University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII
HUNGER

AS I stood looking at the deserted shack I reflected on the ways of the people of the Amazon country. It seemed that they were full of surprises. Their strong suit was apparently the disappearing trick. For the third time in two months we had had it played on us. We were evidently destined to fend for ourselves.

I returned to our own shack and awoke Jack. When he heard the news he sat up in his blankets and, prefacing his remarks with a few well-chosen words, he ended up by saying something about "the people round that part of the world not being very constant companions." However, talking would serve no good purpose. We took action. We packed up all the Yumbos had left us and started on the back trail to the canoe, which in all probability gave us more trouble in daylight than it had Santiago and the rest at night. We tramped all day as hard as we could, being unable to take a short cut to a point lower down the river than where we had landed to intercept the fugitives, as the complex windings of its course might have caused us to strike it twenty miles further up-stream as easily as twenty miles down. We carried no directional instruments, and as a matter of fact a compass is of no practical value in such country. Even though the general direction of a river may be known, a compass cannot tell you whether you have hit it above or below a given point, as to march true on a given bearing is impossible in the dense forests.

In the evening we reached our landing-place, tired and muddy. We were not in the least surprised to find our canoe gone, and with it our last hope of catching the Yumbos. Wearily we cooked a supper and turned in for the night. Next morning the idea occurred to me that Santiago would have been afraid to be seen in our canoe on the Napo without us; some awkward questions might have been asked, for there was in Archidona some sort of authority with a primitive native police force at its back. To steal a white man's canoe in that country was as bad as stealing a man's horse in the West. So we resolved to follow the river down-stream for a short way at any rate, and see whether the dugout had been left. As it turned out, we were right. We found it within a couple of hours. The Yumbos had evidently cut down that particular kind of palm which, by reason of the swelling in the trunk half-way up, adapts itself readily to the speedy manufacture of two make-shift dugouts in a few minutes. The pith is soft, and can be easily cut away with a machete. The ends are blocked with mud. For a quick get-away on such an occasion as that they serve splendidly, but are useless as a permanent craft, for they are extremely heavy, and their low free-board causes them to fill with water and sink at the slightest provocation.

And so began the second period of my Yasuní adventure. It was a period of suffering, of a bitter realization of how much we had in reality depended on the Yumbos for our welfare, and of almost total disaster from which we were finally saved by a stroke of fortune at the eleventh hour.

At first, after we had been left on our own, we managed well enough. The first thing we did was to decide to continue our journey up-stream in search of the infieles of whose whereabouts we had at least some idea. From

what Santiago had said, we figured that they must be located somewhere on the head waters of the Yasuní itself. So we turned about after finding the canoe and started off cheerfully enough. We did not make such rapid progress as when the Indians had been with us; as may be imagined, they were experts in every means of propulsion. Bit by bit, however, we learned to be experts in our turn, and at the end of a few days were making about ten miles a day. Several times we were tantalized by the sight of a loop of our own stream separated from us by only two yards of land, but actually a matter of two days' poling away. There was no means of dragging our heavy canoe up the fifteen-foot clay banks. We checked our progress at such times by blazing a tree on the up-stream side of the isthmus which lay between the two sides of the "hairpin." The same peculiarity is common to many of the smaller Amazon rivers; the Sicuangua, most of which I surveyed myself, is typical.

While poling steadily along under the lee of the left bank, one day, Jack called out suddenly:

"There's a dead alligator over there! Let's get out of here."

I turned to look in the direction in which he had pointed. In a moment I saw his mistake. There lay in the mud and water, covered with flies, butterflies and insects of all sorts, the most colossal anaconda which ever my wildest dreams had conjured up. Ten or twelve

feet of it lay stretched out on the bank in the mud. The rest of it lay in the clear shallow water, one huge loop of it under our canoe, its body as thick as a man's waist. I have told the story of its length many times since, but scarcely ever have been believed. It measured fifty feet for a certainty, and probably nearer sixty. This I know from the position in which it lay. Our canoe was a twenty-four footer; the snake's head was ten or twelve feet beyond the bow; its tail was a good four feet beyond the stern; the centre of its body was looped up into a huge S, whose length was the length of our dugout and whose breadth was a good five feet. It is worth noting in passing that Waterton speaks of these reptiles being killed up to forty feet in length while, he says, the Spaniards of the Oroonoqui positively affirm that they grow to be seventy or even eighty feet long, and that such monsters will kill the strongest bull.

