The first of these two novels is about a painter, Brazilian by birth and British by adoption, living and working in London with his wife, whose equally varied spiritual and cultural inheritance complements his. Wilson Harris evokes with vividness and characteristic imaginative power the daily life and landscape of the city. and his gang, for whose work and well-being he is responsible, are exploring and recording the course and currents of the remote upper reaches of the ancient rivers. Unexpected incidents and tensions in the formal and personal relationships between the surveyor and his men have mysterious consequences with effects and implications far beyond the immediate time and place.