University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI
THE LAW OF THE FOREST

"I KNOW where he has gone."

One of the canoemen was speaking. Jack and I turned to one another and saw what was in each other's eye. A man's cache in the woods is sacred property. To steal it is the worst offence against the Law of the Forests. To have overlooked the Colombian's crime would have been as impossible for Jack, with his inbred instinct of the justice of the mining-camps and cow country as for me with my national pride. So each had decided for himself that the matter had not ended there. Our Indians, who knew the way, should take us to Mejías' camp without further ado. Mejías had not reckoned with the fact that other Indians besides his own knew of his haunts in the rubber-woods.

We left the post at once, going down the Napo in our dugout. The following day, we arrived at the mouth of a small, inconspicuous, deep-water creek on the right bank, the place where the Colombian was supposed to have turned into the forests. A few miles up the creek we came across the permanent cache which he had erected in which to stow his rubber. There was nobody there, for in that desolate spot there was no fear of its being disturbed. There were not more than two or three white men operating in the whole Upper Napo zone, and no Yumbos will ever disturb a cache. We found, however, the majority of our stores. The next thing was to find Mejías.

Our Indians followed his trail without the least difficulty. Mejías himself was wearing alpargates (Spanish canvas shoes with hempen soles), so there was no mistaking the trail, as it led us further and further south. We came across two or three temporary shelters where he and his party had passed the night. On the third day it became probable that we should catch them at any moment, as the trail showed that they were spreading out in search of rubber, and moving slowly. We wanted, however, to come up with them after they had stopped for the night. At last we heard them chopping. Our leading Indian halted, and, with that quiet, significant gesture of theirs, pointed with his chin in the direction of the noise. We started to advance cautiously on the camp, with the intention of holding Mejías up at the point of a gun and demanding an explanation. We got to within a few yards of the clearing when we were spotted. Mejías seized a rifle and ran for the edge of the open space, looking "plumb hostile" to use Jack's phrase. There was nothing left but to be the first to shoot. Jack was carrying my old .45 Colt given to me by Mr. Dillard at Guayaquil, a deadly weapon in the hands of an expert. Mejías virtually committed suicide.

His death was not resented by his Indians, after the circumstances of the case had been explained to them. We took back all that belonged to us, and left them to do what they wanted with the rest. We trailed back to our canoe, and continued on our way down the Napo.

Two days travelling brought us to the next rubber-post, a place established by a certain Señor Abarca on the left bank. To him we explained what had happened, and were relieved to find that Mejías had enjoyed a very unsavoury reputation, and that we had acted strictly in accordance with the Unwritten Law of the land. Of the Yasuní, the possibilities of which now loomed great

in our imaginations, he knew but little. He referred us to Don Elias Andrade, however, the King of the Napo, who lived in a commodious thatched house two days further down-stream, a little beyond the mouth of the Yasuní itself, and an hour's canoeing up the Aguarica, the largest tributary of the Napo, nearly equal in size to the Napo itself. Accordingly, we set off once more for Andrade's post.

Andrade was an Ecuadorian cauchero, who had established himself with an important post in a well-chosen spot. The junction of the two most important rivers northwest of Iquitos was a site which could not be improved upon in the whole district. Andrade commanded the trade of two rivers. His house stood back some twenty-five yards from the water, a two-story affair with a large verandah running round three sides of it, facing a scalped court. He commanded a view of the Aguarica, which is a mile wide at that point. He possessed a steam-launch with which he "policed" the river, stopping and questioning anybody who might approach, in that way controlling trade. Behind his house was a plantation of good proportions, enlarged still more by the numerous chacras of his Indians, who lived there half the year, and were out working rubber for him the other half. He had, in fact, founded his own small colony, over which he presided, living there with his wife, his son, and two daughters.

His equipment consisted of a set of carpenter's tools with which he made his furniture, a collection of simple agricultural tools such as hoes, picks and shovels, and finally an assortment of bogus scales, with which to add to the profits of his business.

We personally had no complaints to make about our reception. He took us into his family circle, gave us a house to stay in for the few nights we were there, and

invited us to dine at his board. He had built himself a table on which meals were taken on the verandah.

