article_snippet.sent: A huge anti-government uprising had destroyed much of whatever infrastructure there had been.
article_snippet.sent: River transport, the only kind available, still relied on getting the local Indians to do the paddling - or, when faced with waterfalls and rapids, the heavy lifting.
article_snippet.sent: Flooding could cause chunks of land, some of several acres, to come hurtling down the river, smashing everything in their way.
article_snippet.sent: Not all tribal traditions were to English tastes - including the one where the dead were buried in the village's huts, dug up a month later, cooked, pounded into a powder, mixed with alcohol and drunk by the assembled company.
article_snippet.sent: The non-Indian locals, meanwhile, were a distinctly mixed bunch.