University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII
A PHANTOM PEOPLE

WELL, anyway, I hope that beggar won't be at home when we turn up." Jack pointed to an enormous footmark as he spoke.

The news that he had brought me as I lay half unconscious had had a marvellous effect on the muscles of my legs. Once more they answered to my will, and I was on my feet in a moment, staggering after my companion through the gap in the thicket which he had opened with the last bit of strength that was left him. Caring nothing for the pain of our wounds which were reopened by the thorns, we burst through into that remarkable forest-highway along which we were now making. It was a clean-cut tunnel, not an inch less than five yards wide from side to side, made by those elusive men for whom we had looked so long, and made with such care, and on so large a scale as I have never seen before or since. It was as if a house had been dragged through the forest. The purpose of it I was never able to discover. It was unique, not only by reason of its breadth, but of its great length. It ran for at least a mile, dead straight for the greater part of the distance. There is only one possible explanation of its existence that occurs to me. It may have been the commencement of an exceptionally large chacra.

Be that as it may, the sight of it put new life into

us two. We hustled along, good for another hundred miles. There must be something at the end of so large and fresh a trail.

Standing out among the innumerable tracks of men, women and children with which the trail was freshly marked was that giant's footprint which had called forth Jack's comment. The first thing to decide had been whether we would "follow the crowd" or not. The great majority of the tracks ran away from the river, so we resolved to try our luck in the opposite direction, as we should be completely at the mercy of the savages wherever we found them. Turning to the right, then, we made along as fast as we could, thinking only of the food and shelter we should find.

After covering only about five hundred yards we saw, not far ahead, the unmistakable light of a clearing. A few more minutes, and we were out in the open, staring at rows of banana-plants, yuca, yams, sweet potatoes—all that our hearts desired. The chacra covered three or four acres, and in one corner stood a house, which we found after we had followed the trail through the clearing which was itself a miniature forest of cultivated plants. We came to a halt some ten yards from its gable-end, and stood gazing at what might mean for us salvation or final disaster. As we stood there, shivering in the pelting rain, we cannot have looked a very formidable pair. Surely no human being would be afraid of us! So thought Jack, who proposed that we should just walk in as one of the tribe, and "spar them for something to eat." I, on the other hand, thought we should let out a yell, rush the place, and hope for the best.

"Better get inside before we yell, at any rate," Jack returned, "so that they can hear us."

His view of the matter prevailing, I led the way across the few remaining yards to the house, and pulled

aside the palm leaves which covered the opening which served for a door. I entered, and found myself in the dark. Jack, who was standing by close behind with his machete, carved a gap in the wall and let in some light.

We were alone. The one-room house was some forty feet long, and half as broad. The first thing we saw was corn, the bunches of husks tied in pairs and hanging over the rafters. There were besides bunches of bananas and plantains in different stages of ripeness and baskets of wild fruits.

To give ourselves a view of the approaches to the house, we cut away each end from the level of the rafters to the ground. The house was really nothing but one big gable, whose sloping roof rested on the ground at either side. Having protected ourselves against surprise, we set about making a fire. While Jack was tinkering with the savages' fire-maker, I began to explore the smoke racks for meat. We were in no condition to eat green fruit—we needed hot, cooked food. Stepping in one of the fire-places I burned my foot. On looking among the embers, I discovered a few hot coals, which we immediately blew into a blaze. Moving the stones to the centre of the house for safety, we built up a rousing fire, and were soon parching corn and roasting plantains and arrowroot, soaking up the blessed warmth the while. What a feast was that! No need for me to enlarge on what it meant to us.

Looking round, we took stock of the interior. The roof was stuck full of spears, beautifully made from chonta wood and tufted with feathers from the lumbiqui (toucan—Quichua). There were piles of round earthenware brick-red pots. Stone hatchets fitted with wooden handles lay about. Paraphernalia for making fire was stowed away in a corner. Roughly made blow-guns were lying

on the cross-beams. A small quantity of masata was stored in one of the pots. A dozen stone fireplaces were ranged round the sides of the dwelling, each with a shelf made of small sticks suspended from the roof immediately over it. Dishes made of gourds cut in two were scattered about. There was absolutely nothing in the way of furniture, nor were there any signs of apparatus for spinning or weaving, nor even mats on the clay floor. The place was in an orderly state, just as though the inhabitants had suddenly walked out in the middle of their every-day life.