At dinner on the first evening, he asked if we were accustomed to take masata. We replied that we were, when the old man turned to us and said with a smile:

"I can recommend this specially: it has been chewed by my daughters."

His daughters, who sat at table with us, blushed their acknowledgment of the compliment.

Andrade had never been up the Yasuní. He gave it as his opinion, however, that there should be a great deal of rubber there. He had for some time intended to take a well-armed party up on his steam-boat if it were navigable. It was true he said, that the adjacent country was inhabited by infieles. And that was all we could find out about the river we had set our hearts on exploring. From time to time we had broached the subject of the Yasuní to our Yumboa. At first they seemed very shy of entering the place of evil repute. But little by little we persuaded them, by extra pay and a promise of return should the infieles molest us, that they were afraid of a more or less nebulous bogey. Finally they consented to go with us, spurred on by our suggestion that when they returned home they would be the lions of their tribe.

We took on board food supplies, both canned and fresh, and a Winchester for Jack, buying them from the Ecuadorian's ample store, and paying for them with some of my "pearl" necklaces, which he fancied for his daughters. We were off.

With one of Andrade's Indian's as pilot, we made down toward the mouth of the Aguarica, where he instructed our Indians as to the easiest way to cross the Napo and land at the mouth of the Yasuní. This we managed without difficulty.

The Yasuní is named from the Inca yacu suni, meaning "Long River." Of its length we were, of course, at that time absolutely ignorant, but I am able to say, as a result of our experiences there, that it must measure some two hundred and fifty miles in all. It follows a very tortuous course throughout its whole length. For so long a river it is very narrow, measuring only about thirty yards at its widest point. It is sluggish and deep, after once leaving the rocky bed through which it flows for the first fifty miles or so. The dense verdure in many places covers it with an unbroken roof for a considerable stretch, which shades the water from the sun, and makes paddling very pleasant except at high water, when the danger of overhanging branches is always present. Particularly is this true of the first hundred and fifty miles of its course. On the Yasuní one feels indeed that one is in the very heart of the forest.

There are still hundreds of such rivers and streams which no white man has ever yet explored, minor tributaries of the Santiago, the Aguarica, the Ucayali, and the Marañon. Now that the old rubber trade of the Amazon has almost vanished, presumably for ever, the posts and settlements have been deserted and have fallen into decay, and the regular lines of steamers which used to ply the waters of so many of the main rivers have disappeared, it seems likely that for centuries to come countless miles of country in the Amazon basin will remain untrodden by any white man.

Now, our journey into the winding forest-tunnel known as the Long River may be divided into various periods, the first of which covered the twenty-odd days paddling after entering its mouth. I propose, then, to treat this phase as a whole, as many days were much the same as each other, and it would be impossible (even if it were desirable) for me to record our progress day by day.

I kept no journal, the idea never having occurred to me at that time of publishing any record of my travels. Certain of the outstanding events, however, of those days left such a clear impression on my mind that I have no difficulty in recalling them accurately. Of these I shall speak, grouping them together under the whole period I have mentioned.

The Indians worked well. They enjoyed the hunting, which was excellent. Monkeys of all the thirteen species known to me to live in the Amazon woods abounded. I started a collection of their skulls which I rescued from the stew-pot, from the tiny pichico (Inca) to the baboon-like coto (Inca), an array of specimens which I lost in the strenuous days that followed. Monkeys formed the chief diet of our Indians and it was there that I began to appreciate their meat, a taste which grew as time went on. Wild turkeys (Guans) were so numerous that we would shoot them from the canoe and pick them out of the water. Tapirs were seen daily as were capabarra, the largest of the rodents. The latter weigh up to a hundred pounds, but, unlike the tapir, which is as good as beef, their meat is unpalatable. A host of other kinds of game fell to our guns, such as pheasants and partridges of a kind, running birds of various species, and parrots, which at times literally darkened the sky. In short, there was no lack of good meat.

