Although I had offered them every possible inducement to come on—their original high pay had been practically trebled as long as the hard work should last—and I had treated them with the greatest consideration, yet they refused to come any farther. They said they had decided to go back.
In examining my loads I found that they had abandoned my sextant and other instruments in the forest, and it was only after a great deal of talking that I could induce the man X to go back with me to recover them, for which service he received an immediate present of one pound sterling.
As luck would have it, that evening my men shot a plump jaho (Crypturus notivagus) and a large mutum (Crax pinima), two enormous birds, most excellent to eat.
Apiacar Women.
Apiacar Women.
That camp was stifling, the moisture being excessive, and the miasma rising from the putrid water poisoning my men in a disastrous way. The drinking-water, too, from that swamp was full of germs of all sizes, so big that with the naked eye you could see hundreds of them in your cup. We could not boil the water because all our matches had got wet. We wasted hundreds of them in trying to light a fire, but with no success. Flint and steel also proved useless, because the wood was also soaking wet and would not ignite.
