Chapter XV…

Chapter XV

Mutiny and Threats--Wasted Efforts--Awful Waters--The Canoe escapes in a Violent Rapid--Another Mutiny--The Canoe recovered--An Appalling Vortex--The Fall of S. Simão--Cutting an Artificial Channel in the Rocks

BRAZILIANS of a low class are unfortunately easily led by words. Alcides, who could not get over his bad temper, once more incited the men to revolt. While I was busy taking altitude observations with the hypsometrical apparatus I kept my eye on them, as I saw plainly that I was coming in for trouble.

Unfortunately for us another bad part of the rapid had to be negotiated, and the only way possible was to take the canoe overland once more. With Alcides at their head, all the men were now in open rebellion, and absolutely refused to work.

"Very good," I said to them. "If you do not like to take the canoe along we shall stay here. I like this spot very much, as it is most picturesque."

The men filled the magazines of their rifles with cartridges, and then came threateningly toward me, shoving the muzzles right in my face.

"You must give us food," said they. "We want to eat, and we want to be taken back to our country."

I advised them to take a walk in the forest and see if they could shoot something there, for if they shot me, one fact was certain, and that was that they would never see their happy homes again.

Two of the men turned away in order to go after game, but the man X levelled his rifle at my head and demanded his money, as he wished to leave at once. The contract I had with him was different from that I had with the other men. I had agreed to pay him on reaching the nearest point of civilization, where I would let him loose again. I therefore said that I would most certainly pay him the very minute he had fulfilled his contract.

I paid no more attention to his threat, although I heard the click of the hammer of his rifle being cocked. I told him to get some wood to make a fire, as I wished to make myself a cup of chocolate.

In unpacking some of my instruments I had made a great discovery--a box of chocolate, which had strayed into a package by mistake.

X seemed undecided whether to shoot or not. I made no attempt to take the rifle out of his hand, as that would have been fatal. After a few moments he sat down on a rock a few yards away, his rifle resting on his knees and pointing in my direction, while I myself collected some small pieces of wood and proceeded to make the fire.

Filippe the negro, who had his eye on the box of chocolate, came and helped to blow the flame. We got some water and boiled it in a large tin cup. While we were doing that I heard rifles being fired in the forest, and presently Antonio returned with some fine jacu (Penelope cristata) he had shot.

The entire morning of August 12th was absolutely wasted, owing to the conduct of my men. Even after they had had a good meal, not a particle of which they offered me--not that I asked them for it--they were still in a riotous mood.

As was my habit when I had anything to eat, I always shared it in equal parts with them: when the chocolate was ready--notwithstanding their behaviour--I asked them for their cups, and each one received his share of that delicious beverage. As usual also, I sorted out that day the customary allowance of tobacco to each man, which I had been fortunate enough to save in our accidents.

When I offered the chocolate to Alcides, he handed his cup to Filippe to bring to me, and when it was handed back to him he flung it away saying he would prefer to die rather than drink the filthy English stuff.

Matters were a little critical. A great number of rollers were required and a number of wooden rails. Curiously enough, the man X, who had been the most violent that day, was the only one who came to thank me for the chocolate, and offered to work, the others all refusing to move.

He and I cut down three or four trees, when the other men--ashamed of themselves--took the axes and proceeded to work also. But instead of cutting down trees which were straight they cut down the knottiest trees they could find, and made rollers which were absolutely useless. It was their silly way of wasting the little energy they had left. The result was that they had to do the work over again and cut other trees and other rollers.

Eventually we succeeded in pushing the canoe over the rocks until we were some 20 m. from the water again. With some effort we succeeded in shoving her along 18 m. out of those 20 m. There only remained the last 2 m.--unfortunately uphill, which made our effort a little greater. Here the men again stopped work and refused to give that last push to get the canoe over those rocks and then into the water. Once more they said they would shoot me and then proceed through the forest on foot.

Matters looked bad indeed. Those 2 m., with a sharp angle upward, made an insurmountable obstacle which I could not negotiate alone. With the corner of my eye I saw the rifles of my men levelled at me. There was only one way out of that difficulty--to give my men a little excitement.

"Very good!" I said to them. "If we have not the strength to move the canoe over those rocks, we certainly have the courage to shoot the rapid." I said I had never yet known a Brazilian who failed when it came to courage, and I was sure they would not fail, as I had already seen how brave they had been.

Flattery always answers.

"Come along, boys! We will take the canoe back into the rapid."

In a moment they had deposited their rifles on the rocks and they were all helping me to push the canoe back the way we had come.

The rapid in that particular part was devilish--not unlike the narrow channel we had gone through some time before. The passage, with high rocks on either side, was tortuous, and threw the water with great force from one side to the other, producing high waves in the centre in such confusion that it was quite terrifying to look at them.

When my men looked at those awful waters, they suggested that perhaps we had better let the canoe down with ropes. I had quite made up my mind that we should lose the canoe for certain in that spot; and had we gone down in her ourselves we should undoubtedly have lost our lives as well.

When we started taking her down with ropes--our ropes were all rotted by that time, and had no strength whatever--the canoe was tossed about in a merciless manner. I recommended my men as they ran along to beware of the ropes catching on the cutting edges of the high rocks. No sooner had the canoe started down the swift current than one of the ropes at once caught on a rock and snapped. The men who held the other rope were unable to hold it, and let it go. I saw the canoe give three or four leaps in the centre of the channel and then disappear altogether. That was a sad moment for me. But as my eye roamed along the foaming waters, what was my surprise when I saw the canoe shoot out of the water in a vertical position at the end of the rapid and waterfall! That was the greatest piece of luck I had on that journey. By being flung out of the water with such force she naturally emptied herself of all the water she contained, and I next saw her floating, going round and round the whirlpool at the bottom of the rapid.

The next problem was how to recover the canoe, as she happened to be on the opposite side of the stream. There for more than two hours we watched her going round and round, while we sat on the rocks, absolutely speechless. Eventually we saw her gradually come out of the whirlpool and drift slowly in the recanto or backwater on the opposite shore some 400 m. away, revolving slowly around herself.

My men were perplexed. They now said they would all leave me at once and proceed on foot. Under no circumstances whatever would they accompany me any more. They must have their pay and go.

So after a few minutes I paid the salaries of all the men, excepting the man X. To my surprise the men, instead of going, remained seated a little way off.

I had a plan in my head of swimming across the river below the whirlpool, where the water was placid although of great width, but I could not very well place myself in such an awkward position as to leave on the river bank the large sums of money which I carried on my person. I certainly could not swim across such a long distance, and in such a current, with the heavy bags of coin and banknotes round my waist. I feared--in fact, felt certain--that in the mood in which my men were that day, the moment I entered the water and was quite helpless they would fire at me and get away with everything I possessed. I knew that they would never dare to do it unless they could catch me in a helpless condition.

I called Antonio--who was an excellent swimmer--and said that I offered a reward of £10 to any men who swam across and recovered the canoe. Antonio reflected deeply for some time, then consented to go if another man went with him. For nearly an hour he confabulated with Filippe the white man, who was also a splendid swimmer. It was with some relief that I saw the two eventually enter the water, after a paddle had been tied with long strings round each of their waists in order that they might be able to bring the canoe back.

At the point where they started the river was 200 m. wide. Although seemingly placid the current was strong. They drifted down some 300 m.--I with my telescope keeping a sharp watch on the canoe, which was still going round and round, and was now once more almost entirely filled with water. No sooner had the men, quite exhausted, reached the opposite bank than the canoe, which had been in that spot for some hours, for some reason or other started out and proceeded to float down stream in the very centre of the river. Filippe the negro and I at once started on a chase on our side of the water, in case she came near enough to seize her. I shouted and signalled to the men on the opposite bank to swim across once more to try and catch her in mid-stream.

As luck would have it, after a chase of several kilometres, over cutting rocks and great banks of sand in which we sank up to our knees--while the naked men with their paddles ran as fast as they could on the opposite bank--the canoe drifted close to the other bank once more, and the men were able to board her. It was a great relief to me when at last the canoe was brought over to our side and we towed her back so as to get the baggage on board and proceed on our journey.

Each of the two men who had rescued the canoe at once received the reward I had offered, and Filippe the negro, who had shown willingness in recovering the boat, also received a handsome present.

The entire day of August 12th had been spent in going those few hundred metres of the rapid. Our camp that evening was but 400 m. from that of the day before.

The minimum temperature of August 12th had been 70° F., whereas during the night of August 13th it was 62° F.

That little adventure had pulled the men together somewhat. I spoke in great praise of the courage that Antonio and Filippe had shown in swimming across the stream.

The river was smooth for a little distance, when we proceeded once more with our navigation; but soon it became narrow--only 40 to 50 m. wide--with strong eddies in its deep channel between rocky sides. Some magnificent sand beaches 15 to 20 ft. high were observed, particularly on the right bank, not far from a tributary 3 m. wide which entered the main river on the left side. Lower down, the river described a sharp turn, and there we met another most dangerous rapid. It was entered by a passage 50 m. wide, after which a circular basin of rock--evidently an ancient crater--100 m. in diameter appeared; then the water flowed out with terrific force by a channel only 30 m. wide. The stream produced prodigious eddies in the circular basin. Waves of great height were dashed to and fro from one side to the other of the narrow channel, between high rocks on either side. The water flowed first in a direction E.S.E. for 500 m., then turned off suddenly to due east for a distance of 400 m. That spot was most difficult for us to go through.

Soon after, the river turned due north and broadened to a width of 120 m. for some 4,000 m. A great basin was crossed, with submerged rocks, forming counter currents of great power and most unpleasant whirlpools. I observed with some concern a stupendous vortex 30 m. in diameter and with a deep central depression. The water revolved with such velocity and force that it formed a series of high-crested white waves running one after another at a terrifying speed around its periphery. The water was raised around the vortex certainly 10 or 12 ft. above the level of the river--owing to the opposition between the rotating water and the current. We gave that vortex as wide a berth as we could; it really frightened one to be near it, although there was no particular danger unless we got right into it.

A charming island was passed soon after, on which, as well as on the left bank, were innumerable rubber trees, but there were none on the right, where chapada was to be seen.

We had in front of us a hill range 300 ft. high. As we went farther we were in a channel between high rocks strewn about along both banks in fragments of great size; then we were once again in a circular basin with high vertical rocks--perhaps another extinct crater. We were here in a region of volcanic formation. No sooner had we passed this basin than we came upon another bad rapid, 400 m. long, which divided itself into two channels, after going through a narrow passage not more than 30 m. wide, where we got tossed about in a most alarming manner, being once or twice nearly dashed to pieces against the rocky sides. We had had so much trouble with the rapids that day that by sunset we had only gone 19 kil. 600 m. Since we had come to that volcanic region we had found rocks with great holes in which stagnant water lay. Myriads of insects--regular clouds of them--worried us nearly to death.

On August 14th we started early, the minimum temperature having been 70° F. during the night. After leaving the rapid we came to a great basin 1,000 m. across. A most beautiful sand beach 300 m. long was to be seen on the left side, below a vertical cliff of great beauty, 200 ft. high. Another great sand beach was to be seen on the right of the river, where it described a sharp turn to 30° b.m. Then the river dashed through a passage of rocks only 80 m. broad, and emerged once more into another great basin with many indentations in its rocky coast.

Some 6 kil. beyond, another basin was found, with more rocks strewn on and near its eastern bank, and a number of rocky islets. A high hill range with vertical cliffs stood on the west side and ended abruptly at the end of the basin. Low hills ran all along the river on the left side.

The river had an average width here of 250 m., and flowed mostly in directions between north-west and north-east.

We went down all the time on troubled waters, with rocky banks and innumerable obstacles all the way. We went through another terrible and most intricate rapid--the Labyrinth--and passed through a channel only 40 m. wide between high rocky banks. Then, after that, for 9,500 m. we had fair and smooth navigation, with a range of flat-topped hills 300 ft. high, extending from W.S.W. to E.N.E., in front of us to the north-west. Here there was a regular maze of channels, all more or less bad. We did not follow the principal one, which was strewn with rocks, but a smaller one, at the end of which, unfortunately, we found a barrier of rocks which we could not surmount. We had all the trouble of dragging the canoe back up the rapid until we could turn her round into another channel.

We arrived at the waterfall of S. Simão, where we went through numerous channels, following the right bank as much as we could, until we arrived at a gigantic staircase of rock, down which the water divided itself into little channels. We took all the baggage over the rocks on the right bank--a very heavy task, as we had to climb up and down big boulders with sharp edges. We slipped many times with the loads we were carrying, and many, indeed, were the patches of skin we left behind in that particular place. We had a great deal of trouble in finding a place where we could take the canoe down. Eventually we had to go right across the stream over the waterfall and land on an island of rock in the centre of the river, where I had seen with my telescope that we might perhaps find a suitable passage for the canoe.

Crossing the river diagonally just above the fall was risky work, and although we described a big arc up the stream, we only just managed to make the island before we were borne down by the current.

The horseshoe-shaped waterfall was about 300 m. across and some 30 ft. high. When the river is full it must be beautiful, for the east side, which was then absolutely dry, is covered entirely by water, which must form a wonderful series of cascades. When the river is in flood, the waterfall, extending from north-west to south-east, has a total width of 1,000 m. There were some picturesque bits of rugged foliated rock over that great staircase, and huge cracks through which the water gurgled and foamed--those fissures formed not by the erosion of water but by volcanic action, perhaps by an earthquake. The large fall to the north-west, over which the water flows in every season, had on one side of it a steep incline, down which we took the canoe until we came to a drop about 15 ft. high.

We halted for the night just above that high drop, spending a most miserable night, being simply devoured by insects. The minimum temperature during the night of August 15th was 72° F.

My men were in a beastly temper in the morning, when we had to proceed, as on previous occasions, to make an artificial channel by moving innumerable boulders of all sizes. It was a heavy task, for we hardly had any strength left, our meals having been most irregular of late.

A channel was not so easily made in that particular spot, as there were some boulders which we could not possibly move, and the canoe must be made to go over them.

We had only been working for a few minutes, when again there was a riot among my men; again they took to their rifles and said they would leave me and the canoe there. Worse luck, the canoe got stuck hard on a rock, and the men could not move her. I cut down some rollers and some levers of the hardest woods I could find in the forest near there, and when once I had set to work a little more intelligently than they did, I had no difficulty in moving the canoe along. Eventually, with my men swearing at me the whole time, the canoe was safely at the foot of the waterfall.

We were in great luck that day, for we found plenty of wild fruit--very nutritious--and we killed one or two large birds. My men grumbled all the time, saying that they were dying of starvation, no meal being a meal at all in Brazil unless accompanied by a small mountain of feijão (black beans). I had a few boxes of sardines left, but I reserved those for extreme occasions which might yet come.

At the bottom of the fall was an immense basin, 1,200 m. wide and 3,000 m. long from north to south. The temperature was stifling that day--96° F. in the shade, and the sky overladen with clouds.

Fourteen kilometres by river below the S. Simão came another waterfall, that of All Saints.

Observations with the hypsometrical apparatus gave an elevation of 772 ft. above the level of the sea.

We halted above the rapid on a beautiful beach. A curious thing happened. Antonio in jumping into the water out of the canoe felt something sharp under his foot. In looking down he saw a magnificent sword. On taking it out of the water we found that it was an old sword of the time of the Emperor Pedro II. A fight must have taken place there between a Brazilian expedition and the Mundurucu Indians, who at that time were to be found, I believe, in that region. Presumably the expedition had been attacked at that spot while trying to land. The sword was in excellent preservation.

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Chapter XVI

At Death's Door--Mundurucu Indians--All Author's Followers poisoned by Wild Fruit--Anxious Moments--Seringueiros--A Dying Jewish Trader--The Mori Brothers--A New Hat--Where the Tres Barras meets the Arinos-Juruena--The Canoe abandoned

WE had a minimum temperature on the night of August 15th of 70° F.

We descended the All Saints rapid and fall, 150 m. in length, with no great difficulty, although with a certain amount of hard work.

A large basin was below it, in the eastern part of which was a charming island. Innumerable rubber trees (Siphonia elastica) were to be seen in that region. We found the south-east passage the best in descending that rapid; but, although comparatively easy, we had to use the greatest care, as my canoe was by now falling to pieces, and a hard knock against a rock would be fatal.

At the eastern end of the basin was a narrow channel between high rocks, where the current was extremely strong. A cluster of high vertical columnar rocks was seen. The three channels into which the river had been divided joined again in that basin, and were forced through a passage between high vertical rocky walls not more than 35 m. apart.

The water naturally was much troubled in being forced from different sides through that narrow passage, and I knew that there must be danger. We pulled up the canoe along some rocks 50 or 60 m. from the entrance of the channel, and I instructed two men to land and go and explore, to see what was in the channel. The top rocks in that particular spot formed innumerable little points, quite sharp, and it was painful to walk on them with bare feet.

Antonio and white Filippe, who had been instructed to go and reconnoitre, went a short distance away, where they sat themselves down behind some rocks, comfortably smoking cigarettes. After twenty minutes or so they returned and said they had gone all along the channel, and there was absolutely smooth water and no danger whatever. I was not well satisfied with their answer, but they swore they had inspected the channel thoroughly, and there was no danger. So I ordered them to enter the boat once more, and we started off.

No sooner had we turned the corner round the high rocky cliffs and entered the narrow gorge than we were confronted by a huge central wave some 40 ft. high in the channel. It was formed by the clashing waters, coming from three different directions, meeting at that spot and trying to push through simultaneously. Before we knew where we were the canoe actually flew up in the air, in an almost vertical position, to the top of that enormous wave.

Baggage, men, and dogs slid down in confusion, the canoe gliding back into the water and progressing as swift as an arrow down the channel. The next moment we were on the point of being dashed against the high rocky cliff on our right. To my amazement, and just as I was expecting the impact, the canoe only gracefully shaved the rock, the backwash which took place along the rocks shifting us once more toward the middle of the stream.

Once again the great rush of water shot us up in the air, above the central wave, and this time the canoe bucked and rode down on the other side of that foaming mass of water.

My men were terrified. "Rema! rema! (Row! row!) for Heaven's sake!" I shouted to the perplexed men, as I tried to instil into them a little courage, when within me I really thought we were lost. As I shouted those words I saw to my horror two of the paddles washed away, and as I quickly measured with my eye the length of the channel I perceived that we still had some 200 m. more of that kind of navigation before we should shoot out of that dangerous place.

Up and down we went several times on that high central wave; several times did we again shave the rocks on either side of the narrow channel. We were quite helpless, my men in chorus yelling "We are lost! we are lost!"

Alcides bravely stuck to the helm for some time, but the force of the water was so great that he was knocked down into the canoe and had to let go. When we reached the point where the narrow passage came to an end, the waters looked so diabolical that when my men shouted "We are lost! we are lost!" I could not help saying "Yes, we are!"

I held on to the canoe desperately, as we were banged about for a few seconds in a way that nearly stunned us, the waves striking me in the face with such force that it took me some moments to recover. When I did I found that we were already out of the channel and in the whirlpool, the canoe full of water but fortunately saved.

I lose most things in the world, but I never lose my patience nor my sense of humour. I could not help laughing when I looked at the expression on the faces of my dogs--an expression of terror and astonishment, as they looked first at the place from which we had emerged and then at me, which I am sure would have meant in words: "Good gracious! where in the world are you taking us?"

We had to halt as soon as convenient in order to cut some new paddles. It took my men some hours to recover from the effects of that experience.

As is generally the case after a violent emotion, a great deal of merriment was produced, my men for the rest of the day talking about the incident and reproducing in a realistic way the sounds of the rushing water and the impact of the waves against the canoe.

We found after that a great basin 3,000 m. long, 1,300 m. broad, from west to east, with a lovely sand beach 1,000 m. long on its eastern side.

At last--after all that time without meeting a soul--I came across a small tribe of Mundurucus--six of them all counted. They had their aldeja, or village, on the right side of the stream. Their chief rejoiced in the name of João. They were tiny little fellows, the tallest only 5 ft. in height. If you had met them anywhere else than in Central Brazil you would have mistaken them for Japanese, so exactly like them were they in appearance. Their faces were of a very dark yellow, almost black, with perfectly straight hair, just like the Japanese or their near cousins, the Tagalos of the Philippine Islands.

The Mundurucus were mild and gentle, soft-spoken and shy. They had all adopted Brazilian clothes. The hut of the chief was extremely clean and neat inside, the few utensils that were visible being kept in a tidy manner.

João spoke a little Portuguese. From him I was able to buy a quantity of farinha, which came in useful to us, although I had to pay an exorbitant price for it--£4 sterling for each 50 litres or thereabouts--that is to say, about 5½ pecks in English measure. The price of farinha on the coast would be less than four shillings for that quantity.

What interested me most among the Mundurucus was their strange ornamentations. The angular pattern was a great favourite with them, especially angles side by side, and the cross--which I think had been suggested, however, by their contact with Catholic missionaries farther down the river.

The rudimentary figures which they carved--merely lines for the body, legs and arms, and a dot for the head--were extraordinary because they represented the body and limbs covered with hair, done simply by minor parallel lines. I asked the Mundurucus why they represented human beings with hair, whereas they themselves were hairless on the body and face. They said it was because in ancient times all the people were hairy like monkeys.

I was strongly impressed by the difference in type between those Indians and the Bororos, and also by the great difference in their language. When later on I came in contact with the Apiacars, another tribe of Indians living on the Tapajoz River, and closely allied to the Mundurucus, I discovered that their language bore a certain resemblance, curiously enough, to that of the Maya Indians of Yucatan in Central America.

I had been so busy taking notes of all I had seen in the aldeja, that when we started once more down the river I did not at first miss my best dog, Negrino, of whom I had got very fond. We had gone some 4 or 5 kil. down the river when I discovered that my men had given it away to the Indians while I was occupied studying the geological formation of that part of the country. It was impossible to go back all those kilometres against the current to recover the poor dog. Although it gave me a great deal of pain I never for one moment let the men see it, as I knew that it was in order to hurt me that they had disposed of Negrino.

