Across Unknown South America Part 63

"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, compa.s.s 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 appet.i.te 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 compa.s.s: how could a bra.s.s box--that is what they called it--tell us where we could find _feijo_? 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 compa.s.s) was telling me that morning that there was plenty of _feijo_ 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 pa.s.sage 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 pa.s.sion 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 _a 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 sh.e.l.ls of the fruit they had eaten. With our ravenous appet.i.te we rushed for them and with our teeth sc.r.a.ped off the few grains of sweet substance which remained attached to the inside of the sh.e.l.ls. We waited and waited under that tree for a long time, Filippe now joining also in the prayers.

Each time a sh.e.l.l dropped our palates rejoiced for a few moments at the infinitesimal taste we got from the discarded sh.e.l.ls. 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 quant.i.ties. I do not suppose that my men during the entire period of starvation drank on an average more than a winegla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 coa.r.s.est 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 circ.u.mstances. 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.