Fish, too, were plentiful. When we passed a small inlet in whose still, clear waters we could see them swimming, we threw in a line. But at first we could never land a single one, for the moment they were hooked, they bit through the line. So we had to resort to a "line" made of sardine tin keys, with which we made our first catch. Although the Indians cautioned us that it would bite, I succeeded in extracting the hook from its mouth, when it fell to the bottom of the canoe. It

promptly snapped at Jack's feet, making a wound like a miniature shark, namely, two deep-cut half-circles. This fish is known in Brazil as the piranha, to the Incas as the paña. In appearance it resembles our sunfish, and like the latter makes excellent eating. A large one would weigh about two and a half pounds. I imagine that the presence of this fish in so many of the still waters accounts for the reluctance with which the thin-skinned animals pass through them. It is equipped with one row of sharp teeth in either jaw, which are shaped like those of the shark, which it equals, or even surpasses, in ferocity. Either in the water or on dry land it is as vicious as a mad dog. It attacks a man in either element without provocation. I doubt whether a man could emerge alive from an attempt to swim a stream teeming with pañas.

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, when speaking of these fish in his fascinating account of his South American travels did not, I think, mention what to me seemed a most singular characteristic of the species. It is this. Flopping about in the canoe or on the bank. The paña emits a noise that can only be described as a low-pitched bark—more striking, if not more formidable, than even its bite.

After a few days paddling we caught sight of a number of rubber trees growing along the bank, and decided to get the Indians to show us how to select and work them. We learned the well-known rudiments of the process of locating the trees, testing the sap, proving the tree by the bark and leaf, and finally tapping the falling trunk and collecting the milk. It was not till later that we went seriously to work, however.

But rubber-milk is not the only milk which flows in the Amazon country. The Indians showed us on the Yasuní a secret of the woods which was to our untrained eyes

little short of a miracle. Sticking a machete into a large, smooth-barked, red-brown tree one morning, one of them drew from the wound a pint of fluid as near to milk in appearance and taste as could be imagined. He assured us that it was súmaj (good) and, to prove it, drank some. We always used it after that for our coffee, which it enriched as well as the real thing.

One day we came to the conclusion that the river must have fallen considerably. Being constantly on the move, we had no means of judging how much, but we kept on meeting with as many obstructions in the shape of fallen trunks which lay from bank to bank only half submerged that we were sure of having judged aright. In such cases we had either to empty the canoe, fill it with water and pass it under the log, or cut to water-level a gap in the log itself, wide enough for the passage of the dugout, and place "Slippery Balsa wood" bark on it. In the latter case the procedure would be to load the stern of the canoe with cargo and crew, paddle hard at the log until we were half-way over, and then move all the weight into the bow. In this way we easily slid over. The cutting of the gaps in these logs was my introduction to the practical difficulties of dealing with hard-wood, a lesson which was all the more difficult as I was a novice in the use of the axe. Jack, who had served his time in our northern lumber camps, was an expert, and he taught me the art. The logs which had fallen and blocked the river were all hard-wood trees. Had they not been, they would have rotted away within a few months (with the exception of the cedar, which lasts a few years). It generally cost us two or three hours' hard labour to pass one of these obstructions. Owing to the low state of the water, then, we decided to pitch a camp, and wait till some rain should fall and give us two or three feet more water in which to manoeuvre.

We were by that time in good rubber-country, so we took advantage of the opportunity to prospect for what was then the most valuable product of the Amazon forests. We went about marking trees, the simple process by which the first comer claims them for his own. Anywhere on the Amazon a simple axe-mark suffices to advertise to all and sundry that the tree has passed into the absolute possession of him who made it. It is the cattle-brand of the woods. But the rubber-producing areas are so vast that there is seldom a clash of arms between prospectors. As for the Yasuní itself, never from the first day to the last of that expedition did I find the slightest sign of a former visit by civilized man. All I saw up that river from start to finish confirmed my hope that we were the first huiracuches (white men—Inca) to pass that way.

The five Yumbos went to work on the making of a small clearing, and the construction of a thatched shelter on the right bank. In a few hours we were installed with our stores landed and stowed under cover. In front of the shack was a swimming-pool, with a miniature sand-bar. We had plenty to eat, and life was altogether very pleasant.