It is never right or useful to take revenge, for if you wait long enough you are always avenged by Providence. That afternoon my men saw some wild chestnuts on a tree, and they insisted on landing to pick them. They knocked down the tree, as usual, to get the chestnuts, although it was fully 3 ft. in diameter. They picked a great many of the wild chestnuts and proceeded to eat them--Alcides, much to my amazement, actually offering me one. I asked them if they knew what they were eating, as I quickly observed when the tree fell down that not a single chestnut had been touched by birds or monkeys.

I have always noticed in equatorial countries that if you never touch fruit that monkeys do not eat you will seldom get poisoned. My men said that they had never seen the fruit before, but as it looked pretty they were going to eat it, and a lot of it. So they stopped some time cracking the nuts and eating them with great delight.

When we got back to the canoe we had only gone a short distance when Filippe the negro was seized with violent pains in his inside. His eyes had become sunken, his lips were quivering, and in a moment he was seized with cramps all over the body--so much so that he collapsed.

We had to halt on a small island of rock, where we took Filippe out and I had him laid flat on his chest, he being just like a corpse. I inserted a leather strap into his throat in order to cause immediate vomiting, then I unpacked some of the castor oil which still remained in my possession--we never seemed to lose the beastly stuff--and gave him a dose powerful enough to kill an ox.

The other men were laughing all the time, saying that they felt no pain at all; but their boast did not last long, for a few moments later, while I was watching poor Filippe, Antonio and the man X threw themselves down on the rocks, rolling over and contorting themselves, evidently in most excruciating pain.

The same treatment was applied to them in turn, and I watched with great concern three men out of the six spread out helpless, and in such a dreadful condition that I really doubted whether they would be alive in another hour. I considered myself fortunate that the other three had not been poisoned.

Half an hour later--it was impossible to move on with the three men lying helpless on the rocks--Filippe the white man and Benedicto also collapsed. Again the same treatment once more.

Alcides looked at the other men with an air of contempt and said: "They are rotten fellows! They cannot eat anything without getting poisoned. I feel no pain at all; the fruit has done me no harm."

When I turned round to look at his face it had turned a lemon-yellow colour, which I did not quite like, but I did not mention the fact to him, and went about from one dejected man to another to try and bring them back to life again.

Filippe the negro opened his eyes for a moment. "I am dying!" he said. "Good-bye, sir! Please give all my money to my sweetheart in Araguary."

I noted her name and address in my book, for I really thought Filippe was about to expire.

The moans and groans all round me were most funereal, and the odour unbearable, the nuts having formed a chemical combination in their insides which made their breath most offensive. The heat in the sun was oppressive on those volcanic rocks. My bare feet were absolutely scorched as I walked on them.

Not many minutes later Alcides was rolling himself upon the rocks in intense pain. When I rushed to him to apply my favourite method he rebelled, refusing the treatment.

"Very good," I said to him; "will you live or will you die?"

"I prefer to die," said he, and proceeded to moan and groan, and also to dictate the name and address of his sweetheart in Araguary for me to pay to her the money which belonged to him.

In a way I was sorry to see my men suffering so much. I was already thinking of how I could get out of that difficult dilemma. If they had all died it would have been out of the question for me to work the huge canoe alone going down such dangerous rapids.

Some four hours were spent in deepest reflection, a little distance off from my men. I had done my best, and I could do no more for them. I returned every little while to see how they were progressing, but for the first three hours they were in so pitiful a condition that I really thought they could not possibly recover.

When Alcides was almost unconscious I applied to him also the remedy I had used for the other men.

It was only after some five hours or so that Filippe the negro began to feel a little better. Gradually one after another the men, half-dazed, were able to get up, swaying about as if badly intoxicated. They said they saw all the things in front of them moving up and down. Evidently the poison had affected their vision and also their hearing, as they said they could only hear me faintly when I spoke to them.

Late in the evening I persuaded them to get once more into the canoe, as it was not possible to camp on those rocks. We floated down--fortunately for us the river was placid for some 15 kil., and we let the current do most of the work--I steering while all my men lay flat in the bottom of the canoe. We passed along two or three beautiful islands with quantities of rubber upon them.

My men felt very bad the entire night, but by the next morning they were a little better, although in a most exhausted condition. We had a minimum temperature of 72° F. during the night of August 17th.

We had some luck that evening, for we came to the hut of a seringueiro, a negro, and his wife, who had cut down a portion of the forest near their hut and cultivated some mandioca. Their amazement at seeing us appear was curious to watch, especially when they looked at our canoe--held together with pieces of rope and stopped up with pieces of our garments.

Those poor people, stranded there without a possibility of getting away, were extremely kind. My men heard with delight that we should find no rapids of great importance from that point down stream, and that we might find a few other seringueiros on our way.

I was able to buy from the seringueiro a quantity of food, my men being overjoyed at the prospect of eating feijão again with their meals. Naturally the expense of taking food so far up the river was very great, and I was glad indeed to pay the exorbitant price which the seringueiro asked of £10 sterling for each 50 kilos of farinha; feijão at 6_s._ a pound; sugar at 5_s._ a pound--the prices which the seringueiros themselves had to pay for those commodities from the rare trading boats which once a year reached that farthermost point.

We started down stream once more, passing a tributary stream, 5 m. wide, on the left bank. We had only gone 9 kil. when to our great joy we met two trading-boats owned by a Brazilian Jew, who was on board in a critical condition from malarial fever. Although in a dying state, he had not lost his racial commercial ability. It was most interesting to watch his expiring countenance while trying to strike the best bargain possible. He sold me sixty candles for 60_s._, eight biscuits for the equivalent of 7_s._ 6_d._, and a quantity of dried meat at 5_s._ a pound.

He looked askance at us, as he could not make out who we were, what we were doing up that river, where we could have come from. At last he signed to me that he had something to whisper in my ear. He asked me if I was a runaway cashier from a bank! I told him that if I had been a runaway cashier I would certainly not come and spend my money on the Arinos-Juruena River.

The sight of human beings again--if that term could be applied indiscriminately to all we had met so far--had greatly excited my men.

Some 13 kil. farther, the river being smooth but swift, we came to a basin 700 m. broad, where the river described a turn toward the north-east. We came upon a large clearing on the hill-side on the left bank. There we saw the remains of two or three huts which had been destroyed by fire. We perceived one or two people, and we landed. We found that it was the shed of an enterprising Peruvian trader who had established himself there in order to collect rubber. Only a few days before we arrived a great fire had taken place, which had destroyed nearly all he possessed; but--fortunately for us--they had saved a few things, and I was able to purchase a quantity of rice, biscuits, dried meat, beans, farinha, condensed milk, banho (liquid lard in tins), and a number of other things, such as clothes, shirts, rope, nails, axes, etc., which we needed badly.

The Peruvian trader--of the Brothers Mori's firm--must have had a handsome store indeed at that place, a quantity of jewellery, rifles, pistols, etc., all badly injured by the fire, being seen strewn on the ground as we walked about.

The Peruvians are wonderful traders, most remarkable people for exploring unknown regions and carrying on commerce to the most distant points where human beings are found. That particular Peruvian firm had foreseen that that region will some day develop to a great extent, and they had therefore established their store at the most distant point where it was possible to navigate the river without extraordinary dangers.

The prices charged by the Peruvian, even when circumstances might have led him to put a high price on the goods he sold me, were far lower than those of the Jew in his dying moments.

The river was there 1,000 m. wide, and of amazing beauty, flowing to 30° b.m. N.N.E. for 5,000 m. in a direct line.

We had gone 30 kil. that day, and we had had so many things happen to us, we felt so rich and happy with our new purchases and with the prospect that our trials were nearly over, that when night came we had a grand meal, and slept soundly notwithstanding the swarms of mosquitoes which buzzed around us.

During the night of August 18th the minimum temperature was 71° F. During the day the temperature of the air was not much warmer--only 78° F. in the shade with a nice breeze, while 113° F. were registered in the sun.

We halted for one day in order to repair the canoe, as it was all we could do to keep her afloat, she was leaking so badly. Poor Benedicto, who had spent the last few weeks baling out the water, swore that the moment he could leave the expedition he certainly would, since he felt he should turn into a fish soon, as he had not been dry one second for the last two months.

The minimum temperature during the night of August 19th was 72° F.

When we proceeded down the river we came upon most beautiful sand beaches, one as much as 500 m. long. Quantities of most delicious tortoise eggs were to be found. Furthermore, we killed some giant tortoises. Altogether we felt that all of a sudden we had dropped from a regular inferno into a heaven on earth.

My men were paddling away with great vigour and were making rapid progress, the river flowing almost all the time northward, with deviations of a few degrees toward the east, in stretches from 2,000 to 6,000 m. in length. We crossed an immense basin 1,500 m. broad with most gorgeous sand beaches. Their formation in small dunes, occasionally with an edge like the teeth of a double comb, was most interesting. Once or twice we came to musical sands such as we had found before. Everywhere on those beaches I noticed the wonderful miniature sand plants, of which I made a complete collection.

As we went down we came to one or two seringueiros' huts, and to a store belonging to our friend the dying Jew, who rejoiced in the name of Moses. As he had taken all the stuff with him in the trading boat in order to exchange it for rubber from the collectors, he had left nothing in the store except a cheap straw hat.

As my hat by that time had lost most of its brim, and the top of it had got loose and was moving up and down in the breeze, I thought I would not lose the opportunity of getting new headgear. So the purchase was made there and then, and thus fashionably attired I started once more down stream.

We passed on the way most impressive sand banks and beaches--500, 700, and one 1,500 m. long. The river in some spots was 1,000 m. wide. A great island 4,000 m. in length--Bertino Miranda Island--was then passed, with a beautiful spit of sand 15 ft. high at its southern end. Hillocks were visible first on the left bank, then on the right. Other elongated sand accumulations of great length were found beyond the big island, one a huge tail of sand extending towards the north for 1,000 m. Beyond those accumulations the river was not less than 1500 m. across, and there an immense beach of really extraordinary beauty ran on the right side for a length of 1½ kil.

On that beach we halted for lunch. In the afternoon we continued, between banks on either side of alluvial formation, principally silts and clay, light grey in colour or white. In fact, the soil in the section directly below the higher terrace of the great central plateau of Matto Grosso, was formed by extensive alluvial accumulations which had made an immense terrace extending right across all Central Brazil from west to east, roughly speaking from the Madeira River to the Araguaya and beyond.

After we had gone some 5 kil. in a straight line from our camp to 10° b.m., we perceived a headland with a hill upon it 200 ft. high. We had been greatly troubled in the afternoon for the last two days by heavy showers of rain and gusts of a north-westerly wind. Once or twice we got entangled in channels among the many islands, and had to retrace our course, but we went on until late in the evening, my men believing firmly that we had now reached civilization again and that the journey would be over in a few days. I did not care to disillusion them.

Late at night we camped on a magnificent beach, 1,000 m. long, at the end of Araujo Island, 1,200 m. in length.

We had gone that day, August 19th, 46 kil. 500 m.

My men hung their hammocks on the edge of the forest. That camp was extremely damp and unhealthy. When we woke up the next morning all my followers were attacked by fever and were shivering with cold.

We left at 7.30 a.m. under a limpid sky of gorgeous cobalt blue. We passed two islands--one 700 m. long (Leda Island), the other 2,000 m. (Leander Island). When we had gone but 11,500 m. we arrived at one of the most beautiful bits of river scenery I have ever gazed upon--the spot where the immense S. Manoel River or Tres Barras or Paranatinga met the Arinos-Juruena. The latter river at that spot described a sharp turn from 20° b.m. to 320° b.m. We perceived a range of hills before us to the north. Close to the bank gradually appeared a large shed with a clearing near it on a high headland some 200 ft. above the level of the river where the stream turned. On the left bank, before we arrived at the meeting-place of those two giant streams, we found a tributary, the Bararati, 30 m. broad.

The S. Manoel River showed in its centre an elongated island stretching in an E.N.E. direction. Where the Arinos-Juruena met the S. Manoel it was 1,000 m. wide, the S. Manoel being 800 m. wide at the point of junction.

No sooner had we turned to 320° b.m. than we perceived on our left the collectoria of S. Manoel, with two or three neat buildings. Several astonished people rushed down to the water as they saw the canoe approaching. When I landed the Brazilian official in charge of that place and his assistants embraced me tenderly and took me inside their house. When I told them how we had come down the river, tears streamed down their cheeks, so horrified were they.

"Did you come in that log of wood?" said the collector, pointing to my canoe. I said I had. "Good gracious me!" he exclaimed. "I will not let you go another yard in that dangerous conveyance. I will confiscate it, as I need a trough for my pigs and it will just do for that purpose, and not for navigating a dangerous river like this. If you want to go on by river I will supply you with a good boat."

That was the last time I put my foot inside my canoe. I removed for good the British flag which had flown daily at her stern, and it gave me quite a serrement de coeur when I patted the poor canoe on her nose and said good-bye to her for ever. Notwithstanding her miserable appearance she had done really remarkable work.

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Chapter XVII

A Fiscal Agency--Former Atrocities--The Apiacar Indians--Plentiful Rubber--Unexploited Regions--Precious Fossils thrown away by Author's Followers--A Terrific Storm--Author's Canoe dashed to Pieces--The Mount S. Benedicto

THE State of Matto Grosso had recently established a fiscal agency at the junction of the two rivers in order to collect the tax on the rubber exported from that region. The Fiscal Agent, Mr. José Sotero Barretto, and his assistant, Mr. Julio Vieira Nery, were intelligent and polished gentlemen. Their predecessor was not like them. His barbarity, not only to the Apiacar Indians but also to the Brazilians in his employ, was almost incredible. For no reason whatever he killed men right and left, until one day as he was getting out of his canoe one of his men shot him in the back.

So much has been said of late of atrocities in the Putumayo Region that perhaps one may be allowed to say that the Putumayo Region is not the only place where atrocities have occurred. To any one not acquainted with those regions it is difficult to understand why those atrocities take place at all. Curiously enough, they are due to a large extent to medicine. Those regions are all extremely malarial. The people who are ordered there are afraid of being infected long before they start on their journey. They begin taking preventive quinine and arsenic, which renders them most irritable and ill-tempered; the solitude preys upon them, and they add to the poisoning from medicine the evil effects of excessive drinking. Add again to this that few men can manage to be brave for a long period of time, and that the brain gradually becomes unbalanced, and you have the reason why murders are committed wholesale in a stupid effort chiefly to preserve oneself.

The Apiacar Indians, I was told, were formerly much more numerous in that region than at present. Most of them had been killed off, and their women stolen. When Mr. Barretto arrived at the collectoria he had great trouble in persuading the Indians to come near him; but he has been so extremely kind to them that now the entire tribe--some twenty people--have established themselves at the collectoria itself, where they are given work to do as police, rubber collectors, and agriculturists combined. Mr. Barretto and his assistant were much respected and loved by the natives. Unlike his predecessor, he treated them with the greatest consideration and generosity.

Mr. Barretto furnished me with an interesting table showing the amount of production and export of rubber from that district for the year 1910. From this table it appears that from May 3rd to December 31st 30,356 kil. of the finest quality rubber, 10,153 kil. of sernamby (or scrap rubber), 4,858 kil. of caoutchouc, and 30,655 kil. of sernamby caoutchouc--altogether a total of 76,022 kil.--passed through the collectoria on the Matto Grosso side, which does not include the opposite side of the river, belonging to the Province of Para, where another collectoria has been established. That quantity of rubber had been collected by some eighty people, all told, including the local Indians.

It was impossible to get labour up that river. The few seringueiros, chiefly negroes who were there in absolute slavery, had been led and established by their masters up the river, with no chance of getting away. Their masters came, of course, every year to bring down the rubber that had been collected. Twenty times the quantity could easily be brought down to the coast if labour were obtainable. Not only was the Juruena River itself almost absolutely untouched commercially--as we have seen, we did not meet a soul during the fifty days we navigated it--but even important tributaries close to S. Manoel, such as the Euphrasia, the São Thomé, the São Florencio, the Misericordia, and others, were absolutely desert regions, although the quantity of rubber to be found along those streams must be immense. The difficulty of transport, even on the Tapajoz--from the junction of the two rivers the Juruena took the name of Tapajoz River--was very great, although the many rapids there encountered were mere child's play in comparison with those we had met with up above. In them, nevertheless, many lives were lost and many valuable cargoes disappeared for ever yearly. The rubber itself was not always lost when boats were wrecked, as rubber floats, and some of it was generally recovered. The expense of a journey up that river was enormous; it took forty to sixty days from the mouth of the Tapajoz to reach the collectoria of S. Manoel. Thus, on an average the cost of freight on each kilo (about 2 lb.) of rubber between those two points alone was not less than sevenpence or eightpence.

As the River Tapajoz is extremely tortuous and troublesome, I think that some day, in order to exploit that region fully, it will be found necessary to cut a road through the forest from S. Manoel to one of the tributaries of the Madeira, such as the River Secundury-Canuma, from which the rubber could be taken down to the Amazon in a few days.

From the point of junction of the River Tres Barras or S. Manoel and the Juruena, the river was fairly well known. It was partly in order to ascertain whether the project of the road from S. Manoel to the Madeira were feasible, that I decided to leave the river and cross the forest due west as far as the Madeira River.

I spent two or three most delightful days enjoying the generous hospitality of Mr. Barretto. I was able to purchase from him a quantity of provisions, enough to last us some three months, and consisting of tinned food, rice, beans, farinha, sugar, coffee, and dried meat.

Mr. Barretto kindly arranged to send his assistant, Mr. Julio Nery, and three Apiacar Indians in order to help me along during the first two or three days of our journey into the forest.

As I should be travelling on foot from that point across virgin forest, and we should have to carry whatever baggage we had, it was necessary for me to abandon all the things which were not of absolute importance, so as to make the loads as light as possible.

I left behind at S. Manoel a tent, some of my rifles, a quantity of cartridges, etc., the only articles I took along with me besides provisions being my cameras, instruments, the photographic plates already exposed, with some two hundred plates for further work, and the geological and botanical collections, which by that time had got to be valuable.

As I was unpacking the different cases in order to sort out the baggage, I came to the box where I expected to find the precious fossil human skull and the vertebræ I had discovered in Matto Grosso. To my horror the fossils were to be found nowhere. I asked Alcides and the other men, and pressed them for an answer. I received a terrible blow indeed when they confessed that nearly a month before, one night while I was asleep, they had taken the valuable possessions and had flung them into the river. Their excuse was that the loads were heavy enough in carting baggage along the rapids, and they would not be burdened with what they called "stupid stones."

This last bit of infamy turned me so much against my men that I could not bear the sight of them. It will be easily understood that when you go to such great expense and risk as I did in obtaining valuable material, and had obtained it, to be deprived of it through the ignorance and meanness of one's own men, who were treated with the greatest generosity from beginning to end, was certainly most exasperating. In a half-hearted way I packed up all the other things and made ready to continue the journey. The contempt I had for my men from that day, nevertheless, made it quite painful to me to be in their company. At S. Manoel the men gave me no end of trouble. Benedicto refused to go on any longer. The other men wanted to halt there for a month in order to recuperate their strength. Filippe the negro was drunk, and slept all the time we were there.

I know too well that on expeditions it is fatal to halt anywhere; therefore I was anxious to push on at once. The night before our departure Mr. Barretto gave a grand dinner-party in my honour, long speeches being read out by him and his assistant, when we sat down on rough wooden benches and packing-cases to a most elaborate meal of fried fish, grilled fish, boiled fish, tortoise eggs--quantities of them--stewed pork and roast pork. A whole sucking-pig adorned the table. The greatest happiness reigned that night at table, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Barretto for his exquisite kindness during the two or three days I was his guest. My men were also asked to the banquet, and had a good fill. But I felt extremely sad, quite broken-hearted, over the loss of the fossils, and I could really enjoy nothing notwithstanding outward appearances.

After dinner, when my men had retired, Mr. Barretto and his assistant expressed great surprise at my not having been murdered by my followers before then. They said that in their whole experience they had never come across such impossible creatures. They could not understand how the Governor of Goyaz could possibly let me start in such company. They seemed most anxious for me, as some of my men had evidently, while drunk, spoken at the collectoria and said things which had greatly upset and frightened the fiscal agent.

Three days after my arrival in S. Manoel I was ready to depart, having conceived a plan to go some 60 kil. farther by river to a point from where I would strike due west across the forest as far as the Madeira River. I was just about to go on board the boat placed at my disposal by Mr. Barretto, when a terrific storm broke out, with lightning and thunder, and a howling wind which blew with fury, raising high waves in the river--very wide at that point. It was a wonderful spectacle, with the river in commotion and the dazzling flashes of lightning across the inky sky. Amidst it I saw my faithful canoe being dashed mercilessly by the waves time after time against some sharp rocks, until she broke in two and foundered. I was sorry to see her disappear, for she had served me well.

When after a couple of hours the storm cleared, I took my departure, on August 24th. During my stay at S. Manoel I had taken observations for latitude (7° 16'·9 S.), longitude (58° 34' W.), and elevation (601 ft. a.s.l. on the river, 721 ft. at the collectoria).

Just across the river, at the mouth of the Tres Barras, was the collectoria for the State of Pará. The Pará seringueiros worked on the Rio Tres Barras and its tributaries on its right side--that is to say, the Annipirí, the Igarapé Preto, the Cururu, and another (nameless) stream. There were, perhaps, altogether some eighty or a hundred seringueiros, all told, working in that immense region on the Pará side. In the year 1910, 90,000 kil. of rubber were collected by those few seringueiros, and in the year 1911 a slightly larger amount was sent down the river from that point. The Pará Fiscal Agency was only established there on December 11th, 1910. The collectoria was situated in a most beautiful spot on a high point overlooking the mouth of the Tres Barras, and directly facing the Juruena-Arinos. On the Juruena previous to reaching S. Manoel on the left side was a stream in which gold was to be found.

