*1954 Third Printing In 1948 three Frenchmen and a Colombian, all under thirty, undertook to cross from Venezuela to Brazil. By 1950 they had completed the hazardous voyage, covering thousands of miles of the Orinoco and the Amazon in Indian dugout canoes. They are the first white men ever to join the Amazon across the famous Sierra Parima. In addition to the almost incredible physical hardships to be overcome, there was constant danger from tribes, whose custom was to kill any strangers on sight. Completely unarmed, the expedition won the cooperation of most of these people through friendship, faith, and (most startling instrument of diplomacy) a symphony of Mozart's played on a portable phonograph. They returned with extremely valuable anthropological material, striking and dramatic photographs (many of them included in this book), and one of the most exciting adventure stories of our day."