On thinking it over, we came to the conclusion that they could not have been gone more than forty-eight hours before we took possession, for that was as long as the fire could have remained alive without attention. Doubtless they had heard our firing further down the Yasuní when out hunting, and being utterly ignorant of all that pertained to the outer world, had fled from our approach. Whether they would return or not was an open question. It seemed likely that they would return some time, at any rate, to find out what had become of their homes. Thus, being absolutely unacquainted with the nature and habits of the savages, we naturally felt inclined to take as many precautions as we could against a possible visit from the rightful owners of the dwelling we had usurped. So we slept with what arms we could collect at our sides; I on a bed of spears laid from beam to beam six feet above ground, Jack by the fire with his machete and a spear at hand. To protect myself from the keen edges of the three-cornered blades which ran half the length of the spears, I covered them with several layers of that material which alone makes life possible for mankind in the Amazon basin, the leaves of the ever-present palm.

Thus we entered on the third period of our expedition.

For three weeks we lived in our new home. During all that time we were never out of sight of it, and whenever we left its shelter it was only to dig up roots from the chacra or collect firewood. We were in a bad way. The itching sores with which we were covered nearly drove us mad once our blood began to flow again. They had spread all over our bodies until we could scarcely bear the agony. Our feet, too, had festered with the thorns still embedded under the skin. We spent most of our time trying to dig them out with the help of the machetes, and little by little we rid ourselves of them. The suppuration (chig-chig, as the Quichuas say) from which we were suffering took a long time to loosen its hold on us. Our nails became loose, and watery matter exuded from under them as well as from the sores with which our feet were covered, and even from between our toes. It gave off a particularly offensive odor. Time and our own devices were the only aids to a cure we had. While we could stand the pain in our feet, bad though it was, we had to find an immediate remedy for the itching of our bodies or go crazy. It occurred to me that nothing can live beyond a certain temperature and that the microbes in our skins could be reached by heat with comparative ease. So it was that we hit on an effective means of ridding ourselves of them. We took it in turns to operate on each other, heating banana skins in the fire, and holding them on the sores long enough to raise a blister. The process was certainly painful, but we were glad enough to exchange an intolerable itch for even a burn. Of one thing we had to be careful—not to break the skin of the blister for fear of worse infection taking the place of the last.

If the savages had come back any of those days, they would have found one of us sitting astride the prostrate body of the other, solemnly torturing him with fire.

With the amazing adaptability of the human frame, our nerves became so accustomed to the treatment that toward the end it caused us no pain. On the contrary, we became jealous of our turns.

Meanwhile our feet, with constant bathing in hot water, had taken a turn for the better, and there was nothing to do but wait in patience.

We were, of course, practically naked, having used almost all the remnants of our clothes as rags. Round our necks and waists, however, still hung the bands of our cotton shirts and pants of better days from which were draped a few soiled ribbons.

Although we never saw a sign of the infieles during our whole period of convalescence, it is practically certain that their scouts were watching our movements all the time from the edge of the forest. In the light of my subsequent experience of those nameless unknown people, I am not surprised that we lived unmolested. They are, I think, as low in the scale of development as any living men. They live by the watercourses, but have neither canoes nor rafts, and apparently catch no fish. We never came across any trace of even the most primitive form of carpentering except their houses which, as I have said, are made by leaning saplings against a common ridge-pole supported on two posts, and thatching the simple frame-work. Their houses are always built with the gables facing east and west, a matter of superstition, I imagine, for they never let any light into them.

They wear no clothes whatever, a fact which is borne out by the absence of looms from all their houses, and by the fleeting glimpses which we caught of them from time to time, as they dashed through the forest at our approach. They belong to the Stone Age, being ignorant of the use of any metals (even gold, to Jack's disgust!). For weapons they have nothing but the spear and blow-gun.

They squat and sleep on the bare ground, even the simplest form of furniture being unknown to them. I never saw any musical instruments such as the tom-tom or reed-pipe which were known to the more advanced Jívaros.

They bury their dead singly in the forests. The corpse is interred in a sitting position, as with the ancient Incas, and a miniature house is built on it; a pot of masata is set on the ground over the body. Evidently they revere, or fear, the dead. One day, after we had been in the country some months and built a camp by the river, I came across a grave by the side of a trail, and out of curiosity to see at close quarters the kind of people the savages were, started to investigate. After delving a few inches I broke through the crust of dry clay which formed the lid, so to speak, of the hollow grave in which the body sat. Here was one of them at last who could not run away from me! Seeing the head, I drew it from the grave to find that the long, straight, black hair was still hanging from the skull. To keep it as a curio, I took it back to camp and hung it up inside the house. Within twenty-four hours the savages had paid a visit to the place in our absence, removed my trophy and replaced it in the grave. That was the only time they summoned up enough courage to enter our quarters. It must have been a very strong feeling that led them to overcome their terror of us.