Amid the affectionate farewells of Mr. Barretto I left S. Manoel in a beautiful boat belonging to the fiscal agent. The effects of light on the water were wonderful after the storm. The river, immensely wide, flowed in a N.N.W. direction, then due north in great straight stretches from 2 to 4 kil. in length. As we had left late in the afternoon we were not able to go far. We passed some beautiful islands, one particularly of immense length, with an extensive sandy beach at its southern end. After going some 18 kil. we came to a great barrier of rocks extending across the river from south-west to north-east. Some distance below those rocks a great sand-bank spread half-way across the stream.

We halted for the night at the fazenda of Colonel Gregorio, a seringueiro from whom I expected to get an Indian who knew the forest well and who could be of some assistance to me in going across it. The house of Col. Gregorio--a mere big shed--was a regular armoury, a great many rifles of all ages, sizes, and shapes adorning the walls; then there were fishing spears and harpoons, vicious-looking knives and axes. In the principal room was a large altar with a carved figure of the Virgin standing with joined hands before lighted candles and a bottle of green peppermint. The latter was not an offering to the sacred image, but it was placed on the revered spot so that none of Gregorio's men should touch it. Enormous balls of rubber filled the greater portion of the floor, waiting to be taken down the river.

With great trouble the Indian--a man called Miguel--was induced to accompany me; also a young boy, who, at a salary of 15_s._ a day, agreed to act as carrier.

It was not until late in the afternoon on August 25th that we left the fazenda in order to proceed down the stream. We passed the tributary river Roncador on the left side, with its beautiful high waterfall a short distance before it enters the Tapajoz. We came soon afterwards to the island of S. Benedicto, south of which on the left bank was the hill of the Veado, 120 ft. high. Directly in front of the island, also on the left bank, was the Mount of S. Benedicto, where legends say an image of that saint exists carved out by nature in the high rocky cliff.

As we passed under the hill our crew fired several volleys in honour of the saint; then we landed and I climbed up to go and see the wonderful image. Many candles had been burnt on a platform of rock on the cliff side, and the sailors who came up with me brought a new supply of stearine and set them ablaze on that natural altar. The men pointed out to me the figure of the saint, but with all the best intentions in the world I could see no resemblance whatever to a human being.

"There it is! there it is!" they shouted, as I twisted my head one way and the other to see if I could find a point of view from which I could see the saint. The men knelt down and prayed fervently for some minutes, as they believed it was necessary to pay these signs of respect in order to ensure a good journey down the river. Some went as far as to tear off pieces of their garments and leave them on the rocky platform as offerings.

The eastern face of the S. Benedicto Mount was a vertical wall 200 ft. high in horizontal strata of a deep grey colour, and some 300 m. in length along the river.

We had wasted so much time, and the men rowed so badly, that we made poor progress. We only went 21 kil. that day. We halted for the night near a seringueiro's hut at the small rapid of Meia Carga, or Half-charge Rapid, because at low water the boats have to be half unloaded in order to get over that spot.

The minimum temperature during the night was 69° F. We slept in the boat, and were simply devoured by mosquitoes. The chief of the Indians who had been lent me by the Fiscal Agent became seriously ill during the night with a severe attack of fever. All my men, with no exception, also became ill, and were shivering with cold, owing to fever. The chief of the police, Luiz Perreira da Silva, who had been placed by Mr. Barretto in charge of the Indians who were to accompany me, in jumping from the boat that night on to the shore hurt his foot, the pain caused by that slight injury giving him also a severe attack of fever. So that of the entire crew there remained only two men in good health--viz. Mr. Julio Nery and myself.

Amid moans and groans we got the boat under way at 6.45 the next morning, the men paddling in a half-hearted manner. As the current was strong we drifted down fairly quickly in a northerly direction, the river there being in a perfectly straight line for some 8,000 m. The width of the river was 1,300 m.

Behind a little island on the left side, and approached through a circle of dangerous rocks, was the hut of a seringueiro called Albuquerque, a man in the employ of Colonel Brazil, the greatest rubber trader on the river Tapajoz. We landed at that point and made preparations so that I could start at once on the journey on foot across the virgin forest.

The loads the men were to carry were not heavy--merely from 35 to 40 lb. each--the heaviest load being the one I carried, so as to give a good example to my men. We had ample provisions to last us, with a little economy, three months. When the moment arrived to depart there was not one man who could stand up on his legs; the policeman with his injured foot could not even land from the boat, as it gave him so much pain. The chief of the Indians was so ill with the fever and the medicine he had taken that he really looked as if he might not survive. The other Indians refused to leave their chief; while the Indian Miguel, whom I had employed subsequently, flatly refused to come along. Much time was wasted talking, Mr. Nery, a fluent speaker, haranguing the men, who lay around helpless, holding their heads between their hands or rolling themselves on the ground.

It is extraordinary how many ailments fright can produce.

The accounts of the forest which I had heard in the neighbourhood were most conflicting. It was really impossible to tell beforehand what the crossing overland between the Tapajoz and the Madeira River would be like. In order to encourage my own men I had once more increased their pay for the extra hard work I required of them on that occasion, and I promised them each a further present of money if they succeeded in carrying all the loads safely as far as the Madeira River.

They had agreed to do the work, but unfortunately they were the most unpractical men I have ever come across, and insisted on carrying the loads in a way which made it impossible for them to carry them for any long distance. For instance, one man insisted on carrying a heavy wooden packing-case slung on one side of the body just over the hip, in the fashion in which Italians carry barrel-organs in the streets of cities; another man suspended a case on his back by a strap which went round his neck, so that after a few minutes he was absolutely strangled; while Filippe the negro let his load hang so low that it would certainly cause a bad sore on his spine. I tried to teach them, but it was no use, as it only led to a row. Absolutely disgusted with the whole crowd of them, late that afternoon of August 26th I made ready to start on our difficult journey.

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Chapter XVIII

Starting across the Virgin Forest--Cutting the Way incessantly--A Rugged, Rocky Plateau--Author's Men throw away the Supplies of Food--Attacked by Fever--Marching by Compass--Poisoned--Author's Men break down--Author proceeds across Forest endeavouring to reach the Madeira River--A Dramatic Scene

BY three o'clock in the afternoon I had been able to induce the Indian Miguel, his friend the carrier, and three other Apiacar Indians to come along with us for a few days in order to carry the heavier packages as far as possible into the forest, so that I could spare my men.

It was some relief to me--although I saw plainly that we should surely have disaster sooner or later--when one after the other my men took up their loads and started off. I gave them the correct direction with the compass, almost due west; in fact, to make it easier for them I told them that afternoon to travel in the direction of the sun.

With Filippe the negro at the head my own men started off at a rapid pace, the others following, while I was at the tail of the procession in order to see that no stragglers remained behind. For a short distance we found an old picada which went practically in the direction we wanted, so my men followed it, only cutting when necessary the vegetation which had grown up here and there.

I had only gone a few hundred metres when I saw the ground a little way off our track covered with some white substance. With my usual curiosity I went to see what it was, and found to my disgust a large quantity of rice which had evidently been scattered about there a few moments before. A few yards farther was another patch of white upon the ground, as if it had snowed. A whole sack of flour had been emptied and scattered about in such a way that it could not be recovered.

I well knew what was happening. My men were throwing away everything in order to make the loads lighter. So relieved of the weight, they had got far ahead, while the Apiacar Indians who had remained behind were behaving in so strange a fashion that I had to stay in charge of them, so that they should not escape with the boxes of instruments and collections which they were carrying for me.

We went that afternoon some 6 kil. through fairly clean forest, barring a few obstacles such as huge, ancient, fallen trees, the insides of which were all rotted away or eaten up by ants. In one of the cavities of those trees I found another quantity of food which had been hidden by my men. Hampered by the Indians, who were giving me no end of trouble as they refused to carry their loads, it took me some little time to catch up with my other men. When I did I found them all seated, smacking their lips. They were filling their mouths as fast as they could with handfuls of sugar. When I reprimanded them there was an unpleasant row. They said they were not beasts of burden, that men were not made to carry, and that therefore they had thrown away all the food. Under no circumstance would they carry loads any farther.

A great deal of tact and persuasion were required. Alcides had discarded nearly all the stuff he carried, and was one of the chief offenders on that occasion.

Matters looked bad. We camped that night near a little streamlet at the point where it had its birth. We still had plenty of food left, notwithstanding what they had thrown away. I warned them that if they threw away any more we should certainly all die of starvation. During the night one of the Indians ran away carrying with him a quantity of our provisions.

On August 27th I once more proceeded on the march westward, this time with no picada at all to follow, but cutting our way all the time through the forest. Mr. Julio Nery, who had been sent with me, was an enthusiastic and brave man, but in trying to help made us waste a great deal of energy and time. After marching eight hours we had only gone 10 kil. in the right direction, having made many deviations in order to find what he called a more suitable way. We travelled occasionally over thickly wooded, slightly undulating country, but generally the land was flat.

In the afternoon, when we arrived at the foot of a small hill, we were caught in a drenching storm, the foliage letting the water down upon us in profusion. The walking became heavy. In order to make the loads lighter, my men had removed from the packages the waterproof coverings I had made for them from waterproof sheets. The result was that in that storm nearly our entire supply of salt--some 50 lb. of it--was lost. The powdered sugar, too, suffered considerably, and became a solid sticky mass.

We arrived at a stream 10 m. broad flowing from north to south, where we had to halt, as my men said they were absolutely exhausted and could not go another step. The water of that stream was simply delicious. We killed a monkey, which my men ate eagerly for dinner.

On August 28th we left that stream at eight o'clock. We were confronted by a succession of steep hills with vertical rocks of immense size, on the summit of which were great slabs also of rock, not unlike angular roofs of houses. It was most difficult, I confess, for my men to take the loads up and down those giant rocks, especially as there were many fallen trees among them and the rocks themselves were extremely slippery.

It would not do to repeat in these pages the language of my men as they scrambled up and rolled down the numerous rocks--falling so clumsily that they always managed to injure themselves more or less. I was sorry for my loads, especially the instruments, which got knocked about in a pitiful way.

We came across three distinct hill ranges of that type, over which we had to travel, the highest point being some 300 ft. above the level of the Tapajoz River. The last bit in particular of that hilly region was diabolically steep, with loose rocks which gave us no end of trouble. A beautiful little streamlet flowing east descended in cascades among those huge rocks. Eventually we reached the summit of the plateau, a huge flat expanse of dark red volcanic rock. My men were so tired that we had to camp on that elevation. Nothing but a few shrubs grew in the interstices of that great table of rock, which extended for several kilometres to the north. The barrier of rock, a spur of the great central plateau, was very interesting from a geological point of view.

On August 29th we again marched westward, cutting our way through the forest, and found two streamlets--one flowing south, the other north. Late in the afternoon we arrived at a spot where there was another great mass of rock, most troublesome for us. My men were discontented, saying that when they agreed to march through the forest they had not agreed to march over rocks--as if I had placed these there on purpose to annoy them. They were extremely morose. I knew by their manner that I had fresh trouble in store.

In the centre of that second immense table of rock I found a few pools of putrid rain-water in cavities. My men wanted to halt there, but I induced them to march along in hopes of finding a stream at the bottom of the tableland. Unluckily we went on and on until the evening and we found no more water at all. Only a torrential shower came upon us during the night, and we were able to fill our cups with water to quench our thirst. Men and baggage got soaked in that storm. The loads were much heavier to carry the next morning.

On August 30th, when I called the men in order to make a start, two of them were attacked severely by fever, their temperature being 103°. They seemed to be in agony, and had no strength left.

Mr. Julio Nery said that his duties called him back to his post, and he must return with the Indians under his charge. He accompanied me up to lunch-time, when we all together had a hearty meal. After lunch I gave Mr. Nery and his men ample provisions to return to the river Tapajoz, where the boat was awaiting them. Not only that, but I presented Mr. Nery with a handsome rifle and a watch, in remembrance of his politeness to me. In order that he might have a pleasant journey back I also gave him the few tins of delicacies which I had brought for myself, the only four tins of condensed milk I had been able to obtain in S. Manoel, and a few tins of sardines which had remained from my provisions I had taken over from England, and which he liked very much.

It was a great trial to me to see how my men wasted food all the time. When I examined the loads once more I found that nearly the entire supply of flour, farinha, rice, lard, and much of the tinned stuff had been thrown away. We had been marching four and a half days, and out of the three months' provisions we only had food enough left to last us a few days.

With my reduced party of my six original men, the Indian Miguel and his friend the carrier--eight altogether--I started once more in a westerly direction, opening a picada--that is to say, cutting our way through the forest.

We crossed two streamlets flowing north. After that we came upon a most troublesome patch of swampy land with high reeds in it, the leaves of which cut our hands like razors when we forced our way through them, struggling in mud and slush up to our knees, sometimes as high as our waists. A streamlet flowing north formed the marsh in that low place. The moment we had got out of the marsh the men threw themselves down and said they could go no farther. I pointed out to them that that spot was most unhealthy, and tried to persuade them to go some distance from that pestilential place. But they would not listen to reason, and there they would stay.

Although I had offered them every possible inducement to come on--their original high pay had been practically trebled as long as the hard work should last--and I had treated them with the greatest consideration, yet they refused to come any farther. They said they had decided to go back.

In examining my loads I found that they had abandoned my sextant and other instruments in the forest, and it was only after a great deal of talking that I could induce the man X to go back with me to recover them, for which service he received an immediate present of one pound sterling.

As luck would have it, that evening my men shot a plump jaho (Crypturus notivagus) and a large mutum (Crax pinima), two enormous birds, most excellent to eat.

That camp was stifling, the moisture being excessive, and the miasma rising from the putrid water poisoning my men in a disastrous way. The drinking-water, too, from that swamp was full of germs of all sizes, so big that with the naked eye you could see hundreds of them in your cup. We could not boil the water because all our matches had got wet. We wasted hundreds of them in trying to light a fire, but with no success. Flint and steel also proved useless, because the wood was also soaking wet and would not ignite.

August 31st was a painful day for me. Two of the men were badly laid up with fever, the others were most obnoxious. I had endless trouble in making them take up their loads and start once more. The man X said he would take the load which contained my instruments, but he would certainly leave it, as soon as he had an opportunity, concealed in a spot where it could not be found again. I told him in plain words that if he carried out his intention I would shoot him dead, and I would from that moment do the same to any other man who rebelled. I was surprised to find that the lot of them took their loads upon their shoulders and proceeded to march along as quietly as possible.

The Brazilian forest was--unlike the equatorial forest of Africa--comparatively clean underneath, there being very little undergrowth. It was quite easy to cut one's way through if one knew how. There was a great art in cutting one's way through the forest. If you happened to know the way trees grew or liane were suspended, it was easy enough to cut them with one sharp blow of the large knives. But if you did not happen to know the formation of the trees and you struck them the wrong way, you had to hit them many times before you knocked them down. The same thing and worse happened with liane, which could be severed easily with one stroke if it were applied the right way, but which wound round and entangled you in a merciless manner if hit at a wrong angle.

No observant person, however, experiences trouble in marching through the Brazilian forest, and if not hindered by impossible followers it would be quite easy to march long distances daily in any part of the forest without much inconvenience.

This statement only applies to the actual marching, and does not at all mean that you had not to go through severe sufferings and endless trials of other kinds. Unless you were careful where you were sitting, you found yourself spiked by thorns of great length which were strewn all over the forest hidden under the thick carpet of discarded foliage from the trees. Not only that, but the moment you sat down your body was simply invaded by swarms of ants of all sizes and degrees of viciousness, which proceeded to bite you all over with considerable vigour. There were not many mosquitoes where the forest was dense, but there were millions--in fact, milliards--of bees, which rendered your life absolutely unbearable, as they clung to your face, hands and clothes. Fortunately, they did not sting, but clinging with their claws upon your skin they produced such an irritation that you were nearly driven mad by it.

Then there were fetid bugs of huge size, the sickening odour of which when they touched you had quite a nauseating effect. They seemed to have a particular fondness for settling upon your lips or entering your mouth. When by mishap you swallowed them, their taste was something too appalling. Once or twice while I was eating I had the misfortune to crack one or two under my teeth. I had the bad taste of them in my mouth for hours after.

When we halted for lunch my men were in a shocking condition. I could not quite understand what had happened. Most of them seemed to suffer from violent internal inflammation accompanied by high fever.

In order to make things as easy as possible for them I once more rearranged the loads that afternoon, abandoning six hundred rifle cartridges, several tins of hyposulphite of soda, other chemicals, all the developing trays, etc., for my photographic work, and a number of valuable trinkets I had collected. Much to my sorrow I had also to abandon the geological collection, which was too heavy to be carried any farther. Then I had to abandon all the books which were necessary for working out my astronomical observations, such as Norrie's Navigation and The Nautical Almanac, and all possible articles which were not absolutely necessary.

After I had gone to the great trouble of unpacking everything in order to make the loads lighter, I was surprised to discover, a few minutes later, that the men had appropriated most of the stuff and shoved it back in their loads--in order, perhaps, to sell it when they got to Manaos.

I said nothing, as it suited me very well. I should have gladly repurchased the things from them on the way. One man opened a tin of powdered hyposulphite and, believing it to be powdered sugar, proceeded to pour it down his throat. Had I the bad habit of making puns, I should say that I just saved him in time from being "fixed" for good. As it was he swallowed some, and became very ill indeed for some hours.

We luckily killed a big mutum and two monkeys before leaving that camp, but my men were so ill that they left them on the ground, saying they had not the strength to carry them so that we might eat them for dinner. Well knowing what was in store for us, I proceeded to carry the huge bird (much larger than a big turkey) and one of the monkeys (as big as a child three years old) upon my shoulders.

It was all I could do to struggle along under the heavy load, as I already carried upon my person some 24 lb. in weight of gold, silver, other moneys, and instruments, while on my shoulders hung a weight of some 40 lb. Add to that the big bird and the monkey, and altogether the weight was certainly not less than 90 lb. I was simply smothered under it.

We suffered a good deal that day from lack of water and from the intense heat. There seemed to be no air in the forest, and our breathing was heavy. Each time a man fell down and refused to go on I had to put down my load, go to his assistance and persuade him to get up again. It was a most trying experience.

After going some eight hours without finding a drop of water, our throats absolutely parched with thirst, we luckily came upon some solveira trees, which, when incised, exuded most excellent milk--only, of course, it dropped down tantalizingly slowly, while we were cruelly thirsty, especially my men in their feverish state. It was curious to see them all clinging to the tree with their mouths applied to the wounds in order to suck the milk.

Some way farther on we came across some rubber trees--which fact made us joyful, as we knew water would then be near. In fact, a kilometre beyond, water of a deep reddish yellow colour was found in a streamlet 10 m. wide, flowing north.

We halted on the western bank. We had been cutting through the forest the entire day. My men were simply exhausted. I, too, was glad when I put down the bird and the monkey--particularly as they had a pungent odour, quite typical of wild animals of Brazil, which affected my nose for some hours afterwards. Also they were covered with parasites, which caused violent itching on my neck and shoulders, on which they had been resting.

I had marched all the time, compass in hand, next to the man who with the large knife opened the way through the forest. We had travelled all day--cutting, cutting all the time--and by the evening we had gone about 10 kil.--that is to say, at the rate of a little over 1 kil. an hour.

The yellow water of the stream--it looked just like strong tea, and tasted of everything in the world except water--had not a beneficial effect upon my men. For some reason of their own the men, who seldom took a bath in the clean rivers, insisted on bathing in those coloured waters, which, I might also add, were just then almost stagnant in that particular section of the stream.

Personally, I had taken out a large cup full of water before they had gone to bathe, and avoided drinking again; but my men drank that water, made dirtier by their immersion and the use of soap--my soap, too!

The next morning all had excruciating headaches. Their legs dangled, and they did not seem to be able to stand on them. Only the Indian--Miguel--seemed to have any strength left. He was a nasty-looking individual, always sulky and pensive as if under some great weight upon his conscience. Miguel and I walked in front, he with a big knife opening the way in the forest for the others to come behind.

Just before leaving camp on September 1st I had gone some distance up the yellow stream in order to get a last drink in case we found no other water that day. The Indian, who was supposed to know the forest well, knew nothing whatever, and always misled me whenever I asked for information.

A few minutes after we had left, I was seized with violent shivers, my teeth chattered, and I felt quite as frozen as if I had suddenly dropped in the Arctic regions. Evidently I had been poisoned by the water. I collapsed under my load, and for some moments I could not get up again. Although I had spent all my time and energy helping everybody else to get up when in difficulty, not one of my men came near me to unfasten the loads from my shoulders or help me to get up on my legs again. They merely squatted a little way off when they saw that I had collapsed, and proceeded to roll up their cigarettes and smoke.

True, I did not let my men suspect that I was very ill. After a few minutes I struggled up once more under my heavy load and asked the men to come along. I had been seized with such a violent attack of fever that my strength seemed to have vanished all of a sudden, my limbs quivering in a most alarming way. I carried a clinical thermometer on my person. My temperature was 104° F. From ten o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon the attack of fever was so acute that several times I fell down. My men, who were in a pitiable condition that day, collapsed, now one, now another, although their loads were less than half the weight of mine, each man carrying about 40 lb. We marched until four o'clock that afternoon, but only covered a distance of 6 kil. in that entire day. Two of the men had abandoned their loads altogether, as they could not carry them any farther. What vexed me considerably was that they had discarded my valuable things in preference to leaving the great weight of rubbish of their own which they insisted on carrying, such as looking-glasses, combs, brushes, a number of old clothes in shreds, and the heavy hammocks, which weighed not less than 20 lb. each.

We found water in a streamlet which formed a marsh. There my men insisted on making camp. It was a most unhealthy spot. Ill as I was, I endeavoured to induce them to come on a little farther and see if we could improve on that halting-place. Miguel, the Indian, who had slightly scratched his finger, now refused to cut the picada any longer, as he said the pain was intense. It was only by giving him a present of money that I had succeeded in leading the man on until we reached the marsh.