I was in the stern where I couldn't reach the rifles, so called out to Jack to shoot. He reached out for his weapon, but the noise he made in fumbling for it among the stores alarmed the snake. With one great swirl of the water that nearly wrecked us it vanished. The agility with which it moved was absolutely astounding in view of its great bulk, in striking contrast to the one we skinned. When I thought of how the latter's decapitated body had coiled round my legs and nearly broken them in the last contraction of its dying muscles I wondered what would have happened to us had that huge beast in its headlong flight taken a turn round the canoe. How utterly helpless the mightiest of men would be in the coils of such a monster!

A month had passed, and we began to think that we knew all there was to know about canoeing. Fresh indications of the presence of the savages had been seen. Twice we found bridges built over the stream by the tying together with bejuco of two overhanging limbs, making a crude but safe means of crossing at high water. We saw more trails, but never a sign of any dwelling-place. Sure of finding the tribe still further up-stream we pressed ahead. The going was more and more difficult as we went on. The river was high, higher than we knew.

One night we tied up as usual to an overhanging branch. After cooking supper and making a shelter, we

put back all the utensils, tools and rifles into the canoe, where they would be best protected from the universal wet by the palm-leaf covers (armariaris is the Upper Amazon name for them). The canoe was tied almost at our feet, as we slept heavily after the hard day's work, little suspecting the tragedy that was taking place. Hour after hour the water fell away, hour after hour the rope tightened. For a long time the stores must have resisted the gradually increasing pull of gravity as the canoe little by little approached the perpendicular, having long since reached the rope's limit. Then at last, in the small hours of the morning, everything we possessed except two machetes and a bottle half full of molasses slipped in a fateful avalanche into the water. If only we hadn't chosen the limb so carefully that night! How easily it might have given a warning crack as it bent to the strain!

When we awoke in the morning it was to gaze down on the water fifteen feet below us. Slowly the truth dawned on us. We were sixty days up-river from the nearest post, without either food or the means of getting it. At our feet lay our two blankets, and the machetes and the bottle of molasses, which by a mere fluke we had omitted to replace in the canoe, the only relic of our kit. Jack, always a philosopher, took one miserable look at the overhanging canoe, and turned away. "Holy Hell," he muttered.

It was about all there was to say. The outlook was hopeless. From that deep muddy stream we could never hope to recover a single thing. Whatever had floated was by that time miles away. Gone were our rifles, gone were our provisions, hopelessly embedded in the silt under a couple of fathoms of swiftly moving water. We thought of diving for them, and had the water been still, we might at least have secured our rifles and ammunition;

but as it was, the muddy current would have swept us away long before we could ever touch bottom.

In fifteen days we could have reached the Napo had we had food, but never without it. We turned the matter over in our minds for some time. Our only hope, we concluded, lay in picking up the first trail we could find, and following it as fast as we could. We had been betrayed by that treachery which is a characteristic (would that we had only known it then!) of all the smaller tropical American rivers in the rainy season.

Barefooted, bareheaded, clothed only in cotton shirt and pants, we set off with our blankets, our machetes, and that miserable bottle of molasses.

What a hope! We had seen but three trails since entering the Yasuní and those were many miles away. Our only chance was to strike out into the woods, away from that accursed river which had robbed us of our means of supporting life.

With but one thought in our minds—to go on and on as hard as we could until our strength gave out—we pressed on through the jungle, not even marking a trail. What would have been the use, when there was no good in returning? If our salvation lay anywhere, it lay ahead. Time was the most precious thing to us in all the world. We covered the ground at a good pace, but the thorns which were everywhere gave us a great deal of trouble. At first we stopped to extract them from our feet. By the end of the first day's march, however, we became reckless of where we stepped, forging straight ahead (as we thought), caring neither for thorns or anything else. We finished the molasses bottle the first day, rinsing it out and drinking the water several times before finally throwing it away. It never ceased raining. The forest was unspeakably dismal.

The ground was one great saturated swamp, with pools of water every few yards.

