this vegetation obstructed the ground, they were no longer in the thick forest that bordered the coast.

Trees became rare.

Large sheaves of bamboo alone rose above the grass, and so high that even Hercules was not a head over them.

The passage of the little party was only revealed by the movement of these stalks.
Toward three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, the nature of the ground totally changed.