Curiously enough, the man X, who was the champion rascal of the crowd, proved himself that day to be the best of the whole lot. He even went back with me to try and recover some of the most important things from the loads which the men had abandoned some 2 kil. before we had made our camp.

As we stumbled along we could not even lean against the trees to have a little rest, as most of them had thousands of horizontal thorns of great length sticking out all around them. Innumerable thorns were upon the ground. Our feet were full of them. I looked all the time where I was putting my feet, but sometimes the thorns were hidden under masses of dried foliage, and they were so long and so strong that they went clean through the sides of my shoes.

The last blow came to me that evening, when my men informed me that we had no food whatever left. All that remained of our three months' provisions were six tins of sardines and one tin of anchovies. That was all. My men made no secret of having thrown away everything as we came along. The sugar, for which they had a perfect craving, they had eaten, consuming in the last two days the entire supply of 30 lb., which had remained until then. It was then that I understood the cause of the internal inflammation from which they all suffered. They were greatly excited, and demanded the balance of their money, not wishing to come on any more; they wanted to fall back on the River Tapajoz and go home. There was a riot. They threatened to shoot me if I insisted on their coming on.

Just then a big black monkey appeared upon a tree, inquisitively watching our doings. The man X shot it. A moment later a big jaho was brought down, also by the man X, who was the best shot of the party. My men were never too ill to eat. They immediately proceeded to skin the poor monkey and pluck the feathers from the bird, in order to prepare a hearty meal. But they complained that they had no feijão, and no coffee after their dinner. When we started a few days before we had a supply of 40 lb. of coffee.

Feasting on the meat did not seem to be a good remedy for internal inflammation and fever. The next morning my men were really in a precarious condition. I saw that it was out of the question for them to continue. Personally, I would certainly not go back. I came to an understanding with them that I would leave sufficient ammunition for them to shoot with, as there seemed to be plenty of game in that particular part of the forest. We would divide equally what provisions we had--that is to say, three tins of sardines for each party. I would also give them sufficient money for one of them, or two, to fall back on the river and purchase provisions for the entire party. I made them promise that they should remain in charge of my baggage, most of which I would leave with them at that spot, while I, with two men, would go right across the forest as far as the Madeira River, where I would endeavour to get fresh men and new provisions.

The men agreed to this. As I could not trust any of them, I took the precaution to take along with me all my notebooks and the maps I had made of the entire region we had crossed, four hundred glass negatives which I had taken and developed, a number of unexposed plates, a small camera, my chronometer, one aneroid, a sextant, a prismatic compass, one other compass, and a number of other things which were absolutely necessary. The rest of the baggage I left at that spot. I begged the men to take special care of the packages. All I asked of them was to prop them up on stones so that the termites and ants should not destroy my possessions, and to make a shed with palm leaves so as to protect the packages as much as possible from the rain. The men promised to do all this faithfully. We drew lots as to who were to be the two to accompany me on the difficult errand across the virgin forest. Fate selected Filippe the negro and Benedicto, both terribly ill.

We had no idea whatever what the distance would be between that point and the Madeira River. It might take us a few days to get there; it might take us some months. All the provisions we of the advance party should have to depend upon were the three tins of sardines and the tin of anchovies--the latter had remained in our possession when we tossed up as to which of the two parties should have it. The Indian Miguel was induced at the last moment to come also, and with him came the carrier his friend.

Early on September 2nd I was ready to start, and roused poor Filippe and Benedicto, who were in a shocking state. Without a word of farewell from the men we left behind, and for whom we were about to sacrifice our lives perhaps, we started on our dangerous mission. The Indian Miguel and myself walked in front, cutting the way all the time, while I held my compass in hand so as to keep the correct direction west. Considering all, we marched fairly well.

It was curious to note how difficult it was for men to travel in a straight line while cutting a way through the forest. I noticed that the Indian, when cutting his way through, using the knife in his right hand, would gradually veer to the right, so that if you let him go long enough he would describe a regular circle and come back to his original starting-point. If he cut the way with the left hand, the tendency would be to keep to the left all the time until he had described a circle that way. That was not characteristic of that man only, but of nearly all the men I met in Brazil when making a picada. It was therefore necessary to keep constant watch with the compass so that the deviation should be as small as possible during the march.

We had gone but a short distance from camp when we came to a streamlet of the most delicious water. I had suffered a great deal from thirst the day before. We had been so poisoned by the yellow water of the stream that I did not like to try more experiments at the marsh where my men insisted on making camp. So that now I really enjoyed a good drink of the limpid water. That day we found too much water. On going 1 kil. farther, about 4 kil. from camp, we found another wider and equally delicious streamlet, 2 m. wide. All the streams we met flowed in a northerly direction.

We walked and walked the entire day, until 6 p.m., covering a distance of 26 kil. The Indian Miguel worried me the whole day, saying that cutting the picada was heavy work and he could not go on, as his finger was hurting him, and the pay he received--£1 sterling a day--was too small for the work he had to do. I had to keep constant watch on him, as he was a man of a slippery nature, and I did not know what he might do from one moment to another. Also he said we were simply committing suicide by trying to go through the virgin forest, as we should meet thousands of Indians who would attack us, and we had no chance of escape. I needed this man and his companion to carry my sextant and the unexposed photographic plates, some two hundred of them, which were of considerable weight.

That night, when we made camp, Miguel shot a fine jacú (Penelope cristata), and we had a meal. Soon after a regular downpour came upon us, making us feel most uncomfortable. At about eight o'clock, however, the rain stopped. With a great deal of trouble we were able to light a fire, while the wet leaves of the trees kept on dropping water on us and making a peculiar rustling noise on the carpet of dead foliage on the ground.

By the light of that fire a weird and almost tragic scene took place. Miguel came up to me, and said in a dramatic tone that for the sake of his wife and children I must let him go back, as we were marching to sure death. If I did not let him go back ... here he took his forehead between his hands--"God help me!" he said, and he burst into tears. He said he did not wish for his pay, as he had not fulfilled his contract. Whatever he had on his person he was willing to give me if I would only let him go back. I said I wished him to keep all his possessions, and as he did not wish to go along with me I would certainly let him go back the next morning. He would then also receive the pay according to the time he had been with me. Miguel went back near the fire, where he cried for some time. Accustomed to deal with Brazilians, I perceived that Miguel thought my promises too good to be true.

When leaving the last camp I had improvised for myself a kind of hammock with some straps and a waterproof canvas sheet which I had cut out of one of my tents. I was lying in that hammock thinking, when I saw Miguel get up, and, screening his eyes with his hand, look fixedly my way. I pretended to be asleep.

Miguel--who, by the way, was a Christian--took the dagger from his waist and walking to a large tree scratched a cross upon its bark. Then, sticking the knife with force into the tree, he clasped his hands over its handle, and bent his head over it, muttering some prayers. Twice--perhaps thinking he was being observed--he turned round towards me, and when he did so the expression on his face, lighted by the flickering flame, was really ghastly.

He prayed for some ten minutes, then, with the dagger in his hand, he walked cautiously towards my hammock. He was within 3 metres of me when I jumped up, seizing Filippe's rifle, which I had placed by my side in the hammock. With the butt I struck the Indian a violent blow in the chest.

He stumbled back, dropped his knife and went down on his knees touching my feet with his trembling hands and begging my pardon. Again came more sobs and tears; again more entreaties to be discharged. I got up and confiscated his rifle and all his cartridges, as well as the knife, then sent him to his hammock to sleep. The next morning I would see what I could do.

I saw clearly that it was no use taking on a man like that, who added to my other trials somewhat of a mental strain. The next morning, before sunrise, we were up again. I gave Miguel and his friend their full salaries up to date and sent them back. I handed him his rifle and cartridges, which were his own possessions, but I kept the knife as a memento.

Even when treating men generously in Brazil you had always to beware of treachery. I told Miguel and his friend to walk straight ahead and not turn round. I warned Miguel not to unsling his rifle from his shoulders until he had walked half a league. If he did while still in sight of me I would put a bullet through him. I said it and I meant it.

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Chapter XIX

Benedicto and Filippe show Courage--Confronted with a Mountainous Country--Steep Ravines--No Food--Painful Marches--Starving--Ammunition rendered useless by Moisture--The "pros" and "cons" of Smoking--A Faint Hope--A Forged Tin which should have contained Anchovies--Curious Effects of Starvation upon the Brain--Where Money is of no Avail--Why there was Nothing to eat in the Forest--The Sauba Ants--Sniffed by a Jaguar--Filippe tries to commit Suicide.

THE departure of those two men added much to our troubles. I had to abandon at that spot all the unused photographic plates, my sextant and a large prismatic compass, half the supply of cartridges we had taken with us, a pair of extra shoes, and a number of other things. With our reduced loads we made an early start, Filippe that day behaving very bravely.

"Never mind," said he; "if all the others are afraid, I am not. I will follow you anywhere. After all, nothing can happen to us worse than death. You have always behaved kindly to me, and I will never abandon you."

Both Filippe and Benedicto were still poorly, but the violent exertion of the previous day had done them good and their condition seemed to have slightly improved.

We started once more across the virgin forest, directing our steps due west. Filippe this time undertook to open the picada, while I, compass in hand, marched directly behind him, Benedicto following me. Filippe, who was unaccustomed to go through the forest, was even worse than Miguel for keeping the correct direction. If I had let him go, he would have described circle after circle upon himself instead of going in a straight line.

From that point our march across the forest became tragic. Perhaps I can do nothing better than reproduce almost word by word the entries in my diary.

We ate that morning what little there remained of the mutum we had shot the previous evening. Little we knew then that we were not to taste fresh meat again for nearly a month from that date.

During September 3rd we made fairly good progress, cutting our way through incessantly. We went that day 20 kil. We had no lunch, and it was only in the evening that we opened the last of the three small boxes of sardines, our entire dinner consisting of three and a half sardines each.

On September 4th we were confronted, soon after our departure, with a mountainous country with deep ravines and furrows, most trying for us owing to their steepness. We went over five ranges of hills from 100 to 300 ft. in height, and we crossed five streamlets in the depressions between those successive ranges.

Filippe was again suffering greatly from an attack of fever, and I had to support him all the time, as he had the greatest difficulty in walking. Benedicto had that day been entrusted with the big knife for cutting the picada.

We went some 20 kil. that day, with nothing whatever to eat, as we had already finished the three boxes of sardines, and I was reserving the box of anchovies for the moment when we could stand hunger no longer.

On September 5th we had another very terrible march over broken country, hilly for a good portion of the distance, but quite level in some parts.

The man Benedicto, who was a great eater, now collapsed altogether, saying that he could no longer carry his load and could not go on any farther without food.

The entire day our eyes had roamed in all directions, trying to discover some wild fruit which was edible, or some animal we might shoot, but there was the silence of death all around us. Not a branch, not a leaf was moved by a living thing; no fruit of any kind was to be seen anywhere.

Our appetite was keen, and it certainly had one good effect--it stopped Filippe's fever and, in fact, cured it altogether.

The two men were tormenting me the whole day, saying they had no faith in the compass: how could a brass box--that is what they called it--tell us where we could find feijão? It was beyond them to understand it. They bemoaned themselves incessantly, swearing at the day they had been persuaded to come along with me and leave their happy homes in order to die of starvation in the forest with a mad Englishman! And why did we go across the forest at all, where there was no trail, when we could have gone down by the river on a trading boat?

On September 6th it was all I could do to wake up my men. When they did wake, they would not get up, for they said the only object in getting up was to eat, and as there was nothing to eat there was no use in getting up. They wanted to remain there and die.

I had to use a great deal of gentle persuasion, and even told them a big story--that my agulha or needle (the compass) was telling me that morning that there was plenty of feijão ahead of us.

We struggled on kilometre after kilometre, one or another of us collapsing under our loads every few hundred metres. We went over very hilly country, crossing eight hill ranges that day with steep ravines between. In fact, all that country must once have been a low tableland which had been fissured and then eroded by water, leaving large cracks. At the bottom of each we found brooks and streamlets of delicious water. Of the eight rivulets found that day one only was fairly large. It fell in little cascades over rock. We could see no fish in its waters.

The forest was fairly clean underneath, and we had no great difficulty in getting through, a cut every now and then with the knife being sufficient to make a passage for us. I had by that time entirely given up the idea of opening a regular picada, over which I could eventually take the men and baggage I had left behind.

We found that day a palm with a bunch of small nuts which Benedicto called coco do matto; he said they were delicious to eat, so we proceeded to cut down the tall palm tree. When we came to split open the small cocos our disappointment was great, for they merely contained water. There was nothing whatever to eat inside the hard shells. We spent some two hours that evening cracking the cocos--some two hundred of them--each nut about the size of a cherry. They were extremely hard to crack, and our expectant eyes were disappointed two hundred times in succession as we opened every one and found nothing whatever to eat in them.

We were beginning to feel extremely weak, with a continuous feeling of emptiness in our insides. Personally, I felt no actual pain. The mental strain, perhaps, was the most trying thing for me, for I had no idea when we might find food. I was beginning to feel more than ever the responsibility of taking those poor fellows there to suffer for my sake. On their side they certainly never let one moment go by during the day or night without reminding me of the fact.

On September 7th I had the greatest difficulty in getting the men out of their hammocks. They were so exhausted that I could not rouse them. We had had a terrific storm during the night, which had added misery to our other sufferings. Innumerable ants were now causing us a lot of damage. Filippe's coat, which had dropped out of his hammock, was found in the morning entirely destroyed. Those miniature demons also cut the string to which I had suspended my shoes in mid-air, and no sooner had they fallen to the ground than the ants started on their mischievous work. When I woke up in the morning all that remained of my shoes were the two leather soles, the upper part having been completely destroyed.

Going through the forest, where thorns of all sizes were innumerable, another torture was now in store for me. With pieces of string I turned the soles of the shoes into primitive sandals; but when I started on the march I found that they hurt me much more than if I walked barefooted. After marching a couple of kilometres, my renovated foot-gear hurt me so much in going up and down the steep ravines that I took off the sandals altogether and flung them away.

That day we went over eleven successive hill ranges and crossed as many little streamlets between them. My men were terribly downhearted. We had with us a Mauser and two hundred cartridges, but although we did nothing all day long but look for something to kill we never heard a sound of a living animal. Only one day at the beginning of our fast did I see a big mutum--larger than a big turkey. The bird had never seen a human being, and sat placidly perched on the branch of a tree, looking at us with curiosity, singing gaily. I tried to fire with the Mauser at the bird, which was only about seven or eight metres away, but cartridge after cartridge missed fire. I certainly spent not less than twenty minutes constantly replenishing the magazine, and not a single cartridge went off. They had evidently absorbed so much moisture on our many accidents in the river and in the heavy rain-storms we had had of late, that they had become useless.

While I was pointing the gun the bird apparently took the greatest interest in my doings, looked at me, stooping down gracefully each time that the rifle missed fire, singing dainty notes almost as if it were laughing at me. The funny part of it all was that we eventually had to go away disappointed, leaving the bird perched on that very same branch.

As the days went by and we could find nothing to eat, my two men lost their courage entirely. They now refused to suffer any longer. They said they had not the strength to go back, so they wanted to lie down and die. Many times a day did I have to lift them up again and persuade them gently to come on another few hundred metres or so. Perhaps then we might find the great river Madeira, where we should certainly meet traders from whom we could get food.

Filippe the negro was a great smoker. He had brought some tobacco with him, and he had so far smoked all the time. He said that as long as he had a cigarette in his mouth he did not feel the pangs of hunger quite so much.

Since my return to civilization I have been constantly told by smokers that if I had been a smoker too I might have suffered less than I did. Now let me tell you what happened to smoker Filippe when his tobacco came to an end on that painful march. Filippe became a raving lunatic, and in a fit of passion was about to stick right through his heart the large knife with which we cut our way through the forest. I had quite a struggle in order to get the knife away from him, and an additional strain was placed upon my mind by keeping a constant watch on the knife so that it could not be used for suicidal purposes.

Poor Benedicto, who was of a less violent nature, from morning to night implored to be killed. The two together moaned and groaned incessantly, and accused me a hundred times a day of taking them there on purpose to die. They certainly made me feel the full and heavy weight of our tragic position. The mental strain of leading along those two poor fellows was indeed much more trying to me than the actual lack of food.

In order to save as much as possible of the baggage we carried, I promised Filippe and Benedicto a considerable present of money if they were able to take the stuff until we reached the Madeira River.

Late in the afternoon of September 7th, as we were on a high point above the last range of hills met that day, a large panorama opened before us, which we could just see between the trees and foliage of the forest.

To obtain a full view of the scenery it was necessary to climb up a tree. I knew well that we could not yet have reached the river we were looking for, but perhaps we were not far from some large tributary of the Madeira, such as the Secundury.

Climbing up trees in the Brazilian forest was easier said than done, even when you possessed your full strength. So many were the ants of all sizes which attacked you with fury the moment you embraced the tree, that it was not easy to get up more than a few feet.

When we drew lots as to whom of us should climb the tree, Benedicto was the one selected by fate. Benedicto was certainly born under an unlucky star; when anything nasty or unpleasant happened to anybody it was always to poor Benedicto. After a lot of pressing he proceeded to go up the tree, uttering piercing yells as every moment great sauba ants bit his arms, legs or body. He was brave enough, and slowly continued his way up until he reached a height of some 30 ft. above the ground, from which eminence he gave us the interesting news that there were some high hills standing before us to the west, while to the north-west was a great flat surface covered by dense forest.

No sooner had Benedicto supplied us with this information from his high point of vantage than we heard an agonising yell and saw him spread flat on the ground, having made a record descent.

Filippe and I, although suffering considerably, were in fits of laughter at Benedicto, who did not laugh at all, but pawed himself all over, saying he must have broken some bones. When I proceeded to examine him I found upon his body over a hundred sauba ants clinging to his skin with their powerful clippers.

Aching all over, poor Benedicto got up once more. I put the load upon his back and we resumed our journey, making a precipitous descent almost à pic down the hill side. Our knees were so weak that we fell many times and rolled down long distances on that steep incline. At last we got to the bottom, rejoicing in our hearts that we had no more hills to climb, as I had made up my mind that I would now march slightly to the north-west, so as to avoid the hilly region which Benedicto had discovered to the west.

My men had an idea that the great river we were looking for must be in that plain. For a few hours they seemed to have regained their courage. We heard some piercing shrieks, and we at once proceeded in their direction, as we knew they came from monkeys. In fact we found an enormously high tree, some 5 ft. in diameter. Up on its summit some beautiful yellow fruit stared us in the face. Four tiny monkeys were busy eating the fruit. Benedicto, who had by that time become very religious, joined his hands and offered prayers to the Virgin that the monkeys might drop some fruit down, but they went on eating while we gazed at them from below. We tried to fire at them with the Mauser, but again not a single cartridge went off. Eventually the monkeys dropped down the empty shells of the fruit they had eaten. With our ravenous appetite we rushed for them and with our teeth scraped off the few grains of sweet substance which remained attached to the inside of the shells. We waited and waited under that tree for a long time, Filippe now joining also in the prayers. Each time a shell dropped our palates rejoiced for a few moments at the infinitesimal taste we got from the discarded shells. It was out of the question to climb up such a big tree or to cut it down, as we had no strength left.

We went on until sunset; my men once more having lost heart. Brazilians lose heart very easily. At the sight of small hills before them, a steep descent, or a deep river to cross, they would lie down and say they wanted to remain there and die. Filippe and Benedicto did not carry more than 20 lb. each of my own baggage, but their hammocks weighed some 20 lb. each, so that their loads weighed altogether about 40 lb.

We went on, crossing five more streamlets that afternoon, of which one, 2 m. wide, had beautifully limpid water. We nevertheless went on, until eventually after sunset we had to camp near a stream of filthy water. We did not mind that so much, because, contrary to the popular idea that while you are starving you require a great deal of water, I found that during those days of starvation both my men and myself hardly ever touched water at all. Personally I am accustomed to drink only with my meals, and as I had no meals at all I never had the slightest wish to drink. My men, however, who while on the river, for instance, when we had plenty of food, drank perhaps twenty times a day from the stream, now that they were starving only seldom touched the water, and when they did, only in very small quantities. I do not suppose that my men during the entire period of starvation drank on an average more than a wineglass of water a day. Personally I know that I never drank more than half a tumbler or less in the twenty-four hours during that time. Under normal circumstances I drink about a quart of water a day. The water, I may say, was plentiful all the time, and, barring a few occasions, such as on that particular night, most excellent.

As we had now been four entire days without eating anything at all, I thought it was high time to open the valuable tin of anchovies--the only one in our possession. We had a terrible disappointment when I opened the tin. I had purchased it in S. Manoel from Mr. Barretto. To our great distress we discovered that instead of food it contained merely some salt and a piece of slate. This was a great blow to us. The box was a Brazilian counterfeit of a tin of anchovies. How disheartening to discover the fraud at so inopportune a moment! I had reserved the tin until the last as I did not like the look of it from the outside. We kept the salt--which was of the coarsest description.

On September 8th we were slightly more fortunate, as the country was flatter. I was steering a course of 290° b.m. (N.W.). I found that farther south we would have encountered too mountainous a country.

We crossed several streamlets, the largest 3 m. wide, all of which flowed south. We had no particular adventure that day, and considering all things, we marched fairly well--some 20 kil. Towards the evening we camped on a hill. When we got there we were so exhausted that we made our camp on the summit, although there was no water near.