It was there, in that pool, that we found the first giant reptile of our travels, an anaconda, a species for which the Amazon and its tributaries are noted. The anaconda, a member of the boa family, is the largest snake in the world, growing to a length of fifty feet and more, with a correspondingly immense girth. Its skin is of no particular colour, its general appearance being black, while the boa has a mottled colouration which harmonizes with its surroundings in the forest. The boa is more frequently found on the land than the anaconda though both are water snakes. The latter's head is built on the same lines as those of other non-poisonous

snakes. It has a row of powerful teeth on each side of the jaws, slightly curved and sloping toward the throat. Its jaws, of course, become disjointed in the act of swallowing its prey. Its mouth and throat, when in a normal condition, would not admit anything larger than a rabbit. Like the python, it sleeps for a long period after feeding. Curiously enough, although essentially a water-snake, it lives chiefly on land mammals.

While bathing one morning, I stepped on what I took to be the bottom of the pool, when suddenly I felt it heave under me. Some of the Indians were in with me at the time. Thinking that I had stepped on a stinging ray, with which such rivers are infested, I struck out for the band as hard as I could, shouting the news. The Indians on the bank ran for the canoe, armed with pointed sticks to spear the fish. One glance into the water showed them what really lurked there. Undaunted they attacked it with their spears. The huge reptile, which turned out to be thirty feet long, to our great surprise did not put up a fight for its life. Judging from my later experiences, I think it must have just taken to the water after one of its comatose periods, a theory borne out by the fact that we found an almost totally digested deer in its stomach, although it is unusual for these monsters to return to the water so soon. Having killed it finally with a shot which cut it in two, about three feet from the head, we dragged it ashore. The seven of us had a hard task to drag out the still squirming body and deposit it on the sand-bar. We skinned it. We had to work all day to complete the operation, slitting the skin from end to end along the snake's under side and tearing it inch by inch from the flesh. The work was not even over when at last we had hacked away the last of the clinging carcass. In order to

preserve the skin we had to make a frame with two thirty-foot saplings, upon which to stretch it and place it in the sun. Finally a thatched shelter as long as the skin itself had to be built to protect it from the rain while it was drying. By the time we had rolled it into a cylindrical package about three feet high and stowed it in the canoe we nearly had a mutiny. After packing it along with us for a few days we began to fear the infieles would smell us coming. Jack said its only use was that it made it unnecessary to cut a trail when out hunting. At last, after trying in vain to keep it dry, we left it to the ants in one of our temporary camps.

As yet no sign of the savages for which the Yasuní was famed had been seen. The country seemed never to have been disturbed throughout the ages. So perfect was the solitude of these primeval forests that we might have been traversing another world. Virgin Nature reigned in unchallenged supremacy throughout that land of trees and rivers, which must resemble, in many ways, the mesozoic swamps which covered the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. I felt that, at any moment, we might meet a brontosaurus or a diplodocus round the next bend.

Steadily we were going ahead once more, the rain having swollen the river and made progress easier. The Yumbos seemed to have forgotten their old terror of the locality. We were satisfied that we had struck as good a crew as could have been found in the Napo country. I suppose we were nominally prospecting for rubber or gold, or both, but for me neither one nor the other meant anything. What mattered was that we were pioneering. Day by day we were buried deeper in the Unknown.

Maquisapa hunting was one of our principal sports (maqui—in Quichu means "hands"; sapa is a superlative

affix meaning all, most, largest, etc. The name was therefore given to this monkey because of his large and agile limbs). The maquisapa is jet-black, with white markings on face and head. It has a long, prehensile tail. It looks like a bunch of animated rope with five ends. It moves through the trees as quickly as a man can run. The result is that hunting this species is an arduous game. The maquisapa gives as good sport as the best wild-fowling, for you can never get a still shot. The Indians can, or else they would never bring one down at all with their trade guns. They stalk them with a skill which no white man can equal. Often they conceal themselves in the undergrowth, and call to the monkeys in their own language until they come within range. At such times we could never tell which spoke, monkey or Yumbo.