Personal adornment, a habit so common among savage people, is, as far as I could find out, unknown to them. Neither necklaces nor any other ornaments were found by us, but so much about those people and their ways was hidden from us by their refusal to have any dealings with us that I know comparatively little about them. Most of my observations on their mode of living are necessarily mere deduction from our studies of their

houses and chacras. Their aloofness was unconquerable; it would seem that they were fugitives from the world, looking upon all men as their enemies (unless they regarded us as devils, which is not unlikely). Doubtless they had been chased into the furthest depths of their forest home by their more warlike neighbours. That they are no lovers of war is certain.

Had we been as highly trained in woodcraft as they, we might have caught one of them, and so broken the ice. As it was, we left their country without having exchanged one single word or sign. Thus it happens that my sketch of this tribe, which—doubtless like many another—lies buried in the unfathomable vastness of the forest which stretches from Colombia to the Argentine, is hopelessly incomplete.

To return to my narrative. At the end of three weeks of vegetarian diet and careful nursing, we cured ourselves completely of the results of our five days' march. Free to turn our attention to the question of prospecting the forests for rubber, we began to explore the numerous trails which led through the high country within a few miles of our headquarters. We had been left complete masters of the whole district. Surely no invading force ever had an easier victory than did we. I do not wish to convey the idea, however, that we were pleased to be left so completely alone at a time when we were still hoping to establish friendly relations with those ghostlike men, who, though everywhere, were never more than glimpsed. We were far from being convinced that we should never break down the barrier that their fear and superstition had built up between us.

As if to give us an idea of what the country held in store for us, Nature had planted the largest rubber tree I have ever seen on the very edge of the clearing where we lived. The rubber trees in that part of the world, the

product of which is known as cauchouc (Spanish) grow on the non-inundated lands, unlike the seringa which grows on the lowlands of the Lower Amazon. The former grows singly, scattered through the forest, while the latter is found more or less in groves or groups of trees covering more limited areas. The cauchouc trees are not worked by tapping, owing very largely to the great distances which would have to be covered to collect the same amount of milk which can be drawn from a singleseringal (as the groves are known locally). When a man would only have to walk, say, a couple of miles to tap a hundred seringas, he would probably have to cover a mile for every cauchouc tree he found.

It follows from all this that it is not worth while working on the smaller trees, which give a small yield compared with the amount of time spent on collecting. Again, the trees, instead of being tapped, are cut down and destroyed at once, the whole of the trunk and limbs being "ringed" at short intervals and bled of the last drop of sap.

Although this is the only method which gives any practical result in the wilds, it is this same tree which has been planted and cultivated in Central America and Mexico, where of course the trees are constantly spaced for tapping and become a regular source of revenue to their owners within ten or fifteen years of being set out. The seringa (hevea) is the variety cultivated in Ceylon, Java and the Far East, being more susceptible to tapping and producing a better grade of rubber.

We never thought it worth while working on any cauchouc tree of under twelve to fifteen inches in diameter at the base unless it happened to be close by some larger trees which we had selected. The average good-sized paying tree has a diameter of two to three feet just above the splaying-point of the roots, and a height of

twenty to fifty feet of clear trunk before the first limbs branch. The bark on a tree of this size is from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a half in thickness, smooth, spongy, and of a yellowish-grey colour. The rubber-milk is contained in the bark itself.

The great tree which stood at the corner of our clearing alone produced one hundred and fifty pounds of rubber, and is worth a word or two. It stood a good hundred and twenty feet high. The height from the ground to the top of the flat, sloping roots which supported the giant was ten feet. The roots of the cauchouc do not go deep into the earth, but spread along its surface in all directions, covering a large area—in the case of this particular tree, a circle whose radius was twice the height of the tree itself. (The trees are often located in the dense growth of the forests by searching the ground for these bright yellow roots and following them up.) The size of the roots, and the impracticability of cutting below their splaying-point, made it necessary for us to rig up a chopping-board. This we built immediately above them. A split sapling, six feet long, was inserted in a slot cut in the trunk and we chopped while standing on its flat side. It was a whole day's work for the two of us to rig up the board and fell the tree, a bite three feet high having to be made before it fell. When it began to crack, we had to run hard to get clear of the danger zone, for it brought down with it a number of smaller trees, whose branches were lashed to its own by a net-work of bejuco, and made for itself a small clearing. For twenty-four hours no further work could be done on account of the myriads of disturbed insects which swarmed everywhere.