On September 9th, after marching for half an hour we arrived at a stream 15 m. wide, which I took at first to be the river Secundury, a tributary of the Madeira River. Near the banks of that stream we found indications that human beings had visited that spot--perhaps the Indians we had heard so much about. The marks we found, however, were, I estimated, about one year old. Although these signs should have given us a little courage to go on, we were so famished and exhausted that my men sat down on the river bank and would not proceed. By that time we had got accustomed even to the fierce bites of the ants. We had no more strength to defend ourselves. In vain we strained our eyes all the time in search of wild fruit. In the river we saw plenty of fish; we had a fishing-line with us, but no bait whatever that we could use. There are, of course, no worms underground where ants are so numerous. We could not make snares in the river, as it was much too deep. So we sat with covetous eyes, watching the fish go by. It was most tantalising, and made us ten times more hungry than ever to be so near food and not be able to get it.

It is curious how hunger works on your brain. I am not at all a glutton, and never think of food under ordinary circumstances. But while I was starving I could see before me from morning till night, in my imagination, all kinds of delicacies--caviare, Russian soups, macaroni au gratin, all kinds of refreshing ice-creams, and plum pudding. Curiously enough, some days I had a perfect craving for one particular thing, and would have given anything I possessed in the world to obtain a morsel of it. The next day I did not care for that at all, in my imagination, but wanted something else very badly. The three things which I mostly craved for while I was starving were caviare, galantine of chicken, and ice-cream--the latter particularly.

People say that with money you can do anything you like in the world. I had at that time on my person some £6,000 sterling, of which £4,000 was in actual cash. If anybody had placed before me a morsel of any food I would gladly have given the entire sum to have it. But no, indeed; no such luck! How many times during those days did I vividly dream of delightful dinner and supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton, or the Ritz, in London, Paris, and New York! How many times did I think of the delicious meals I had had when a boy in the home of my dear father and mother! I could reconstruct in my imagination all those meals, and thought what an idiot I was to have come there out of my own free will to suffer like that. My own dreams were constantly interrupted by Benedicto and Filippe, who also had similar dreams of the wonderful meals they had had in their own houses, and the wonderful ways in which their feijãozinho--a term of endearment used by them for their beloved beans--had been cooked at home by their sweethearts or their temporary wives.

"Why did we leave our feijãozinho"--and here they smacked their lips--"to come and die in this rotten country?"

All day I heard them talk of feijãozinho, feijãozinho, until I was wearied to distraction by that word--particularly as, even when starving, I had no desire whatever to eat the beastly stuff.

The negro Filippe and Benedicto were really brave in a way. I tried to induce them all the time to march as much as we could, so as to get somewhere; but every few moments they sat or fell down, and much valuable time was wasted.

In a way it was amusing to watch them--poor Benedicto particularly, who every few minutes would take out a little pocket looking-glass to gaze at his countenance.

"Am I not thin?" he would ask me a dozen times a day. "I have never been so thin before. If I had not come with you I should not be so thin. It is all because we have no food that I am so thin.... If I had not met you I would never have been so thin!"--and so on all day.

I reminded him that when we were travelling on the river he had complained of baling the water out of the canoe and preferred to travel overland; now that we were travelling overland he had a new complaint to make. It was quite unreasonable. He was not the only one to get thin; we were all getting thin.

Benedicto greatly objected to carry the 15 lb. weight of glass negatives, but he did not mind at all carrying a lot of useless things of his own, which weighed an extra 20 lb. or so!

Since my return I have been constantly asked why, when we were starving, we did not eat the grass in the forest; why we did not feed on the leaves or roots of the trees? If we could find no fruit, why did not we eat monkeys or birds or other animals? why did not we dig for worms and feed on them?

As I have already stated, there were no worms in the forest because of the ants, which allow no insect to be underground near the surface. As for the grass, it takes no very intelligent person to see that it cannot exist under the trees of the tropical forest. If a few blades of grass are to be found on the edge of streamlets it does not follow that you can eat them. That grass is usually poisonous. The same may be said of the leaves and roots of trees, even admitting that you could reach the former--which is not the case, as the leaves are usually at a great height upon the trees, and when you are starving you have not the strength to climb up. It also follows that where there is no edible fruit there can be no birds or monkeys, as animals generally have enough sense not to settle where there is nothing to eat.

Again, even allowing that some rare trees, the fruit of which was edible, were to be found, it does not do to lose sight of the fact that you may be passing under that tree at the season when it is not bearing fruit, as fruit-trees, even in tropical countries, do not always bear fruit at a time to suit the convenience of the passing traveller.

As I have said, the country we were traversing was there hilly and rocky, and we were cutting across the headwaters of numerous tributaries, first of the Tapajoz River, then of the Madeira River--the tiny watercourses, most of them only a few inches wide, descending in numerous successive small cascades over rocks--therefore no fish was to be found. When we did find it in the big rivers we had no way to catch it.

It then again follows, concerning the country between great rivers, that where there is no fish, no game, no fruit, no vegetables, and no possible way of cultivating the land, there can be no inhabitants. That was why the great Brazilian forest in that region was uninhabited by human beings.

It was rather pathetic, looking back on those days, to think of the small cooking pot I carried during that time of starvation in hopes that we might find something to cook. Its weight was not great, but it was a cumbersome thing to carry, as it dangled about and caught in all the vegetation.

As the days went by and our strength got less and less every hour, I decided not to cut the forest any more, but to go through without that extra exertion. As I could not trust my men with the big knife, I had to carry it myself, as occasionally it had to be used--especially near streams, where the vegetation was always more or less entangled.

That evening (September 9th) we had halted at sunset--simply dead with fatigue and exhaustion. The sauba ants had cut nearly all the strings of Filippe's hammock; while he was resting peacefully on it the remainder of the strings broke, and he had a bad fall. He was so exhausted that he remained lying on the ground, swarming all over with ants and moaning the whole time, having no strength to repair the hammock.

When Filippe eventually fell into a sound slumber I had a curious experience in the middle of the night. I was sleeping in my improvised hammock, when I felt two paws resting on my body and something sniffing in my face. When I opened my eyes I found a jaguar, standing up on its hind paws, staring me straight in the face. The moment I moved, the astonished animal, which had evidently never seen a human being before, leapt away and disappeared.

I find that people have strange ideas about wild animals. It is far from true that wild beasts are vicious. I have always found them as gentle as possible. Although I have seen nearly every wild beast that it is possible for man to see in the world, I have never once been attacked by them, although on dozens of occasions I have come into close contact with them. I invariably found all wild animals--except the African buffalo--quite timid and almost gentle, unless, of course, they have been worried or wounded. These remarks do not apply to wild animals in captivity.

On September 10th--that was the seventh day of our involuntary fast--we had another dreary march, again without a morsel of food. My men were so downhearted that I really thought they would not last much longer. Hunger was playing on them in a curious way. They said that they could hear voices all round them and people firing rifles. I could hear nothing at all. I well knew that their minds were beginning to go, and that it was a pure hallucination. Benedicto and Filippe, who originally were both atheists of an advanced type, had now become extremely religious, and were muttering fervent prayers all the time. They made a vow that if we escaped alive they would each give £5 sterling out of their pay to have a big mass celebrated in the first church they saw.

They spoke in a disconnected way, and looked about in a dazed condition, alternating hysterical laughter with abundant tears. After Filippe's tobacco had come to an end he had become most dejected, all the time wishing to commit suicide.

"What is the use of more suffering?" he exclaimed fifty times a day. "Let me die quickly, as I can stand the pain no more!" Then all of a sudden his eyes would shine, he would prick up his ears, crying: "We are near people!--we are near people! I can hear voices! Let us fire three shots" (the signal all over Central Brazil of an approaching stranger or of help required), "so that people can come to our assistance!"

That was much easier said than done, because none of our cartridges would go off. We had one box of matches left. We had taken several boxes of them, but Filippe had used them all in lighting his cigarettes, and we had only one left, which I guarded with much care. To please my men we lighted a big fire, and in it we placed a number of cartridges so that they should explode. In fact some of them actually did explode, and my men strained their ears in order to discover responding sounds. But no sounds came, although they imagined they could hear all kinds of noises.

At this place I abandoned the few cartridges we had, as they were absolutely useless. They were Mauser cartridges which I had bought in Rio de Janeiro, and it is quite possible that they were counterfeits.

Taking things all round, my men behaved very well, but these were moments of the greatest anxiety for me, and I myself was praying fervently to God to get us out of that difficulty. My strength was failing more and more daily, and although I was suffering no actual pain, yet the weakness was simply appalling. It was all I could do to stand up on my legs. What was worse for me was that my head was still in good working order, and I fully realised our position all the time.

The country we were travelling over was fairly hilly, up and down most of the time, over no great elevations. We passed two large tributaries of the main stream we had found before, and a number of minor ones. The main stream was strewn with fallen trees, and was not navigable during the dry season. The erosion of the banks by the water had caused so many trees to fall down across it that no canoe could possibly go through.

I noticed in one or two places along the river traces of human beings having been there some years before.

In the afternoon we again wasted much energy in knocking down two palm-trees on the summit of which were great bunches of coco do matto. Again we had a bitter disappointment. One after the other we split the nuts open, but they merely contained water inside shells that were much harder to crack than wood. My craving for food was such that in despair I took two or three sauba ants and proceeded to eat them. When I ground them under my teeth their taste was so acidly bitter that it made me quite ill. Not only that, but one sauba bit my tongue so badly that it swelled up to a great size, and remained like that for several days. The entire genus of the Sauba (Oecodonia cephalotes) ant is typical of tropical South America. The largest Sauba is about an inch long, and possesses powerful scissor-like clippers, with which it can destroy any material, such as leather, cloth, paper or leaves, in a very short time. Their method of work is to cut up everything into circles. I remember one day dropping on the ground a pair of thick gloves. When I went to pick them up I found them reduced to a heap of innumerable little discs--each as large as a sixpenny coin. It is with those powerful clippers that the Saubas, having climbed in swarms up a tree, proceed to despoil it of its foliage. The work is done in a systematic way, each ant quickly severing one leaf and carrying it down, banner-like, vertically above its head, tightly held between its strong mandibles.

It is this habit of the Saubas which has brought upon them the Brazilian name of Carregadores, or carriers. One sees everywhere in that country long processions of those destructive insects, each individual marching along quickly with its green vegetable banner, sometimes eight or ten times its own size and weight. In many cases the Saubas working aloft cut the leaves and drop them on the ground, where other carriers are waiting to convey them away. So numerous are the Saubas that in the forest one can hear distinctly the incessant rustling sound of their clippers at work. The Saubas use the leaves in order to construct thatched waterproof roofs over the domes and turrets at the entrances of their extensive subterranean galleries, which would otherwise become flooded during the torrential rains prevalent in those latitudes. The roofs are constructed with wonderful skill, each leaf being held in its place by granules of earth. The galleries, of immense length and much ramified, are often as much as 10 to 15 cm. in diameter. The entrances to them are usually kept blocked, and are only opened when necessary. Above ground the Saubas make wonderful wide roads, thousands of which can be seen everywhere in the forest, and upon which endless processions go by day and night. The workers of the Saubas can be divided into three orders not very clearly defined, as units of intermediate grades are constantly met. The largest of those workers possess extraordinarily massive, double-humped heads, highly polished in the case of members which are visible on the surface, and dull and hairy in the giant fellows which spend their lives within the subterranean passages. These hairy Saubas display a single frontal eye--not found in any of the other Saubas, and, as far as I know, in no other kind of ant. They never come to the surface except when attacks are made upon the galleries. Great excitement is shown in the colonies when the winged ants, of extra large size--especially the females--start out on their errand of propagating the race.

The workers with polished heads--fierce-looking brutes--do very little actual work, but seem to be the superiors and protectors of the smaller workers. In every case the body of all orders of Saubas is solidly built, with the thorax and head protected by spikes.

Much as I disliked the Saubas for the endless trouble and suffering they inflicted upon me, I could not help admiring their marvellous industry and energy. No agriculture is possible where the Saubas are to be found, and even where they do not exist in Central Brazil, if agriculture were started they would soon invade the territory and destroy everything in a short time. Foreign plants do not escape. No way has been found yet of extirpating them.

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Chapter XX

Benedicto and the Honey--Constantly collapsing from Exhaustion--A Strange Accident--Finding a River--People's Mistaken Ideas--Sixteen Days of Starvation--An Abandoned Hut--Repairing a Broken-down Canoe--Canoe founders--A Raft constructed of Glass

ON September 11th we had another terrible march, the forest being very dense and much entangled along the stream. We had great trouble in getting through, as there were many palms and ferns, and we had no more strength to cut down our way. We came to a big tree, which was hollow inside up to a great height, and round which were millions of bees.

Benedicto, who was a great connoisseur in such matters, said that high up inside the tree there must be honey. The bees round that tree were unfortunately stinging bees. We drew lots as to who should go inside the tree to get the honey. It fell to Benedicto. We took off most of our clothes and wrapped up his head and legs so that he might proceed to the attack. The job was not an easy one, for in the first reconnaissance he made with his head inside the tree he discovered that the honey must be not less than 20 ft. above the ground, and it was necessary to climb up to that height inside the tree before he could get it. In order to hasten matters--as Benedicto was reluctant in carrying out the job--I tried my hand at it, but I was stung badly by hundreds of bees behind my head, on my eyelids, on my arms and legs. When I came out of the tree I was simply covered with angry bees, which stung me all over. So I told Benedicto that, as Fate had called upon him to do the work, he had better do it.

Benedicto was certainly very plucky that day. All of a sudden he dashed inside the tree and proceeded to climb up. We heard wild screams for some minutes; evidently the bees were protecting their home well. While Filippe and I were seated outside, smiling faintly at poor Benedicto's plight, he reappeared. We hardly recognized him when he emerged from the tree, so badly stung and swollen was his face, notwithstanding the protection he had over it. All he brought back was a small piece of the honeycomb about as large as a florin. What little honey there was inside was quite putrid, but we divided it into three equal parts and devoured it ravenously, bees and all. A moment later all three of us were seized with vomiting, so that the meagre meal was worse than nothing to us.

We were then in a region of innumerable liane, which hung from the trees and caught our feet and heads, and wound themselves round us when we tried to shift them from their position. Nearly all the trees in that part had long and powerful spikes. Then near water there were huge palms close together, the sharp-edged leaves of which cut our hands, faces and legs as we pushed our way through.

A violent storm broke out in the afternoon. The rain was torrential, making our march extremely difficult. It was just like marching under a heavy shower-bath. The rain lasted for some three hours. We crossed one large stream flowing west into the Secundury, and also two other good-sized streamlets.

We had a miserable night, drenched as we were and unable to light a fire, the box of matches having got wet and the entire forest being soaked by the torrential storm. During the night another storm arrived and poured regular buckets of water upon us.

On September 12th we drowsily got up from our hammocks in a dejected state. By that time we had lost all hope of finding food, and no longer took the trouble to look round for anything to eat. We went on a few hundred metres at a time, now Benedicto fainting from exhaustion, then Filippe, then myself. While one or another was unconscious much time was wasted. Marching under those conditions was horrible, as either one or other of us collapsed every few hundred metres.

Another violent storm broke out, and we all lay on the ground helpless, the skin of our hands and feet getting shrivelled up with the moisture.

My feet were much swollen owing to the innumerable thorns which had got into them while walking barefooted. It was most painful to march, as I was not accustomed to walk without shoes.

We went only ten kilometres on September 12th. We crossed two small rivers and one large, flowing west and south, evidently into the Secundury.

On September 13th we had another painful march, my men struggling along, stumbling and falling every little while. They were dreadfully depressed. Towards the evening we came to a big tree, at the foot of which we found some discarded shells, such as we had once seen before, of fruit eaten by monkeys. My men and I tried to scrape with our teeth some of the sweet substance which still adhered to the shells. We saw some of the fruit, which was fit to eat, at a great height upon the tree, but we had not the strength to climb up or cut down that enormous tree.

All the visions of good meals which I had had until then had now vanished altogether on that tenth day of fasting, and I experienced a sickly feeling in my inside which gave me an absolute dislike for food of any kind. My head was beginning to sway, and I had difficulty in collecting my ideas. My memory seemed to be gone all of a sudden. I could no longer remember in what country I was travelling, nor could I remember anything distinctly. Only some lucid intervals came every now and then, in which I realised our tragic position; but those did not last long, all I could remember being that I must go to the west. I could not remember why nor where I intended to come out.

Everything seemed to be against us. We were there during the height of the rainy season. Towards sunset rain came down once more in bucketfuls and lasted the entire night, the water dripping from our hammocks as it would from a small cascade. We were soaked, and shivering, although the temperature was not low. I had my maximum and minimum thermometers with me, but my exhaustion was such that I had not the strength to unpack them every night and morning and set them.

We crossed two streamlets flowing west. Benedicto and Filippe were in such a bad way that it was breaking my heart to look at them. Every time they fell down in a faint I never knew whether it was for the last time that they had closed their eyes. When I felt their hearts with my hand they beat so faintly that once or twice I really thought they were dead. That day I myself fainted, and fell with the left side of my face resting on the ground. When I recovered consciousness some time later, I touched my face, which was hurting me, and found that nearly the whole skin of my cheek had been eaten up by small ants, the lower lid of the eye having suffered particularly. A nasty sore remained on my face for some two months after that experience, the bites of those ants being very poisonous.

Bad as they were, there is no doubt that to a great extent we owed our salvation to those terrible ants. Had it not been for them and the incessant torture they inflicted on us when we fell down upon the ground, we should have perhaps lain there and never got up again.

I offered Benedicto and Filippe a large reward if they continued marching without abandoning the precious loads. Brazilians have a great greed for money, and for it they will do many things which they would not do otherwise.

On September 14th we made another most painful march of 20 kil., again up and down high hills, some as much as 300 ft. above the level land of that country, and all with steep, indeed, almost vertical, sides, extremely difficult for us to climb in our exhausted condition. We saw several streamlets flowing west. When evening came we had before us a high hill, which we ascended. When we reached the top we just lay upon the ground like so many corpses, and, ants, or no ants biting us, we had not the energy to get up again. Once more did the rain come down in torrents that night, and to a certain extent washed the ants from our bodies.

My surprise was really great the next morning when I woke up. I felt myself fading away fast. Every time I closed my eyes I expected never to open them again.

On September 15th we made another trying march, collapsing under our loads every few hundred metres. My men were constantly looking for something to eat in all directions, but could find nothing. Benedicto and Filippe were now all the time contemplating suicide. The mental strain of perpetually keeping an eye on them was great.

We were sitting down, too tired to get up, when Filippe amazed me considerably by the following words, which he spoke in a kind of reverie:

"It would be very easy," he said, "now that you have no more strength yourself, for us two to get the big knife and cut your throat. We know that you have a big, big sum of money upon you, and if we robbed you we would be rich for ever. But we do not want to do it. It would not be much use to us, as we could not get out of the forest alone. I believe we shall all die together, and all that money will go to waste."

Filippe said this in quite a good-natured manner. The two poor fellows were so depressed that one had to forgive them for anything they said.

As the river seemed to describe a big loop, I had left it three days before, seeing plainly by the conformation of the country that we should strike it again sooner or later. We were marching once more by compass. My men, who had no faith whatever in the magnetic needle, were again almost paralysed with fear that we might not encounter the stream again. A thousand times a day they accused me of foolishness in leaving the river, as they said it would have been better to follow its tortuous course--notwithstanding the trouble we had in following it, owing to the dense vegetation near the water--rather than strike once more across country. They were beginning to lose heart altogether, when I told them I could see by the vegetation that we were once more near the water. Anybody accustomed as I am to marching through the forest could tell easily by the appearance of the vegetation some miles before actually getting to a stream.

I reassured my companions, saying that within a few hours we should certainly meet the "big water" again. In fact, not more than half an hour afterwards we suddenly found ourselves once more on the large stream--at that point 70 metres wide.

My men were so amazed and delighted that they embraced me and sobbed over my shoulders for some time. From that moment their admiration for the compass was unbounded; they expected me to find anything with it.

With gladdened hearts we followed the stream again, Benedicto and Filippe shouting at the top of their voices for help in case anybody were near. But they called and called in vain. We listened, but not a sound could be heard, except perhaps that of a crashing tree in the forest--a sound very familiar when marching across Brazil.

The right bank of the Secundury river was high, not less than from 30 to 40 ft., and extremely steep, formed of alluvial deposits with a thick surface layer of decayed vegetation, making a soft carpet. Two small tributary streams had cut deep grooves in the soft earth. In our weak condition we had the greatest trouble in going down the almost vertical banks and climbing up again on the other side.

On September 16th we followed the river once more, crossing three tributaries, the largest of which was 4 m. wide. The forest was beautifully clean underneath, just like a well-kept park. The stems of the trees were as clean as possible up to a great height, the foliage forming a regular roof over us through which little light and only exhausted air penetrated.

Although we could find nothing whatever to eat, my men were not so depressed that day, as they expected to find some living people sooner or later. I did not like to disappoint them, although the fact that we could find no signs of human creatures having recently gone through that region showed me plainly that we were yet far away from salvation.

Another formidable rainstorm came down upon us in the morning, the water descending in regular sheets. We were so exhausted that we did not care for anything any more. Whether we got wet or dry was quite immaterial to us.

I was so conscious of my utmost exhaustion that I felt I could not now last much longer under that heavy strain. Every fifty or a hundred metres I collapsed under my load, and had the greatest struggle to get up on my feet again. Those marches were most tragic, my men being, if possible, in a worse condition than me, they, too, collapsing every few steps. Thus in a day we each collapsed dozens of times. That was the thirteenth day we had had no food whatever, barring perhaps a grain of salt from the fraudulent anchovy tin, which I had preserved in a piece of paper.

I felt no actual pain, only great emptiness in my inside, and a curious feeling of nausea, with no wish whatever to eat or to drink. Although water was plentiful we hardly touched it at all--only a few drops to moisten our feverish lips. That fact interested me greatly, as it was absolutely contrary to people's notions of what happens when you are starving. All I experienced was indescribable exhaustion. I felt myself gradually extinguishing like a burnt-out lamp.