It was when out hunting these animals one day that I saw a fine specimen of the bright-green whip-snake. It is commonly stated that this species of the arboreal snakes never grows beyond two feet in length. The one I saw, however, measured five without a doubt. It was gliding along a branch within twenty feet of my head, hunting, as the Indians told me, for birds' nests.

By the end of three weeks of intimate association with the Yumbo lads, we had picked up a deal of woodcraft which was new to us. We could hunt, fish, paddle, pole, and pitch a camp with the best of them. Moreover, by that time the monotony of the interminable level stretches was giving place to more defined banks and slight undulations, indicating the proximity of the hilly country, where we might expect to find more rubber than in the lowlands. It was always impossible, however, to get a view of the surrounding country. The tallest trees are of so great a girth as to be unclimbable. Even though it might be possible to scale them with

great peril with the help of the bejucos which hang from the upper limbs, the risk of a bite from one of the scorpions, centipedes or ants which live aloft would be too great. One is a prisoner of the forest.

So it was that the idea occurred to us of leaving the river and striking inland for a day's march (perhaps ten miles) and building a permanent camp from which to prospect for rubber and infieles. One evening, we drew our canoe clear of the water, some fifteen feet above its level, and there we cached it, bottom up. Next morning, leaving our stores until we should decide definitely on a site for our headquarters, we dived into the bush. It seemed that we could never be rid of the Yasuní so many times did we come across one of its coils. Like a great serpent it had us in its grip. Finally, in despair we forded it, hoping to find freedom on its other bank. Again we were held up within a mile. We struck out in a new direction, the most likely to our minds, and found ourselves free from it at last.

After two hours marching we saw the Indians, who were leading, halt. "The river again," we thought. We came up with them, preparing for another swim. One of them stretched out his chin; we followed the direction of his movement. Before us lay a trail with human footprints plainly marked in the mud. There was no mistaking the animal that had made them. From the ball of the foot sprouted the five toe-marks like the spokes of a wheel.

Our find had an electrifying effect on us. "Now for those gold slop-buckets!" cried Jack.

Poor old Jack; his theory was always that gold, being the most ductile of the metals for shaping into household utensils, must be used for anything and everything by those savages whom one day we should find. For my part, I was not quite so sanguine about the gold pots

and pans, but I was determined to try to find and make friends with the men at whose footprints we stood and gazed—men who would be able to help us to work that unknown country, and drag from it any wealth that it might contain. There is a vein of avarice in every man.

The Indians decided that the trail was a hunting-trail, and consequently a long one. They thought that it led up-river to the higher land. We came to the conclusion that we should have plenty of time to investigate it later, and therefore moved on to find suitable camping-ground from which centre we could work the surrounding country. In a short time we had found what we wanted, a patch of ground a little higher than the common level. We were now some eighteen hours march from the canoe, with a difficult trail behind us. There we built two shelters, one for Jack and myself, the other for the Yumbos. Just before reaching the place, Jack had shot a yungaruru, a bird the size of a chicken, whose meat and plumage resemble those of a pheasant, a rare prize (even for the Indians) by reason of its shyness. We broiled it for supper. The Indians displayed a great interest in the bird. They came to us while we were eating it, and begged for a mouthful, so that they could tell their fellow-tribesmen they had eaten one of the most coveted prizes of the hunter. Everybody was in the best of spirits that night, with the prospect of finding so soon what we had set our hearts on. Gold, rubber, infieles —anything might be waiting for us. We spread our rubber-sheets, turned in, and went to sleep at peace with the world. It never occurred to us to mount guard.

Next morning I was awakened by the forest voices which start with the dawn. I arose and left Jack still rolled up in his blanket, dreaming, doubtless, of those golden buckets. I crossed the ten feet or so which

separated the two shacks. They were temporary affairs, built of a number of giant palm-leaves with their butts stuck in the ground so as to form a sloping canopy. Walking round to the open side of the one the Yumbos used, I stopped, dumbfounded at what I saw.

The place was empty.