Across Unknown South America

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

We halted on the western bank. We had been cutting through the forest the entire day. My men were simply exhausted. I, too, was glad when I put down the bird and the monkey—particularly as they had a pungent odour, quite typical of wild animals of Brazil, which affected my nose for some hours afterwards. Also they were covered with parasites, which caused violent itching on my neck and shoulders, on which they had been resting.

I had marched all the time, compass in hand, next to the man who with the large knife opened the way through the forest. We had travelled all day—cutting, cutting all the time—and by the evening we had gone about 10 kil.—that is to say, at the rate of a little over 1 kil. an hour.

The yellow water of the stream—it looked just like strong tea, and tasted of everything in the world except water—had not a beneficial effect upon my men. For some reason of their own the men, who seldom took a bath in the clean rivers, insisted on bathing in those coloured waters, which, I might also add, were just then almost stagnant in that particular section of the stream.

Personally, I had taken out a large cup full of water before they had gone to bathe, and avoided drinking again; but my men drank that water, made dirtier by their immersion and the use of soap—my soap, too!

The next morning all had excruciating headaches. Their legs dangled, and they did not seem to be able to stand on them. Only the Indian—Miguel—seemed to have any strength left. He was a nasty-looking individual, always sulky and pensive as if under some great weight upon his conscience. Miguel and I walked in front, he with a big knife opening the way in the forest for the others to come behind.

Just before leaving camp on September 1st I had gone some distance up the yellow stream in order to get a last drink in case we found no other water that day. The Indian, who was supposed to know the forest well, knew nothing whatever, and always misled me whenever I asked for information.

A few minutes after we had left, I was seized with violent shivers, my teeth chattered, and I felt quite as frozen as if I had suddenly dropped in the Arctic regions. Evidently I had been poisoned by the water. I collapsed under my load, and for some moments I could not get up again. Although I had spent all my time and energy helping everybody else to get up when in difficulty, not one of my men came near me to unfasten the loads from my shoulders or help me to get up on my legs again. They merely squatted a little way off when they saw that I had collapsed, and proceeded to roll up their cigarettes and smoke.

True, I did not let my men suspect that I was very ill. After a few minutes I struggled up once more under my heavy load and asked the men to come along. I had been seized with such a violent attack of fever that my strength seemed to have vanished all of a sudden, my limbs quivering in a most alarming way. I carried a clinical thermometer on my person. My temperature was 104° F. From ten o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon the attack of fever was so acute that several times I fell down. My men, who were in a pitiable condition that day, collapsed, now one, now another, although their loads were less than half the weight of mine, each man carrying about 40 lb. We marched until four o'clock that afternoon, but only covered a distance of 6 kil. in that entire day. Two of the men had abandoned their loads altogether, as they could not carry them any farther. What vexed me considerably was that they had discarded my valuable things in preference to leaving the great weight of rubbish of their own which they insisted on carrying, such as looking-glasses, combs, brushes, a number of old clothes in shreds, and the heavy hammocks, which weighed not less than 20 lb. each.

We found water in a streamlet which formed a marsh. There my men insisted on making camp. It was a most unhealthy spot. Ill as I was, I endeavoured to induce them to come on a little farther and see if we could improve on that halting-place. Miguel, the Indian, who had slightly scratched his finger, now refused to cut the picada any longer, as he said the pain was intense. It was only by giving him a present of money that I had succeeded in leading the man on until we reached the marsh.

Curiously enough, the man X, who was the champion rascal of the crowd, proved himself that day to be the best of the whole lot. He even went back with me to try and recover some of the most important things from the loads which the men had abandoned some 2 kil. before we had made our camp.