Benedicto and Filippe had dreadful nightmares during the night, and occasionally gave frantic yells. That night Filippe all of a sudden startled us crying out for help; a moment later he collapsed in a faint. When he recovered I asked him what was the matter; he said in a dazed way that there were people all round us bringing plenty of food to us--an hallucination which was soon dispelled when he returned to his senses.

On September 17th we had another painful march without finding a grain of food to eat. Again we started our day with a severe thunderstorm, the water coming down upon us in bucketfuls. Benedicto and Filippe were fervently praying the Almighty to strike them down by lightning so as to end the daily torture.

The strain of leading those fellows on was getting almost too much for me. The greatest gentleness had to be employed, as an angry word would have finished them altogether, and they would have laid down to die.

The rain came down in such torrents that day, and we were so soaked, that we had to halt, we three huddling together to try and protect ourselves under the waterproof sheet which I used at night as a hammock. When we went on I noticed a cut in a tree which had been made some years before. I soon discovered the tracks which had been followed by the person who had made that cut, and soon after I discovered another mark of a knife upon another rubber tree. Evidently somebody had been there prospecting. We followed the ancient track for some distance in a most winding way--those marks, I judged, having been made about four years before.

My men were depressed to the utmost degree when, on following the track of the stranger, we discovered the spot on the river where he had evidently once more got into his canoe and gone. One more hope of salvation shattered!

Curiously enough, upon that fourteenth day of starving my strength got up again to a certain extent, although I still had no wish whatever to eat; but my head began to swim with a strange sensation as if the trees of the forest were tumbling down upon me. The impression was so vivid that several times I fell in trying to avoid what I thought was a tree falling upon me.

The swaying of my head seemed to get worse and worse all that day, until the unpleasant sensation of the forest closing in and overwhelming me became intolerable.

In the evening we came in for another storm, the rain being torrential through nearly the entire night. During the day I had had the optical illusion of trees falling upon me. During the night I had the real thing. The upper part of the tree to which I had tied my hammock came down with a terrific crash during a heavy gust of wind, and just missed my head by a few inches. As it was it tore down my hammock with me inside it, and I received a bump that I shall not forget in a hurry.

We certainly seemed to have no luck whatever on that fateful expedition! Aching all over, soaked right through, water dripping down my hands, nose and hair like so many little fountains, I proceeded to tie my hammock to another tree, while poor Filippe and Benedicto, who had been caught in the foliage and branches of the falling tree, were trying to disentangle themselves from their unpleasant position. The tree had fallen because it had been eaten up internally by ants. When it came down upon us they simply swarmed over us, and bit us all over for all they were worth. I have no wish whatever to have another such miserable night.

On September 18th we lost the whole morning owing to the torrential rain which continued. We had not the strength to go on.

Now that Filippe and Benedicto had absolute faith in my compass, I had again left the river where it described a big turn toward the south-west, and it was not until two o'clock that afternoon that I struck the big stream once more and we followed its right bank.

To our great delight we came to a small clearing where some years before mandioca had been cultivated. We threw down our loads at once and proceeded to search for roots. To our great joy we found one small root, about as big as a small carrot. We made a fire. Oh! the anxiety in lighting up that fire, as we only had eight matches left, and they had got damp.

Filippe, who was the expert in striking matches, was entrusted with the job. Alas! he struck and struck time after time the first match against the box until its head was worn off altogether, and no flame was produced. With some anxiety we watched the second match having a similar fate.

The men said that the root we had found was of wild mandioca, and if we ate it raw we should certainly all die, but if roasted properly over a flame it lost some of its poisonous qualities. We all had our eyes fixed on that root, and felt the happiest of mortals, as if the most expensive banquet had all of a sudden been placed before us. It was a great relief when Filippe struck the third match and it actually produced a flame. We lighted a fire, roasting the valuable root upon it.

Benedicto, who was the culinary expert, roasted the root until it was nearly carbonized, and by the time he took it out of the flame we had each of us left for our share a section of its fibrous core not larger than a well-smoked cigarette stump.

We devoured that luxurious meal in haste. It tasted as bitter as aloes. No sooner had I eaten it than I felt extremely ill, my men also experiencing a similar sensation. Benedicto was the first one to vomit painfully and cough violently; then came my turn, then Filippe's. So our first meal was not much of a success.

The little strength we had seemed now to have disappeared altogether. We lay helpless upon the bank of the river, unable to move. Once or twice Filippe shouted for help, thinking that our voices might be heard, but no answer ever came to our cries.

Eventually we proceeded once more along the right bank of the river, when we perceived on the opposite bank an abandoned hut. The river at that point was 70 m. wide, from 4 to 5 ft. deep, with a fairly strong current. We decided to cross over and see if perhaps by chance some food had been abandoned in the hut. It was already evening, and we were so exhausted that we did not dare to cross the stream, especially as Filippe and Benedicto could not swim.

The next day, September 19th, we proceeded to ford the stream, having scarcely the strength to keep erect, especially in the middle of the river with the water up to our necks. We were carrying our loads on our heads, so that they should not get wetter than possible. My negatives were fortunately in air-tight cases, or else they certainly would have been destroyed altogether on that disastrous march across the forest.

We got safely to the other side. The bank was very high. A broken-down canoe had been left on the shore. We worked many hours trying to mend her so that we could proceed down the river. But we wasted the entire day, working feverishly for six or seven hours, trying to stop up great holes as big as my fist, one sleeve of my coat being used for the purpose, and replacing a plank at her stern which was missing.

When we at length summoned our last atom of strength to launch her, she immediately filled with water and went to the bottom like a piece of lead. That was the end of the canoe. We had not the strength to float her again.

Building a raft was impossible, as no wood was found that floated. In reconnoitring round the hut, to our great joy we discovered some caju and some guyaba trees; also some more roots of mandioca now become wild.

That was our sixteenth day of fasting, and it can well be imagined how quickly we devoured what little unripe fruit was hanging from the trees. Once more we tried the experiment of cooking the mandioca roots. We had now only five matches left. It was curious to note with what care we prepared dried wood and leaves so that no chance would be lost in getting a flame. Fortunately the first match struck did its work well, and we soon had a big fire inside the hut, on which we roasted the mandioca.

As I have explained elsewhere, the fruit of the caju has an outward nut which has highly caustic properties, and is deadly poisonous to eat uncooked but quite edible when roasted. After eating all the fruit we kept those nuts and put them on the fire; in the evening we sat down to what seemed to us a luxuriant meal.

We had not patience to wait for the caju nuts to be properly roasted. When I ate them my nose, lips, tongue and fingers became badly burned by their caustic juice. No sooner had we eaten that meal than we all became violently ill. I dropped down unconscious, rejecting everything and quantities of blood besides. I must have been unconscious many hours, after which I slept soundly till the sun was well up in the sky, when I found myself resting on the ground with a pool of blood by my side. Poor Filippe and Benedicto were also in a bad way.

On the front of that hut on a piece of board was written "El Paraiso" (Paradise), the name of that place. It was not exactly my idea of Heaven.

Our first meals were worse than no meals at all. We felt in such a plight that we lay helpless upon the floor of the hut, quite unable to move, so exhausted were we. In turning my head around I discovered ten large demijohns, some 2½ ft. high and about 2 ft. in diameter, of thick green glass. They were the usual demijohns--garaffons, as they are called--used all over Brazil for "fire-water." I at once conceived the idea of using them as floats in the construction of a raft.

My men grinned contemptuously at the idea when I mentioned it to them. They said that all was over. It was no use trying to get away. The Almighty wanted us to die, and we must only lie there and await our end, which was not far off. Benedicto struggled to his knees and prayed to the Almighty and the Virgin, sobbing bitterly all the time.

I struggled up on my feet and proceeded to carry the big vessels to the river bank, where I intended to construct the raft. The effort to take each heavy bottle those few metres seemed almost beyond me in my exhausted state. At last I proceeded to strip the floor of the hut, which had been made with split assahy palms (Euterpe oleracea L.), in order that I might make a frame to which I could fasten the bottles. With a great deal of persuasion I got Filippe and Benedicto to help me. The long pieces of assahy were too heavy for our purpose, and we had the additional trouble of splitting each piece into four. It was most trying work in our worn-out condition. Then we had to go into the forest and collect some small liane, so that we could tie the pieces together, as we had no nails and no rope.

On September 20th, again without food--for we had eaten up all the fruit the previous day--we worked from morning till night in building the raft. Unfortunately, Benedicto stumbled against one of the bottles, which was on the edge of the river; it rolled down the steep bank and floated quickly down stream, and we saw it disappear, unable to go and recover it. So only nine bottles were left.

I made the raft of a triangular shape, with two parallel diagonal rows of three bottles each at a distance of 3 ft. apart; then one set of two bottles. One single garaffon formed the bow of the raft. Naturally I stopped up the necks of the bottles, so that no water should get inside.

While I was constructing the raft I was all the time wondering whether it would have a sufficient floating capacity to carry us three men and our baggage.

When the raft was finished we placed two parallel pieces of assahy from one end to the other, on which we could sit astride, with our legs dangling in the water.

The lassitude with which we did our work and tore down part of the hut in order to build that raft, our only way of salvation, was too pitiful to watch. We absolutely had no strength at all. When we pulled the liane to fasten together the different pieces of palm wood we were more exhausted than if we had lifted a weight of 200 lb. As it was, we could not fasten the pieces of wood properly, and when the raft was finished it was indeed a shaky affair.

By sunset on September 20th the raft--strengthened by sundry knots all over--was ready to be launched. I was more proud of her than if I had built a Dreadnought. There we all sat by the side of her, my men looking at her in a sceptical way, saying that it was just as well, perhaps, to try and die drowned instead of dying of starvation.

We took a last glance around to see if we could discover some other fruit or something to eat, but we found nothing. We postponed the launching of our vessel--which I named the Victory--until the next morning, as had she perchance had an accident that night--accidents at night seem so much worse than in the daytime--it would have been too severe a blow for us, from which we never could have recovered.

My feet were in such a terrible condition--so full of thorns, so swollen with numberless jiggers which had bored channels under my nails and under the soles--that I really felt I could not walk another step. If that raft did not float I knew that we were lost for good.

The entire night I could not sleep, speculating on whether the raft would float or not. As far as I could judge, she seemed to me to have just capacity enough to keep afloat with all of us on board.

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Chapter XXI

The Launching of the Glass Raft--Accidents--The Raft sinking--Saved--Our First Solid Meal--Its Consequences--The Canuma and Secundury Rivers--Marching Back across the Forest to the Relief of the Men left behind--A Strange Mishap--A Curious Case of Telepathy

ON September 21st my men had a great discussion. Their courage failed altogether, as they said they had never before seen a boat of that kind, made of glass bottles, and that, even allowing that she would float at all, if we struck a rock where should we be? They declared that, tired as they were, they preferred to go on struggling on foot through the forest rather than get drowned. With his peculiar reasoning, Benedicto said that it was bad enough to die of starvation, but to die of starvation and get drowned as well was too much for him!

It was decided that we should first of all try whether the raft would bear our weight or not. If she did, we would sail in her. If she did not, I would navigate her and they might go on foot.

It was a moment of great excitement and suspense when we launched the Victory. You should have seen the faces of Benedicto and Filippe when she floated on the water as gracefully as a duck. I got on her, and with a punting pole went half-way across the river and back again.

Filippe and Benedicto, who had hardly recovered from their astonishment, professed that it was the cleverest thing they had ever seen, and no Brazilian ever would have had such a brilliant idea. They were now anxious to get on board.

First Filippe came and sat himself in front of me, and I saw with some concern the raft sink down considerably into the water. When Benedicto also entered, the framework of our vessel absolutely disappeared under water and only the short necks of the bottles showed above the surface. As we sat astride on the narrow longitudinal platform we were knee-deep in water. We took another small trip in mid-stream, and then decided that we would put the baggage on board and start at once on our journey down the river.

I went back for the baggage and rolled it all up in the waterproof hammock, then fastened it with pieces of liane to the stern of the raft. Filippe and Benedicto fastened their own things also. Having made ourselves some primitive-looking paddles with the bottom of a small empty barrel we had found, which we attached to two sticks, we made ready to start.

Filippe and I had already got on board, when Benedicto appeared with a huge punting pole he had cut himself in case we might need it. He was excited over the prospect of having no more walking to do. When he got near he jumped on board so clumsily that the already too heavily laden raft turned over and we were all flung into the water--there 7 ft. deep. When I came to the surface again I just managed to pull the craft ashore and then proceeded to save Benedicto and Filippe, who were struggling in the water, which was too deep for them.

This mishap was unfortunate. My chronometer got full of water and stopped; the aneroids, the camera, all were injured beyond repair. Much to my distress, I also discovered that the watertight cases, which had been knocked about so much of late, had let the water through before I had time to turn the raft the right way up and pull out of the water the baggage which was fastened to it. The four hundred developed negatives had all got soaked. My note-books, too, were drenched through.

Another heavy task was before me now, in order to save all that valuable material. It was to spread everything to dry thoroughly in the wind before it could be packed again.

Filippe and Benedicto were so scared that on no account, they said, would they go on board that raft again. The accident occurred at about nine o'clock in the morning; by one or two o'clock in the afternoon everything was dry and carefully repacked.

We decided to make a fresh start. My feet were so swollen, and with hardly a patch of skin left on them, that I could walk no more. It was agreed that Filippe and Benedicto should go on walking along the left bank as much as possible, while I alone, with the baggage, navigated the river. We would keep in touch by occasional shouts.

I got along pretty well, floating down with the current; but paddling and punting were most difficult, the raft being almost impossible to steer. On several occasions I had narrow escapes, just avoiding striking dangerous rocks--particularly going down a small corrideira.

After I had gone about two kilometres I was so exhausted that I called to Filippe to come on board again. Eventually--and I must say that I admired his courage--he came on board, and the two of us proceeded quite well down the stream, one paddling, the other punting.

We got into a small rapid, where the current was strong. We were unfortunately thrown violently against some rocks, the central bottles of our raft receiving a hard knock. One of them cracked badly. I was quite perplexed when my eye caught sight of the radiations in the glass caused by the impact. Then my ear began to notice the sound of the trickling of water getting inside the bottle. With positive concern, as the garaffon was gradually filling, I saw the raft getting a bad list to port.

The broken garaffon was behind Filippe's back, and he could not see it. He was constantly asking me whether something had gone wrong, as he seemed to feel the water getting higher and higher up his body.

"Is the ship not sinking?" he asked every two minutes. "I now have water up to my waist."

"No, no, Filippe! Go on. It is all right!" were the words with which I kept on urging him.

The cracked bottle had got almost entirely filled with water, and we had such a bad list that the steering became most difficult. Two or three times again we were thrown by the current against other rocks, and another bottle had a similar fate.

"We are sinking, are we not?" shouted Filippe.

"No, no!" said I. "Go on!"

As I said those words it suddenly seemed to me that I heard voices in the distance. Was it Benedicto calling to us? Filippe and I listened. Surely there was somebody singing! We fancied we heard several voices. Had Benedicto met somebody in the forest?

"Benedicto! Benedicto!" we shouted out to him. "Have you found men?"

"No!" came the answer from Benedicto.

All of a sudden Filippe, whose eyes had been scanning the river in front of him, gave a violent jerk which nearly capsized the raft, exclaiming:

"Look! look! There is a canoe!"

"It is a rock," said I, as I screened my eye to look on the dazzling water, upon which the sun glittered so that it was almost impossible to perceive anything. But, sure enough, as I strained my eyes a second time, I saw something move, and a moment later I heard voices quite distinctly.

Filippe's joy and mine was intense when we perceived that not only one boat, but two--three canoes were approaching.

We had already travelled some eight kilometres on our raft when we came close to the boats we had observed. Their crews stood up in them, rifles in hand, as we floated down. I shouted that we were friends. Eventually they came to our help, their amazement being curious to watch as they got near us--they being unable to understand how we could float down the river merely by sitting on the surface. By that time the raft was almost altogether submerged. When they took us on board, and a portion of the raft came to the surface again, the amusement of those crews was intense.

I explained who we were. The strangers could not do enough for us. In a moment they unloaded the baggage from our craft and put it on board their boats. They halted near the right bank, and on hearing of our pitiful plight immediately proceeded to cook a meal for us.

The people belonged to the rubber-collecting expedition of a trader named Dom Pedro Nunes, who went only once every year with a fleet of boats up to the headwaters of that river in order to bring back rubber. The expedition--the only one that ever went up that river at all--took eight or ten months on the journey there and back. It was really an amazing bit of luck that we should owe our salvation to meeting that expedition in an almost miraculous way, brought about by an extraordinary series of fortunate coincidences.

Had we not constructed that raft--had we not been on board at that moment--we should have missed the expedition and certainly should have died. Had we been following the bank of the river on foot, we never could have seen the boats nor heard them, as the banks were extremely high, and it was never possible to keep close to the stream when marching in the forest; we always had to keep some hundred metres or so from the water in order to avoid the thick vegetation on the edge of the stream. In fact, Benedicto, who was walking in the forest along the stream, had gone past the boats and had neither heard nor seen them. When we shouted out to him he was already a long distance off, a boat sent out to him by Dom Pedro Nunes having to travel nearly 800 m. before it could get up to him and bring him back.

The trader and his men treated us with tender care. We were practically naked when they met us, my attire consisting of the leather belt with the bags of money round my waist, and a small portion of the sleeveless coat, all torn to pieces. Dom Pedro Nunes immediately gave me some clothes, while his men gave garments to Filippe and Benedicto.

Several men rushed about collecting wood, and in a moment a large flame was blazing. The sight of proper food brought back our appetites as by magic. Our ravenous eyes gazed on several big pieces of anta (Tapirus americanus) meat, through which a stick had been passed, being broiled over the flame. We three starving men did not take our eyes off that meat for a second until the man who was cooking it removed the stick and said the meat was ready. We pounced upon it like so many famished tigers. The meat was so hot that, as we tore away at the large pieces with our teeth, our lips, noses, and fingers were absolutely burned by the broiling fat.

Dom Pedro Nunes gently put his hand in front of me, saying "Do not eat so quickly; it is bad for you." But I pushed him away with what vigour I had left. I could have killed anybody who had stood between that piece of meat and me. I tore at it lustily with my teeth, until there was nothing left of it.

By that time a large bag of farinha had been spread before us. We grabbed handfuls of it, shoving them into our mouths as fast as we could.

The sensation of eating--normal food--after such a long fast was a delightful one. But only for a few moments. Pedro Nunes was just handing me a cup of coffee when I dropped down unconscious, rejecting everything with a quantity of blood besides.

When I recovered consciousness, Pedro Nunes said I had been unconscious for a long time. They all thought I was dead. I felt almost unbearable pain in my inside, and a lassitude as if life were about to be extinguished altogether.

It was evidently the reaction, after eating too quickly--and I should like to meet the healthy man who would not eat quickly under those circumstances--and also the relaxation from the inconceivable strain of so many weeks of mental worry.

I well remember how Pedro Nunes and his men, when standing around us just as we began eating that first solid meal, had tears streaming down their cheeks while watching us in our dreadful plight. Once more Pedro Nunes--one of the most kindly men I have ever met--sobbed bitterly when he asked me to take off my clothes and change them for the newer ones he had given me. I removed from my pocket the contents: my chronometer, a notebook, and a number of caju seeds which I had collected, and which, caustic or not caustic, would have been our only food until we should have certainly perished.

We heard from Pedro Nunes that it would have taken us at least six or seven days' steady walking before we could get to the first house of rubber collectors. In our exhausted condition we could have never got there. As for the damaged raft, it could not have floated more than a few hours longer--perhaps not so long.

From the spot where I met Pedro Nunes--quite close to the junction of the Canuma River with the Madeira River--going down by river it would have been possible to reach Manaos in two or three days. Dom Pedro Nunes, however, with his expedition, could not return, nor sell me a boat, nor lend me men; so that I thought my best plan was to go back with him up the River Canuma and then the Secundury River, especially when I heard from the trader that the latter river came from the south-east--which made me think that perhaps I might find a spot at its most south-easterly point where the distance would not be great to travel once more across the forest, back to my men whom I had left near the Tapajoz.

Pedro Nunes declined to receive payment for the clothes he had given me and my men, so I presented him with the Mauser I possessed, which he greatly appreciated; while I gave the crew which had rescued us a present of £20 sterling in Brazilian money.

It was most touching to see how some of the rubber collectors employed by Pedro Nunes deprived themselves of tins of jam to present them to us, and also of other articles which were useful to them in order to make us a little more comfortable.

I purchased from Pedro Nunes a quantity of provisions--all of an inferior kind, but they were the best I could get. Among them were six tins of condensed milk, all he possessed, for which I paid at the rate of ten shillings each--the regular price in that neighbourhood. Those tins of milk were a great joy to Benedicto, Filippe and myself.

Although the pain was violent when we ate anything, the craving for food was now quite insatiable, and we could not resist the temptation of eating whatever came under our hands.

Late in the afternoon of that same day we started up the river with Pedro Nunes and his fleet of boats. In the evening, when we camped, the kindness of the trader and his men towards us was most pathetic. Drenching rain fell during the night.

On September 22nd we made an early start. Pedro Nunes went away in a small boat, as he wanted to go and explore a small tributary of the Secundury. The expedition travelled up the main stream at a great pace, with the many men who were rowing and punting.

Filippe, Benedicto and I suffered horrible internal pains that day owing to our careless eating the previous afternoon.

I was greatly worried by the man who had been left in charge of the expedition--a man of extreme kindness, but an incessant talker. He spoke so loudly, repeating the same things over and over again, that in my weak state, and accustomed as we were to the deathly silence of the forest, it tired me inexpressibly. His conversation consisted entirely of accusing everybody he knew of being robbers and assassins, and in long descriptions, with numberless figures, to show how he had been robbed of small sums of money by various people he had met in his lifetime.

