The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (67 page)

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 sweathearts 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.

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 – expect 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 down-hearted 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.

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.

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.