When night fell, we cut a few leaves from a palm, and made a more or less clear patch on which to sleep. We huddled together in our heavy, soaking blankets, spreading over ourselves another layer of palm-leaves. In that way we gathered and imprisoned enough heat to pass a comfortable night. In the morning we were refreshed, but became aware of itching all over our bodies, partly from the multitude of scratches we received while on the march, and partly from the chafing of our wet packs. Having nothing to eat we started off again at once.

On that, the second day of the march, we were held up by a deep, swift stream. We knew that we had not struck the Yasuní once more, for the water was clear. We swam across. Taking up the march again, within half an hour we were once more held up. Believing that we were maintaining a steady course, we swam across a second time. In mid-stream we were forced to let go our blankets, which nearly bore us under in the swift current. On we went again. Our feet were nearly numb with the constant shock of thorns and tangled roots, which was a blessing, for we had no time to tend them. Our clothes were badly torn, many pieces having been ripped out by the vicious thorns with which so many of the Amazon trees are covered. It was about the middle of that second day we began to feel the effects of the lack of food.

For the third time we came upon the stream. There was nothing to do but to swim it again. On the further bank we turned up-stream. Only a few yards away we found a fresh machete mark—our own. We were standing on the spot where we had taken to the water for the second time. For the last two hours we had described a complete circle.

We sat down to think it out. Jack, whose ready wit always rose to the occasion, turned to me with that serious, quiet way of his.

"If you'd only told me you were coming back for another dip, I'd have waited for you," he said. "And I'd have saved that last lump of my shirt-tail, too."

"Which side of the stream are we on now, anyway?" I asked.

He took a good look up and down stream.

"Well," he drawled, "if I were placing a bet on it, I'd say we were on this side."

We turned our backs on the stream and staggered off in a new direction. It was afternoon as near as we could tell when we sat down again for another rest. We were distinctly weak. Jack fell asleep almost immediately; I remember how he sat huddled up with his back against a palm while a pool of water slowly formed in the hollow above his collar-bone as his head drooped to one side.

On the third day, the pangs of hunger had left us, but we knew that weakness would soon overcome us if we didn't eat. In desperation we chopped down a small palm and cut out the heart of the top, which is crisp and tender, like that of a head of celery. But our stomachs were in no condition to keep it down and we brought it all up almost as soon as we had swallowed it. The nausea left us weaker than ever.

The third night we managed to sleep fairly well, again with the aid of palm-leaves. We awoke on the fourth day to find that our scratches had turned septic, infected by some microbe which causes a maddening irritation. Not only that, but our skins, softened by the constant soaking, had broken out in sores like ring-worms. Our feet were a mass of festering wounds.

All that day we struggled ahead, resting more and more frequently as we grew weaker and weaker. Once we sighted a sick turkey perched a bare ten feet above the ground, an object of misery like ourselves. Jack summoned all his strength and hurled his machete at it, knocking it to the ground where we picked it up dead. Having no means of lighting a fire in that streaming wilderness, we tried to drink its blood. Jack was instantly seized with vomiting. Seeing the effect it had on him, I left it alone, attempting instead to gnaw one of its legs. The attempt failed. We gave it up as hopeless.

On again, stepping with benumbed feet. Our legs moved automatically under us. Our voices sounded hollow and unnatural, as if someone else were speaking to us. The swarming mosquitoes were only one of the many minor pests, but these we hardly heeded, preyed on as we were by the deadly serious aspect of the situation. We must have rested every hour that day. Before nightfall we were thoroughly exhausted and it was only with difficulty that we managed to lay a bed of leaves. All night the rain fell more heavily than ever.

We woke on the fifth morning in a puddle. Staggering to our feet, we started off without exchanging a word. During that morning, the last vestige of strength we had was petering out. At about mid-day we ran up against a wall of thorny bamboo thicket. The heaviest barbed wire entanglement is no worse an obstacle. Practically naked as we were, and with hardly the strength left to stand, we halted before it. My knees gave way, and I sank to the ground, heedless of Jack's entreaties "just to see what was on the other side." I muttered something about "having a sleep first" and sank into oblivion. Jack, hero that he was, attacked that

terrible fence of thorns. How he succeeded in getting through I don't know.

The next thing I knew was that he was kicking me and shouting at me:

"Get up, for God's sake, man; I've found a trail—as big as Broadway!"