I presented him with £10 sterling, hoping that he would keep quiet, as that seemed to be the entire sum of which he had been robbed by his relatives and friends; also because on seeing our wretched condition, he had presented me with an enormous pair of shoes, about six sizes too large for me. When I walked in them, especially up and down the steep banks, I lost now one shoe, now the other, so big were they. But I was grateful to him, as he would not take payment for them, and they saved my feet to a certain extent--when I could keep them on--from the thorns, which were numerous in that region.

The prolonged immersion in the water the day before, while we were navigating the raft, and the subsequent rest, had caused my feet to swell enormously, my ankles being about three times their normal size, so swollen were they. I experienced an unbearable pain in my heart, with continuous heart-burning and sudden throbbings, succeeded by spells of exhaustion. Giddiness in my head was constant, and I was so weak that it was all I could do to move. Even the exertion of shifting from one side to the other of the boat on which I was travelling was enough to make me almost collapse with fatigue.

We travelled great distances, going on all day and the greater part of the night, with relays of men, on September 22nd and 23rd.

The Secundury was a stream with an average width of 60 m. and in many places quite deep. It had a great many little springs and streamlets flowing into it between steep cuts in its high embankments, which were of alluvial formation mingled with decayed vegetation. The banks almost all along were from 40 to 50 ft. high. We came across a large tributary on the right side of the river. It was evidently the stream to which we had first come on our disastrous march across the forest, and which I had mistaken for the Secundury. Beyond this river we came across some small rapids, of no importance and quite easy to negotiate by the large boats, although in one or two cases tow-ropes had to be used by the men who had landed in order to pull the boats through.

On September 23rd we passed some easy corrideiras. I had slept almost that entire day on the roof of the boat, in the sun. It did me good. Late in the evening, at about seven o'clock, we arrived at a trader's hut, called São José, which was in the charge of a squinting mulatto--a most peculiar fellow.

On September 24th I stayed at the trader's house, spending the whole day drying thoroughly in the sun my notebooks and negatives and repacking them, so that I could leave them at that spot until I could fetch them again. My idea was to walk from that place across the forest once more back to our original point of departure near the Tapajoz River, where I had left the remainder of my party and the main part of my baggage.

A runaway seringueiro was induced to accompany me on that errand, while another man remained with faithful Filippe in charge of my valuable possessions. I left with them supplies for three months, which I had purchased from Pedro Nunes' expedition.

On September 25th I went a short distance farther up the river to its most south-easterly point. From there, with two men and provisions for thirty days, bidding goodbye to the men who had saved our lives, we started, still in a weak and exhausted condition, on our march back to the men we had left behind.

We only carried food supplies with us. I had left everything else on the Secundury River. Marching was indeed painful, as I had absolutely no strength, and was in a high fever. I stumbled along in excruciating pain, now losing one shoe, now the other, when they caught in some liana. There were a great many fallen trees in that part of the forest, which gave us no end of trouble, when, exhausted as Benedicto and I were, we had to climb over them or else squeeze under.

So great was my anxiety, however, to get back that, notwithstanding the pain, I marched along, following the new man, who was in good condition. We went 20 kil. that day.

The forest near the Secundury River was at first overgrown with dense vegetation, which gave us a good deal of work and extra exertion; but after that, when we got some distance from the water, the forest was fairly clean, except of course for the fallen trees. We found troublesome ravines of great height where streamlets had cut their way through.

In going down one of those difficult ravines I had an accident which might have been fatal. The ravine, the sides of which were almost vertical, was very narrow--only about 10 m. across. We let ourselves down, holding on to liane. When we reached the bottom we found a tiny brook winding its way between great round boulders, and leaving a space about 2 ft. wide for the water. I proceeded up on the other side, and I had got up to a height of some 30 ft. In order to go up this steep incline I had placed one foot against a small tree while I was pulling myself up by a liana. Unluckily, the liana suddenly gave way. The weight of the load which I had on my shoulders made me lose my balance, so that my body described an entire semicircle. I dropped down head first from that height on the rocks below.

Providence once more looked after me on that occasion. On the flight down I already imagined myself dead; but no--my head entered the cavity between the two rocks against which my shoulders and the load became jammed, while my legs were struggling up in mid-air. I was forced so hard against the two side rocks that I could not possibly extricate myself. It was only when Benedicto and the new man came to my help and pulled me out that we were able to resume our journey--I much shaken and somewhat aching, but otherwise none the worse for that unpleasant fall.

On September 26th my two men were already complaining of their loads. They said they could not go on any more--the man in good health and full of strength rebelling more than poor Benedicto, who was in a weak condition. So that we might march quickly I decided to abandon one bag of flour and eight tins of salt butter. With the lighter loads we marched comparatively well, and went 22 kil. that day with no particular experience worth noticing.

On September 27th we started once more quite early, after a hearty breakfast--notwithstanding the pain which I always had whenever I ate, especially a stabbing pain in my heart which was almost unbearable at times. We crossed several streamlets, one fairly large, all of which flowed into the Secundury. Rain, which came down in torrents, greatly interfered with our march that day, the new man I had employed worrying me all the time, saying that he did not like to march in wet clothes. Benedicto and I could not help laughing at him, as we had not been dry one moment since the beginning of July, and we were now at the end of September. Wet or not wet, I made the man come along. Finding the forest comparatively clean, we covered another 20 kil. that day. We had a most miserable night, rain coming down in sheets upon us. I was suffering from high fever, chiefly from exhaustion and the effects of over-eating, most injurious to my internal arrangements, which had got dried up during the long sixteen days' fast. I shivered with cold the entire night.

When we got up the next morning, dripping all over, with water still pouring down in bucketfuls upon us from above, Benedicto said that if it went on much longer like that he should surely turn into a fish. He looked comical, with water streaming down from his hair, his ears, nose and coat.

The trousers which our friend Pedro Nunes had given me were made of cheap calico, printed in little checks. They were of the kind that was usually sold to the seringueiros, and looked pretty when they were new. But they were a little too small, and had evidently not been shrunk before they were made. With the great moisture that night they shrank so badly all of a sudden that they split in four or five different places. I had no way of mending them.

As we went on--on September 28th--we encountered a great deal of entangled vegetation, many liane and thorns, which completely finished up my lower garments. My coat also, which was of similar material, was beginning to give signs of wear and tear, the sewing of the sleeves and at the back having burst everywhere.

We were going over almost level ground that day, across forest sparsely wooded and with much undergrowth of palms and ferns. We had drenching rain the entire day. My trousers were in shreds, dangling and catching in everything. When we had gone some eight or ten kilometres they were such a trouble to me that I discarded them altogether. The coat, too, was getting to be more of a nuisance than a protection. Owing to the incessant rain we were only able to march 14 kil. that day.

On September 29th we again started off, marching due east. We had slightly better weather, and were fortunate enough to shoot two monkeys, a coati, and a jacú, the new man possessing a rifle of his own, for which I had bought 200 cartridges from our friend Pedro Nunes. We had, therefore, that day, a good meal of meat; but what terrible pain we felt when we devoured the tough pieces of those animals, which we had broiled over a big flame! Notwithstanding the pain, however, we had an irresistible and insatiable craving for food.

That day we made a good march of 24 kil.

On September 30th the marching was comparatively easy, through fairly clean forest, so that we had to use our knife very little in order to open our way. We crossed a small campo with a good deal of rock upon it, and as our strength was gradually coming back we struggled along, covering a distance of 34 kil. between seven o'clock in the morning and seven in the evening. I was anxious to push on as fast as we possibly could, notwithstanding the grumblings of my men, for now that we had abandoned half of our supplies of food I did not want to have, if I could help it, another experience of starvation.

On October 1st we had more trouble cutting our way through, as we again found great ferns and palms, especially near streamlets of water, and quantities of fallen trees, which made us continually deviate from our direction. The forest was indeed dirty and much entangled in that section, and thus made our march painful, liane catching my feet and head all the time, tearing my ears and nose--especially when the man who walked in front of me let them go suddenly and they swung right in my face. Thorns dug big grooves into my legs, arms and hands. To make matters worse, the high fever seemed to exhaust me terribly. Worse luck, a huge boil, as big as an egg, developed under my left knee, while another of equal size appeared on my right ankle, already much swollen and aching. The huge shoes given me by the trader--of the cheapest manufacture--had already fallen to pieces. I had turned the soles of them into sandals, held up by numerous bits of string, which cut my toes and ankles very badly every time I knocked my feet against a tree or stone. My feet were full of thorns, so numerous that I had not the energy to remove them. The left leg was absolutely stiff with the big boil, and I could not bend it.

Limping along, stumbling all the time in intense pain--the boils being prevented from coming to maturity owing to the constant cold moisture--I really had as painful a time as one could imagine on those long marches back.

On October 2nd we had to cut our way through all the time, still marching due east. We encountered two high hill ranges, which gave us a lot to do as in our weak condition we proceeded to climb them. We had eaten more food than we should have done, and the result was that we now had none left, except a tin of guyabada (sweet cheese). I had become almost as improvident as the Brazilians when it came to food, as I could not resist the temptation, and instead of the usual three meals a day we were munching food all the time.

The strong fever was wearing me out. The dissatisfaction of my men because we had no more food--it was their own fault, for they had insisted on leaving most of it behind--and their constant grumbling were tiring me to death. We killed a small bird in the evening. By the time we had broiled it over a flame it satisfied but little our ravenous appetites.

On October 3rd we reached quantities of boulders and rocks, which showed me that we were once more approaching the extensive rocky table-land I had seen on our outward journey. As we climbed up higher and higher we came to an elevated streamlet of limpid water running in a channel carved out of the solid rock. It took us over two hours' steady marching, going perhaps some 2½ miles an hour, to cross the summit of that high rocky tableland. Then we descended through chapada and found ourselves among a lot of ravines, on the slope of one of which we halted for the night. There we killed two large monkeys, which we proceeded to broil and eat. I never liked the idea of eating monkeys, as I could not get over the feeling that I was eating a child, they looked so human. The hands and arms particularly, after they had been roasted over the fire, looked too human for words.

On October 4th we climbed a steep and rocky hill, crossing on its summit another section of the rocky plateau, a regular dome of grey volcanic rock. Then, descending from this second tableland on its eastern side, we had to struggle and stumble through most rugged country, where I found an extinct circular crater some 50 ft. in diameter and 50 ft. deep, with a vent at an angle in its bottom going apparently to a great depth. Near that spot was also a strange giant natural gateway of rock.

The descent was steep, and most trying for us among the great boulders over which we had to climb on our hands and feet. When we got to the bottom of this elevated country, the forest we found had quite a different aspect, which suggested to me the approach of the big river. We found there plenty of wild fruit, particularly some small black berries--called in Brazilian pattaõa--quite good to eat; also some most palatable tiny red cherries. We wasted a good deal of time picking up the fruit instead of marching, my men complaining all day long of an empty stomach. They would not take my advice to march quickly, so that we might then get plenty of food on the river. During the last few days, as I knew we must have been near the camp where I had left my men in charge of my baggage, we had constantly been firing sets of three shots--the agreed signal--in order to locate the exact spot where they were. But we had received no answer. Failing that, it was impossible to locate them exactly in the virgin forest, unless we had plenty of time and strength at our disposal.

I made sure, by the appearance of the forest, that we were now not far off from the stream. In fact, on October 5th, when we had marched some distance, much to my delight as I walked ahead of my men, who were busy picking up berries as they struggled along, I recognized a little streamlet on which I had made my camp the first night I had started out on our disastrous journey across the forest.

My men, when I mentioned the fact, were sceptical and said it could not possibly be, as we must still be a long distance from the Tapajoz. But we had only gone a few hundred metres farther when I came upon my old camp. There an empty sardine-tin of a special mark which I carried was lying on the ground.

I think that that spoke pretty well for the accuracy with which I could march across the forest by compass. I knew that at that spot we were only 6 kil. from the river. We indulged there in the last tin of the sweet guyabada, which I had kept for an emergency. After that we metaphorically flew through the forest, so fast did we march--if stumbling along constantly and even occasionally falling can be called flying. Even at that last moment, when our hearts were rejoiced, our progress was impeded by a thunderstorm, which broke out with such force that we had to halt for nearly two hours until it slightly abated. The wind howled among the trees, which shook and waved to and fro, some crashing down, so that, with the thunder and lightning and the rush of the water, it seemed a regular pandemonium.

"The devil is angry with us," said Benedicto the philosopher. "He does not want us to get back."

My impatience to get quickly to the river was so great that I could not wait for the storm to be over. In the drenching rain we continued our tramp. My sandals had given way altogether in the quick march that day, and I was once more walking with bare feet. Marching so quickly, one did not always have time to detect thorns. That day my feet were indeed in a pitiable condition.

The last trial of all was yet to be added, when we had come to within 300 m. of the river. The seringueiro, from whose hut we had started on our way out, had evidently since our departure set the forest on fire in order to make a roça so as to cultivate the land. Hundreds of carbonized trees had fallen down in all directions; others had been cut down. So that for those last two or three hundred metres we had to get over or under those burned trees and struggle through their blackened boughs, the stumps of which drove holes into and scratched big patches of skin from my legs, arms and face. Where the skin was not taken off altogether it was smeared all over with the black from the burnt trees. We did not look unlike nigger minstrels, with the exception that we were also bleeding all over.

What had remained of my poor coat had been torn to shreds, so that all I possessed now in the way of clothing was a shirt. As the seringueiro had a wife I could not well appear in that condition before her when we had reached the hut. Hiding behind a tree, we shouted for the seringueiro to come to our assistance. Benedicto, who was not so bashful, and whose costume was not much better than mine, proceeded to the house.

A few minutes later, as I peeped from behind my tree, I had a moment of great joy. I had been wondering during the last few days whether my men had died in the forest, or what could have become of them, as we had not received an answer to our signals. There I saw Alcides rush out of the house and run toward me. His cheeks streamed with tears. "Senhor! Senhor!" he sobbed, embracing me.

Antonio, who followed behind, came up and shook hands, merely saying "Good morning!"

"Where is white Filippe? Where is the man X?" I hastily inquired, in order to make sure that they were still alive.

"They are fishing on the river." Alcides called out to them: "Come quickly! 'El Senhor' has returned!"

White Filippe immediately ran up, but the man X shouted back that he was busy fishing; he would come up later.

Alcides was much upset on seeing my plight. He ran immediately into the hut and got me some clothes from the seringueiro, which I put on before entering the house. The seringueiro was kindness itself to me, most thoughtful and hospitable. He prepared some food for us at once. That was a day of joy and sadness combined. I found that all my men were safe, but that they had abandoned all my baggage and all my collections in the forest. They believed that I had been assassinated by Indians or that I had died of starvation.

Alcides cried like a child for some time. He and the others were ill with fever. Those men I had left in charge of my baggage at the camp in the forest had remained at that camp for seven days after my departure. Believing that I was never coming back, three of them had abandoned everything there, and even their companion Antonio, who was in a dying condition and was unable to walk. They had proceeded quickly to the Tapajoz, where they had found plenty to eat. Two or three days later Antonio had become better; he had shot some monkeys and birds, and had been able to keep alive. Had it not been for the kind-hearted seringueiro, Albuquerque, who had started out to rescue Antonio, the poor devil would have certainly died there, abandoned by everybody.

I heard stories that day which pained me a great deal. When my men believed that I was lost in the forest the man X had proposed to his companions to follow the picada I had cut in order to find my body and rob me of all the money which he knew I carried.

"If he is alive," he had said to his companions, "we will cut his throat once for all, and we will divide the money amongst ourselves."

It was with some difficulty that Alcides had prevented him from smashing all my baggage open, as he wished to divide the contents with his companions. Alcides was an honest man. He had stood up against that rascal. After a severe fight it had been decided that the baggage should be left intact in the forest until such authorities as could be sent up from the Fiscal Agency could visit the spot and take charge of my things.

It was then that I understood why the man X was now ashamed to face me, and did not come to greet me after I had nearly sacrificed my life to save him and his companions.

Albuquerque, the seringueiro, had also been considerate enough to lift my baggage upon stones and then cover it up with palm leaves, so that it should be preserved as much as possible from moisture and ants. During the month they had been back on the Tapajoz the man X had once taken a journey alone to the spot where the baggage and Antonio had been left, hoping to find his companion dead and so rob him of the money which he knew he had in his possession--the pay he had received from me.

Here is another charming incident. Nearly dead with fatigue, I lay helpless in a hammock which the seringueiro had hung for me. He and his wife had gone out to look after their new plantation, and only my men remained loafing about.

The river was some 60 m. from the hut, and one had to go down a steep bank to reach the water. My throat was parched from the high fever, so I called Antonio, who was near me, to give me a glass of water. Antonio never budged, but called to white Filippe, some way off, to bring the water. Filippe called to the man X, repeating my order to him. The man X continued fishing without taking the slightest notice.

So that, exhausted as I was, I had to struggle down to the river myself, as those men, for whom I had almost died, reciprocated my sacrifice in so graceful a fashion.

I think that I might as well mention here a curious case of telepathy which occurred during those terrible days of starvation.

Naturally, when one has before one the prospect of leaving this world at any moment, and one is working under a severe mental strain, one generally thinks deeply of one's beloved parents and relatives. Thus my father, mother and sister were before me all the time in my imagination. Sometimes when I was half-dazed I could see them so vividly that I could almost believe they were so close that I could touch them. I never thought that I should see them again, in reality, although I never actually lost hope of doing so; but I was thinking incessantly of them, and of the anxiety I was causing them, as I had had no possible way of communicating with them for months and months.

There would be nothing extraordinary in that, but the amazing part of it all was that my parents and my sister--who had no idea whatever that I was exploring, as I always take the greatest care not to let them know--actually during that time of starvation saw me in their imagination lying unconscious in the forest, dying of hunger, swarming all over with ants and surrounded by crocodiles.

When I reached Rio de Janeiro in April of the following year I found there a number of letters which had been written to me by my parents and my sister during the month of September, in which they told me of those constant visions repeating themselves daily, especially between the dates of September 8th and September 24th. Those letters were written long before anybody knew that I had ever suffered from starvation in the forest. It is quite remarkable that, except the crocodiles--which, of course, were not to be found in the forest--they reproduced the conditions with wonderful faithfulness, the telepathic connection having in that case been established vividly at a distance of several thousand miles.

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Chapter XXII

Baggage saved--The Journey down the Tapajoz River--Colonel Brazil--Wrecked--From Itaituba to the Amazon--Benedicto and the Man X are discharged

OCTOBER 6th and 7th I spent inside a hammock. I was in such a high fever and so absolutely exhausted that I believed I should never be able to pull through. Albuquerque and his wife were kindness itself to me, and looked after me most tenderly. While I had been away a trading boat had passed. That boat would be on its way down the river again in a few days. I thought I would take advantage of this to go down as far as the mouth of the Tapajoz on the Amazon in her.

On the evening of October 7th, Benedicto, who was a great glutton, prepared a huge bowl of the mamão fruit stewed and sweetened with quantities of sugar. I had obtained from Albuquerque some tins of shrimps, lobster and salmon, butter and jam--all condemned stuff from some ship--and I gave all my men a feast. Benedicto brought me some of the sweet he had prepared, and it looked so tempting that, ill as I was, I ate a quantity of it. After dinner I persuaded my men to go back to the forest to recover the baggage they had abandoned there. Tempted by a present of money I offered them if they would bring it back safely, they all agreed to go.

On October 8th, however, when the men were to start, the man X had a severe colic. He rolled himself on the ground in great pain, and refused to go.

The strong fever had finished me to such an extent that I did not think I should last many hours longer. Albuquerque and his wife stood by my hammock watching me, Albuquerque shaking his head compassionately, asking me if I wanted to write a last word to my family, which he would send down by the trading boat when she arrived. I well remember hearing his voice faintly, as I was in a half-dazed condition. I had not the strength to answer. As he walked out of the room he said to his wife: "Poor fellow! he will not be alive in another hour!"

Albuquerque was a most thoughtful Brazilian, intelligent and well-educated, quite superior for the position he occupied there.

I was still alive on October 9th, much to the surprise of everybody, and feeling much better. There was a great slaughter of chickens, Albuquerque saying that I needed chicken broth badly; in fact, that day I drank cup after cup, and it seemed to give me a little strength. Although those chickens had a local value of about £1 sterling each, Albuquerque would not hear of my paying for them. I knew what inconvenience it would be for him to slaughter them in that fashion, as he could not replace them perhaps for several months.

Good news came that day, when Albuquerque's wife entered the room saying that some trading boats were coming up the river--she could see them a long way off, just getting over the Capueras Falls. I decided to go up in one of those boats as far as the Fiscal Agency at S. Manoel, where I could obtain fresh clothes and provisions. Remaining still inside a house I felt was killing me.

The boats did not arrive that evening. The next day, October 10th, rain came down in sheets, so that we could not see more than a few metres in front of us, and the wind was howling with fury.

On October 11th, when the boats approached, Albuquerque took me up in a small canoe to them on the other side of the wide stream. It was the trading fleet of Don Eulogio Mori, a Peruvian trader, who at once offered all possible assistance and undertook to convey me up stream with pleasure.

Mr. Mori, a most enterprising man, who was in charge of the expedition, was a frank, open and jolly gentleman, most charmingly thoughtful and civil. He and his brother had the second largest rubber-trading business on the upper Tapajoz River.

He was amazed when I got on board and told him who I was, as the news had already spread down the river that I had been murdered by my own men in the forest. In fact, during my absence, when Alcides had travelled up to the Fiscal Agency to inform them of what was happening, he had been detained there for some days and accused with his companions of having murdered me.

As we went up the stream once more we passed Mount S. Benedicto, with its foliated rock in grey and red strata. Volleys were fired in honour of the saint; more candles were deposited on the platform of rock.

When we halted for lunch, one of the crew died of yellow fever. After lunch a grave was dug and the corpse duly deposited in it.

We had not gone far when the trading boats of Colonel Brazil, under the care of Mr. João Pinto, came in sight on their way down the river. Therefore I abandoned the idea of going up to S. Manoel, as, had I not taken the opportunity of going down with Mr. Pinto, I might have had to wait up the river some two or three months before I had another opportunity.

