CHAPTER XIX
Benedicto and Filippe show Courage—Confronted with a Mountainous Country—Steep Ravines—No Food—Painful Marches—Starving—Ammunition rendered useless by Moisture—The "pros" and "cons" of Smoking—A Faint Hope—A Forged Tin which should have contained Anchovies—Curious Effects of Starvation upon the Brain—Where Money is of no Avail—Why there was Nothing to eat in the Forest—The Sauba Ants—Sniffed by a Jaguar—Filippe tries to commit Suicide.
The departure of those two men added much to our troubles. I had to abandon at that spot all the unused photographic plates, my sextant and a large prismatic compass, half the supply of cartridges we had taken with us, a pair of extra shoes, and a number of other things. With our reduced loads we made an early start, Filippe that day behaving very bravely.
"Never mind," said he; "if all the others are afraid, I am not. I will follow you anywhere. After all, nothing can happen to us worse than death. You have always behaved kindly to me, and I will never abandon you."
Both Filippe and Benedicto were still poorly, but the violent exertion of the previous day had done them good and their condition seemed to have slightly improved.
We started once more across the virgin forest, directing our steps due west. Filippe this time undertook to open the picada, while I, compass in hand, marched directly behind him, Benedicto following me. Filippe, who was unaccustomed to go through the forest, was even worse than Miguel for keeping the correct direction. If I had let him go, he would have described circle after circle upon himself instead of going in a straight line.
From that point our march across the forest became tragic. Perhaps I can do nothing better than reproduce almost word by word the entries in my diary.
We ate that morning what little there remained of the mutum we had shot the previous evening. Little we knew then that we were not to taste fresh meat again for nearly a month from that date.
During September 3rd we made fairly good progress, cutting our way through incessantly. We went that day 20 kil. We had no lunch, and it was only in the evening that we opened the last of the three small boxes of sardines, our entire dinner consisting of three and a half sardines each.
On September 4th we were confronted, soon after our departure, with a mountainous country with deep ravines and furrows, most trying for us owing to their steepness. We went over five ranges of hills from 100 to 300 ft. in height, and we crossed five streamlets in the depressions between those successive ranges.