Returning the next day, we started to "swamp out," the trunk of our cauchouc being scarcely visible among the tangle of vegetation, great and small, which had been

pulled down on top of it. To cut an open space round the trunk and stump, a task that was necessary in order that we might have enough room to tap for the precious milk, was the work of two more days. Then at last we commenced the real process of collecting the rubber. After clearing away the vegetation from under the trunk, we stamped a series of depressions in the clean earth, and over each of these depressions, which served the purpose of receptacles, a broad V-shaped ring or groove was cut through the bark to the wood and completely encircling the trunk of the tree, out of which streamed down the snow-white, creamy liquid in a steady flow, dripping into the depressions described. Everywhere we made these incisions, in trunk, roots, stump and limbs. At the end of a week we returned to collect the now hardened rubber. From each receptacle we dragged a great pancake, some two inches thick and two and a half feet across, while from the cuts themselves we tore the long triangular ropes which had formed as the flow came to an end. Finally we cleaned the surface of the rubber and worked it into balls by wrapping the ropes about the pancakes. In this form it is sold and shipped to market as crude "cauchou balls."

I have given this description of the way in which we tackled that great tree as being typical of the many months of work we put in up the Yasuní. In doing so I have, of course, forestalled certain events which took place shortly after the point at which I have arrived in my tale. We were not in possession of any tools or implements except our two machetes at that time, but of how we made good our deficiency I shall shortly speak.

Our investigation, made immediately after our recovery, gave such results that we decided to stay in the locality long enough to mark a good number of trees, and then to go down-river to re-equip ourselves. On this work

we spent three or four months, moving from one chacra to another, sleeping in the savages' shacks, which they always deserted on our arrival (a most convenient arrangement) living on the vegetables and fruits which they had planted. Finally, having discovered a good trail leading from the bank of the Yasuní to the first chacra we found, it seemed to us that the best thing we could do would be to build a permanent base for our future operations. This we did, and it was from the house we built there that the savages took their dead comrade's head.

The time we spent up there before returning to Andrade's post was roughly, from June to October (inclusive) 1897, according to my subsequent calculations. While we were buried alive in that wilderness, however, we kept no record how the days, weeks and months went by. It was a curious experience, that breaking of the last tie with the outer world. Time is the one common interest which those who are cut off from civilization have with those they have left behind, the Ruling Power which presides over the lives of all men in whatever dark corner of the earth they may hide themselves, an irresistible Force that all must obey. But we two, lost to the world up in that unfathomable backwater, refused, as it were, to face the inevitable. Perhaps at times we even forgot that Time was marching on. At any rate, it was a matter of complete indifference to us.

Our permanent base was a great improvement on the savages' houses. We made a small clearing, put up a raised platform with a bamboo floor, and covered the whole with a thatched roof. We built bunks of the same wood. On a temporary raft of balsa logs we went downstream to look for the canoe which we had cached before starting out into the woods on foot. It was then that we found out that the distance from the spot where we lost

our stores to the chacra which saved our lives was something like half a day's march, given a good trail.

For fire we had the savages' apparatus, which we seldom needed, however, for we kept a fire of green logs going continuously in the cook-house. We were living comfortably enough, but the unvarying menu, became monotonous to a degree. Conversation generally drifted round to something like the following:

"I say, Jack, if you went into a restaurant in New York to-night, what would you order?"

"Oh, I guess I'd have a dish of hot biscuits and butter, and half a dozen mince pies," etc., etc., etc.

"Well, supposing you were out in a cow-town, and drifted into a Chinese flap-jack foundry, what would you call for?"

"Ham and eggs, by George, and coffee with cream in it."

Then gradually we drifted down the culinary scale till we were discussing what each of us had seen in the garbage pails at home. Those bits of bread and pie-crust, those bones with still a bit of meat clinging to them, how we should have welcomed them then! We even carried a resolution to the effect that we should have chased them down the sewer if we had had a chance of catching them.