Again I met with the greatest kindness on the part of Mr. Pinto when I transhipped from the Peruvian boats.

In a few hours, travelling rapidly down stream, I was once more at Albuquerque's hut, where Mr. Pinto most kindly offered to halt one day in order that I might wait for the men who had gone in search of my baggage in the forest.

Next day, October 16th, as I was in great suspense lest the men should not arrive in time--Mr. Pinto being pressed to get quickly down the river with some thousands of kilos of rubber he had purchased--my men eventually arrived with part of the baggage. They had abandoned the rest in the forest, including my valuable botanical collection, which had taken me so many months of careful labour. Alcides said that the termites had played havoc with all my things. The wooden boxes had been almost entirely destroyed, as well as most of the contents. I was glad, nevertheless, to get back what I did, the man Benedicto on that occasion behaving splendidly--even going back to the spot where the tragic scene had taken place with the Indian Miguel on our outward journey and recovering some of my instruments which I had abandoned there.

In the afternoon of October 16th I bade goodbye to Albuquerque, and gave him a present of £20 sterling, as he would not accept payment for the hospitality he had offered me.

With a powerful crew of men we sped down the river quickly. In a couple of hours we had already arrived at the rapids of the Capueras. After passing the island of Pombas before entering the rapids, we encountered the first rapid of Sirgar Torta; then the second rapid of Baunilla--named after the vanilla plant. The third rapid of the Capueras group was called Chafaris; then the fourth was the Campinho.

We went along the banks of the beautiful island of Antas, after which we halted at the house of José Maracati, a Mundurucu chieftain, with thirty Indians under him. A delegate of the Para Province in charge of the Indians--a man of strong Malay characteristics and evidently of Indian parentage--received us, and gave me much information about the local rubber industry. He told me that the best rubber found in that region was the kind locally called seringa preta, a black rubber which was coagulated with the smoke of the coco de palmeira. He calculated that 150 rubber trees gave about 14 kilos of rubber a day. The seringa preta exuded latex all the year round, even during the rainy season.

There was in that region also another kind of rubber tree--the itauba--but it was of inferior quality, as the latex was too liquid, like reddish milk, quite weak, and with little elasticity.

A few trees of the castanha do Para were also found in that region, producing the well-known nut which has rendered Brazil famous in England.

Solveira trees were also plentiful all over that district, and gave latex which was good to drink; while another tree, called the amapá, exuded latex somewhat thinner than that of the solveira, which was supposed to be beneficial in cases of consumption or tuberculosis.

Very interesting were the different liane in the forest there, particularly the cepa de agua, which when cut gave most delicious fresh water to drink. The titica was a smaller liana, which was most troublesome when you went through the forest, as it generally caught you and twisted round your feet as it lay for long distances along the ground.

Another wild fruit which was abundant there was the pajurá, dark in colour, soft-skinned, most palatable and quite nourishing, but which gave an insatiable thirst after you had eaten it.

We resumed our journey among a lot of islands, traversing the Cabeceira de Piquarana. The main rapid was formidable enough, although nothing in comparison with the rapids we had gone over on the Arinos-Juruena river. There was a barrier of rock extending from W.S.W. to E.N.E. across the river, which was there 1,500 metres broad and of great beauty, with hillocks on either side and some small islets in mid-stream.

Soon afterwards we came to another barrier of rock, extending from north to south. It was called the Bigua. There was an island of the same name, the name being taken from an aquatic bird which is plentiful there.

The traders talked a great deal of the dangers of those rapids, and they were certainly dangerous because of the innumerable submerged rocks; but after the fierceness of those we had encountered before they seemed child's play to us.

The river there followed a direction of b.m. 60°.

We spent the night of October 16th-17th at the seringueiro's farm of Boa Vista, most beautifully situated where the river described a big curve. In its crudeness the hospitality of those exiles was quite charming. They hardly ever spoke; they just laid things before you--all they possessed--and were overcome with surprise when you thanked them for it or when you offered payment.

There was a project of constructing a cart-road for some 20 kil. along the bank, in order to avoid the rapids which occurred there in the river. Although those rapids were not impressive to look at, they were strewn with submerged rocks just under the surface, which were very dangerous for the large trading boats. If that road were constructed a great deal of time would be saved, especially in ascending the river, when sometimes the trading boats took as long as a week or ten days to get over that particular rapid.

The first rapid we saw after we left Boa Vista was the Vira Sebo rapid, slightly worse than the following ones. I was getting a little better, living on the roof of the trading boat, thoughtfully looked after by Mr. João Pinto and the other employés of Col. Brazil. I was able to drink quantities of condensed milk, and my strength seemed to be slowly coming back.

The river had many islets as we proceeded on our journey, with wooded hillocks some 100 to 150 ft. high in long successive undulations along the river banks. The coast-line was generally of rocky volcanic formation, with accumulations of boulders in many places right across the stream.

After passing the rapids we were travelling through a region of extensive and beautiful sand-beaches, with hardly any rock showing through anywhere. The country on each side was almost altogether flat, merely an occasional hill being visible here and there.

On October 19th we came in for a howling storm of wind and rain, waves being produced in the river as high as those that occur in the sea. We tossed about considerably and shipped a lot of water. More immense sand-beaches were passed, and then we came to a region of domed rocks showing along the river bank. At all the baracãos, or trading sheds where the seringueiros bought their supplies, the same rubbish was for sale: condemned, quite uneatable ship biscuits sold at 5_s._ a kilo; Epsom salts at the rate of £2 sterling a kilo; putrid tinned meat at the rate of 10_s._ a tin; 1-lb. tins of the commonest French salt butter fetched the price of 10_s._ each. The conversation at all those halting-places where the trading boats stopped was dull beyond words, the local scandal--there was plenty of it always--having little interest for me.

At one place we were met by a charming girl dressed up in all her finery, singing harmonious songs to the accompaniment of her guitar. So great was her desire to be heard that she kept on the music incessantly during the whole time we stopped--some three hours--although nobody paid the slightest attention to it after the first song or two.

Farther down the river, there 800 m. wide, hills and undulations were to be seen on each side. At sunset that day we arrived at S. Isabel or Castanho, where I had the pleasure of meeting the greatest man upon that river--Col. R. E. Brazil, a man of immense strength of will and enterprise. He went under the name, which he well deserved, of the "King of the Tapajoz"; for it was he who indeed held the key of that river, nearly the entire commerce on that great waterway being, directly or indirectly, in his hands.

October 20th was spent at S. Isabel, where a great fleet of boats was waiting to be loaded with thousands upon thousands of kilos of magnificent rubber.

Both Col. Brazil and his employés treated me with great deference, and made preparations to get a boat ready at once for me to continue my journey down the stream. In fact, Col. Brazil, who would not hear of my paying for being conveyed down stream, insisted upon my being his guest, and declared that he himself would take me to a point where I might be able to get a steamer.

When all the boats were ready, at 4 p.m. on October 20th, we proceeded on our journey down the Tapajoz by a small channel on the right side of the river, in order to visit some of the trading sheds belonging to Col. Brazil, especially those at the mouth of the Crepore River, which was 100 m. wide where it entered the Tapajoz on the right side. The scenery was beautiful, the hills getting higher as we proceeded north, some of the islands we passed also being of great height and forming picturesque scenes, especially against the gorgeous tints of the sky at sunset.

I was interested in observing the wonderful regularity of the sky-line along the forest. It looked as if the trees had been trimmed artificially in a perfectly straight line. The fleet which Col. Brazil was taking down the river consisted of eight large boats. I was much impressed by the force of mind of Col. Brazil, together with his great charm and thoughtfulness when not at work. His men were in mortal fear of him, and trembled all over when he spoke to them.

No serious obstacle to navigation was encountered as we proceeded on our journey, although rocks were plentiful, great red domes and boulders galore showing through the water and along the coast-line. Whitish vertical cliffs were noticeable along the higher hills. The most impressive things I saw in that part of the river were the extensive beaches of beautiful reddish sand extending for hundreds and hundreds of metres at a time. Those beaches were often 10 to 20 ft. high.

The river was most interesting, especially near the beach of Curassá, with Crato in the distance; then the great meadow of "Mission Nova" extending in a north-westerly direction on the left bank, along the tributary of the same name. In the same direction extended also the rocky barrier at the beginning of the Mangabel rapid. The rapid was formed by a rocky barrier extending from north-west to south-east. We had hilly and undulating country all the way along, and the river wound about a great deal.

Col. Brazil was steering the first boat of the fleet carefully as we went through the tortuous channel, the entire fleet following us in good order. Picturesque islands of truly tropical appearance were to be seen, covered with tall burity palms, 30 to 40 ft. high, with narrow channels between.

The heavy clouds which had collected to the north suggested an approaching storm, but, as luck would have it, the sky cleared at sunset. As we wound our way among the many rocks reflected in the now still waters of that vast river, the scene was really beautiful.

The channel through which Col. Brazil navigated his boat was only 10 m. wide, with dangerous submerged rocks. Mangabel, taken as a whole, was an immense basin, 1,000 to 1,500 m. broad from west to east, interspersed with elongated, rounded and flattened rocks. It was indeed a most picturesque sight, especially when all the trading boats were winding their way at sunset descending the various rapids.

After going through a great channel, we went along a large fissure from south-east to north-west, still in the Mangabel rapid. The rock of that region was highly ferruginous. That fissure was of great depth, and absolutely free from rocks in the channel itself.

When we emerged from the fissure we were confronted to the east on the right bank by two enormous hemispherical domes 100 ft. high, grassy but absolutely without a tree.

The rocky formation of the hills was apparent a little farther down stream, when going along the great eastern channel of the river. On the left bank we had hills with campos on their summit. All the hills I noticed in that region had rounded backs.

I greatly admired the bearing of Col. Brazil as we dashed down at a terrific speed through the most intricate channel in the rapid, strewn with sharp rocks. Had we touched one of those rocks it would have meant the destruction of the boat, the loss of all the valuable cargo and most of the crew, as the majority of them could not swim.

There were three passages there, called respectively the Casson, near the left bank; the Dos Ananas, in the centre; and the channel da Terra Preta, which we followed, on the right. At Lua Nova, the end of the Mangabel rapid, the river turned in a sweeping curve to the north, the rocks getting fewer and fewer until eventually the river became quite clear of them, with only high hills along both banks. Lua Nova was a little settlement of five houses and a shed, some of them whitewashed, with doors and windows painted green. A small plantation of Indian corn, sugar-cane, and mandioca had been made, the soil being extremely fertile at that spot. We enjoyed a magnificent view to the west and north-north-west, the river there forming an elbow.

Close by, on leaving that place, we found on our right Lage's Point, where the rocky formation suddenly ended, and with it the dangers of the Mangabel rapids. Here there was a basin 1,500 m. wide, with extensive sand-beaches of great beauty. After passing the last row of rocks, extending from west to east, the entire river bottom was of clean yellow sand, so that the water appeared as limpid as crystal, while a few moments before it looked of a dirty yellow--not because it was really dirty, but because of the reflection from the rocky river bottom.

From Praia Formosa, which we then saw on our left side, the river was once more strewn with rocks, but not in such quantities as at Mangabel. High hills could be seen all along, which seemed as if they had been formed by alluvial deposits left there when the drainage from the high Matto Grosso plateau proceeded down toward the north in a disorderly fashion, until it found its way into the great fissures in the earth's crust which now form the beds of those great arteries, the Xingu, the Tapajoz, and the Madeira rivers.

I noticed that all the hills and undulations ran from south to north or from north-west to south-east, the southern slope being generally more elongated. After passing on our left the trading sheds of Sobradinho and S. Vicente, with their corrugated iron roofs--looking to us the most civilized things we had ever seen--we approached the Montanha, where another rapid had to be negotiated.

During the night I was sleeping inside the cabin of the boat, which Col. Brazil had placed at my disposal, and where I had all the baggage which I had saved from the forest. In the middle of the night all of a sudden the boat sank in 5 or 6 ft. of water. It was all I could do to scramble out of the cabin. The boat had sprung a great leak as big as a man's hand, which had been stopped up, and which had suddenly opened--hence the misfortune.

This sudden immersion in cold water gave me another bad attack of fever, as I had to sit the entire night in wet pyjamas while the crews of all the other boats were summoned in order to raise the boat once more, a work which lasted several hours.

Next morning when we departed Col. Brazil lent me some of his clothes, while all my things were spread on the roofs of the various boats to dry in the sun, I never shall forget Col. Brazil's amusement and that of his men when I unpacked some of the boxes, which had once been watertight, and pulled out a dress-suit, frock-coat, and other such stylish garments, now all wet and muddy, and some twenty pairs of shoes, all in a terrible condition, mildewed and soaked with the moisture they had absorbed in the forest and during the last immersion.

Near the tributary Montanha, on the left side of the main stream, were two small rapids. A rich rubber-producing land was situated a day and a half's journey along that tributary. The best way to reach it was from a place called El Frances, one of the most charming spots I saw on the lower Tapajoz River. The central hill at Montanha was 300 ft. high, the hills around it from 200 to 300 ft. high.

Farther down we came to the Rio Jamanchin, a tributary on the right side of the Tapajoz, which entered the river where great sand-shallows occupied nearly half the width of the stream.

Col. Brazil was the happy possessor of immense concessions on that tributary stream--in fact as far as the Tocantins River, a tributary on the left side of the Jamanchin. He had already made a mule trail across that region in order to get over the difficulty of the troublesome rapids which are to be found there, such as those of Portão, Cahy, and Apuhy. The mineral wealth was also considerable, according to the accounts I heard; while undoubtedly the production of rubber could not be better.

This was the spot at which the river Tapajoz came nearest to its eastern neighbour the river Xingu. The seringueiros on the latter river constantly cross over, following the Jamanchin in order to go down to the Amazon by the Tapajoz. Rubber collectors have found their way high up on the Xingu River--much farther up than on the river Tapajoz.

On October 25th we went down first the Limão rapid, and then the Burbure rapid. The river was beautiful all along, with low hills on both sides. We eventually arrived at Pimental, a fiendishly hot, steamy, unhealthy place, where across a streamlet was a station for the transhipment of rubber. The place was on low ground, which became inundated at high water. Another station was built some 200 m. off on high ground, which was used as a winter station. The second station was at the beginning of an excellent mule track which Col. Brazil had cut as far as a place lower down the river called Bella Vista, a distance of some 20 kil. He had imported at much expense a number of mules for the service. All the rubber was conveyed from that spot on mule-back, as between Pimental and Bella Vista was a dangerous rapid, on which many boats had been lost.

In the company of Col. Brazil I rode over that distance, in intense pain owing to the weak state in which I was. When we came to the river again, over great deposits of sand we saw a number of crocodiles basking in the sun.

Bella Vista consisted of four neat double-storied grey houses, two large white buildings, and some temporary constructions of mud with palm-leaf roofs, all of them situated on a high bank. The place was at the entrance of a wide channel, dry and sandy. When this was filled by the stream at high water a long island was formed.

Bella Vista was a great point for us, for there we should meet steam navigation again, Col. Brazil having purchased a handsome steamer which performed the service between that place and Belem (Para).

I broke down altogether while there, and was nursed with the tenderest care by the family of Mr. Lage, who was in charge of that trading station. It is difficult to imagine more kind-hearted, generous people than these exiles in those deadly regions. All the employés at the station were in a pitiable condition, suffering from malarial fever.

When the steamer Commandante Macedo arrived--she only came once a month in order to bring down the rubber--I went in her to the first town we had seen since leaving Diamantino, a place called Itaituba. It seemed to us as if we had dropped into London or Paris again, although the place merely consisted of a few red-roofed houses, the walls of which were gaily coloured, bright yellow, green, or white. Palm trees of great size showed here and there beyond the row of buildings as we approached the place on its high site.

Prominent along the river front were magnificently vigorous mango trees, with luxuriant foliage. A brick and stone church, unfinished, was visible, with a great pile of bricks in front waiting in vain for money and labour to complete it. The grand square, with its pretty Intendencia coloured bright blue, formed the end, on the west, of that most important "town" on the Tapajoz. In the centre of the square was a well-executed bust of Correa.

The most prominent feature of the place, however, was the elevated landing-stage, some 30 ft. above the level of the river at low water, erected there for loading and unloading when the river rose. The town was divided by three longitudinal avenues, the central one also with rows of magnificent mango trees, which indeed seemed to flourish at that place. I was particularly struck by the wonderful tidiness and cleanliness, the good drainage of the streets, and the upkeep of the different houses, of which the people seemed proud. Everybody was well off, owing to the rubber industry, which had brought much wealth to the place. Col. Brazil and his family have dedicated much time and energy to embellishing the town, and no doubt some day, when Itaituba is connected with proper telegraphic and postal services, it will become an important city, being the key, as it were, of the Tapajoz River.

On November 5th I bade good-bye to my good friend Col. Brazil, whose guest I had been since leaving the forest, and for whose thoughtful hospitality I feel deeply grateful. I presented him with my best rifle, a very handsome weapon, which had accompanied me on several previous journeys, and which was the only valuable thing remaining in my possession.

It was a new sensation for me to be steaming down comfortably on a beautifully-kept steamer, as spick-and-span as a private yacht. Her captain and co-proprietor with Col. Brazil was Captain Macedo, a man who had spent much time in Europe, and was one of the most polished gentlemen I met in Brazil.

Now that my work was practically over, it was a great relief to me to be basking in a cane chair upon the deck, looking at the wonderful scenery opening up before me as we went on. We passed a lovely sand-beach, Capitary, then the immense bay of Boin, and farther on the great rocks of Surucuá. Then came in sight the headland called Punta de Cururu, with the Serra of the same name upon it. Once or twice the ship stopped at different sheds in order to take up merchandise, but we only halted long enough to get the cargo on board, and once more we proceeded gaily down stream. It was wonderful how one appreciated civilized ways of locomotion after travelling for months and months, as we had done, in the manner of prehistoric man.

In the evening, while we were sitting at dinner, there was a big bump. We had run aground somewhat heavily on a sand-dune. The captain rather frightened me as he said that on a previous occasion they had stuck on a sand-bank for several days before they could get off. As luck would have it that night, partly by the aid of a steel cable several hundred metres long, which had been fastened to a number of big trees on the shore, partly by her own power, we were able to back out and get her free. Only six hours were wasted. The tide, which reaches a long way up the Tapajoz River when the latter is low, helped us a great deal. At high tide the level of the water is raised more than one foot. It seemed amazing that the tide of the ocean could extend its influence by forcing the water back so far up the Amazon and its tributaries.

Although the steamer on which I was did not draw much water, being built specially for river navigation, careful soundings had to be taken continually. I well recollect the cries of the man at the lead. When the man cried out "Una braça!" (one fathom), there was great excitement on board, and we had to slow down to half speed or dead slow. In the distance on the left bank in the haze could be distinguished high hills, at the foot of which white ribbon-like streaks were visible along the water.

The Barros do Tapayuna, a sand and mud bar, extremely shallow, extended from the elongated island of the same name right across the stream, there about 5 kil. wide. That spot was also called the garganta, or throat of the Tapajoz, because at low water it was impossible to get through, and it was necessary to unload the steamer, the navigation being extremely difficult.

"Dos braças!" (two fathoms) cried the lead man. "One and a half fathom!" he cried next, as we went over the shallowest part of that sand-bar.

Although shallow, that part of the river was not dangerous, because the bottom was of soft mud; not so, however, farther on, where the shallow channel was strewn with plentiful rocks. Captain Macedo had sensibly placed buoys and marks all over the most dangerous places, so as to minimize the dangers of navigation.

The river was magnificent farther down, where we passed a great quadrangular rock of deep Indian red, looking exactly like an immense square tower. Then vertical rocks were to be seen all along the right bank; while on the left bank, when we crossed over to the other side of the river, were immense beaches of beautiful sand. Above them were great stretches of the most wonderful grass, upon which thousands of cattle could graze--but not one animal was to be seen.

It was rather interesting to note that the formation of the right bank was exactly the same as that of the Paredão Grande we had seen in Matto Grosso. Vertical sides in great rectangles were noticeable, intersected by passages--regular cañons--where small huts could be seen at the foot of the picturesque rocks, especially at places where small streamlets entered the Tapajoz. I was told that little lakes had formed beyond those frontal rocky masses, the entrances to which were blocked at low water by sand-bars. Beyond that row of vertical red rocks was a more or less confused mass of hills, some dome-like, others of a more elongated form, but still with a well-rounded sky-line. The water of the stream had now changed colour altogether, and had become of a deep green. Islets could be seen far, far away to the left side of the river, mere white dots and lines along the water-line, most of them having white sand-beaches around them; while on the right bank the great red walls in sections continued for many miles. As we neared the mouth of the Tapajoz, the river had the immense width of 14 kil. On the right, after going through the Passagem dos Surucué, we passed the mountain of Jaguarary, which stood prominent along a flat elevation on the right bank.

We halted in the afternoon at a picturesque little place called Prainha--prettier than any I had seen so far, because of its frontage battlement, with its numerous staircases to allow the people of the various houses to go down to the water. A tiny church stood farther back on a prominence.

Late at night we arrived at Santarem, at the junction of the Tapajoz River with the Amazon. At that spot the man X and poor Benedicto insisted on leaving me, so they received their full pay, and Benedicto a very handsome present of money; after which they disembarked. As the sum I paid Benedicto was a considerable one, so that he might be well off for the rest of his days, I warned him not to waste it in buying all kinds of absurd things.

We halted at Santarem for several hours. What was not my astonishment, just before we departed, to find that Benedicto had gone into a store and had spent over £25 sterling in buying innumerable tins of jam--in fact, he had bought up the entire supply which was in the store! When I asked him what he did that for, he said he was very fond of jam. With his friends and a number of people he had quickly collected round him, they opened tin after tin, ravenously devouring the contents, so that within a short time he would have none left.

Brazilians of all classes are hopelessly improvident.

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