This article tries to bring back the notion of adventure to the anthropological field, through the analyses of five narratives about the São Francisco river - Burton, Pierson, Cavalcanti, Cappio and Tarsia (& partners) The article seeks to understand how mimesis and seduction join these actors to the river and to the reader, in such a way that, at the same time the authors construct themselves in the narrative, hermeneuticly they - storytellers and river - cast their nets over the reader.