A day on the Rio Madeira delivers sixty grams of gold and takes a lifetime. Hans Hoffman lives with the Brazilian garimpeiros in the Rio Madeira and hopes soon to find much gold. In the brown water diesel pumps twenty-four hours the mud of the river bottom to surface. Hoffmann lives his life aboard a raga - a primitive sort of raft. His world has its own rules: A hostile person can not survive here long because he can be sure to get enemies.