Only once did we find relief from the vegetable diet that was becoming so irksome. I caught a large land-tortoise in the woods, of which we had as fine a supper as any I ever remember enjoying. (I narrowly escaped one of the greatest disappointments of my life when it slipped into the river as I was preparing to cut the meat out of the shell. The reptile did not appear to like the water, however, and promptly crawled up the bank again.) In any country a land-tortoise is a delicacy. Up the Yasuní it was a Thanksgiving Feast.

In our efforts to provide ourselves with a variation from the eternal diet of plantains, bananas, yams, and yuca, we went off after some of that milk which Santiago had shown us how to find. After locating a tree which spouted the rich white sap we lost no time in taking a good draught. It didn't seem to taste quite as good as that we had had before, and left a slightly bitter taste in the mouth. Within a few minutes we were writhing on the ground, doubled up with pain and nausea. Jack, between groans, declared that he "felt like vomiting, and that if he'd got to that stage he must be sure bad, for he'd never done it but once in his life." After some minutes of contortions and spasmodic retching he brought up a pair of pretty little rubber balls which bounced as well as the real cauchouc. I, too, contributed my share.

When it was all over, Jack turned to me solemnly:

"To think that that is only worth a dollar a pound," he said, fingering one of the balls. "If I had to make it like that," he added thoughtfully, "I'd want a million an ounce and I'd only guarantee to find one ounce more—by way of speculation."

After that we left wild milk alone.

There are a dozen or more trees of which the sap is white and creamy. What we swallowed is called by the Quichua cáuchouc-mâchan ("the brother of rubber").

And so we existed from week to week, living in our new camp and making a trip every few days to the nearest chacra for a supply of vegetables. We covered a large area in our prospecting operations, coming across the trails and plantations of the savages wherever we went, but never getting more than a glimpse of their fleeing bodies through the trees. The hope of making friends with that phantom people was gradually dying within us. All the rubber we should ever get we should

have to get ourselves, and as for those gold slop-buckets...!

And so we worked on and on through a series of uneventful days, marking about a hundred good trees in all. Occasionally the tedium was broken by some unusual incident, of which several stand out in my memory.

Once we were digging yuca in a chacra when we came across a fine specimen of the mygale, which is indigenous to all the Amazon woods, but is rarely met with. This spider has a purple and black body two inches long and black legs. Both body and legs are heavily built and covered with thick hair. It is known to kill chickens and other birds. The Indians think that it lives on such prey entirely. That its bite is deadly poisonous I know, for I was once present when a cauchero died from it. In appearance it is at the same time beautiful and repulsive. The one we found was large enough to cover a breakfast plate, having a span of about eight inches, but did not display the lightning rapidity of movement which characterizes so many of the larger spiders, typically the tarantula which is barely half its size. I speared it with a sharp stick and attempted to preserve it, but the ants marched off with every scrap of its body.

Shortly before the end of that period of prospecting Jack, who had been out alone, walked into camp looking rather pale and excited, sat down, and made one of those brief utterances for which he was so noted.

"I guess it's all up with me. I'm going to cash in."

This was not the kind of thing one expected from Jack, so I was greatly concerned as to what the trouble might be. He told me that he had been bitten by a bad snake and already felt queer. The snake, he said, lay on the main trail half a mile away, where he had killed it with his machete. So I ran to the spot indicated

and hurried back with the "medicine," determined to try the drastic remedy which is supposed to effect so many cures on the Pacific slopes of the Andes. One makes the patient swallow the gall-bladder of the snake by which he has been bitten and applies a ligature to the affected limb above the bite and a hot coal to the bite itself until it is thoroughly cauterised. To our great relief he was all right in forty-eight hours, having suffered nothing worse than giddiness and bleeding at the nose and mouth. This was one of the three poisonous snakes we found during our whole time on the Yasuní; it was not over two feet in length, mottled brown, green and yellow.

At last we made up our minds to leave (some time in October, it must have been). We were satisfied that we had marked enough trees to chop out a passage to New York. So we loaded the canoe with fifteen days' supply of vegetable produce which the "chacra" afforded and built a stone fireplace in the bow, which served as the kitchen and smokehouse of the floating farm.

One morning, having lighted our ants' nest and put it on board, we stood ready to start. As a final attempt to establish friendly relations with the savages we left one of the machetes stuck in a tree near camp, hoping they would take it as a peace offering and, having discovered its value to them, come back for more when we returned.

Then we stepped on board and pushed off.