We went on until sunset; my men once more having lost heart. Brazilians lose heart very easily. At the sight of small hills before them, a steep descent, or a deep river to cross, they would lie down and say they wanted to remain there and die. Filippe and Benedicto did not carry more than 20 lb. each of my own baggage, but their hammocks weighed some 20 lb. each, so that their loads weighed altogether about 40 lb.
We went on, crossing five more streamlets that afternoon, of which one, 2 m. wide, had beautifully limpid water. We nevertheless went on, until eventually after sunset we had to camp near a stream of filthy water. We did not mind that so much, because, contrary to the popular idea that while you are starving you require a great deal of water, I found that during those days of starvation both my men and myself hardly ever touched water at all. Personally I am accustomed to drink only with my meals, and as I had no meals at all I never had the slightest wish to drink. My men, however, who while on the river, for instance, when we had plenty of food, drank perhaps twenty times a day from the stream, now that they were starving only seldom touched the water, and when they did, only in very small quantities. I do not suppose that my men during the entire period of starvation drank on an average more than a wineglass of water a day. Personally I know that I never drank more than half a tumbler or less in the twenty-four hours during that time. Under normal circumstances I drink about a quart of water a day. The water, I may say, was plentiful all the time, and, barring a few occasions, such as on that particular night, most excellent.
As we had now been four entire days without eating anything at all, I thought it was high time to open the valuable tin of anchovies—the only one in our possession. We had a terrible disappointment when I opened the tin. I had purchased it in S. Manoel from Mr. Barretto. To our great distress we discovered that instead of food it contained merely some salt and a piece of slate. This was a great blow to us. The box was a Brazilian counterfeit of a tin of anchovies. How disheartening to discover the fraud at so inopportune a moment! I had reserved the tin until the last as I did not like the look of it from the outside. We kept the salt—which was of the coarsest description.
On September 8th we were slightly more fortunate, as the country was flatter. I was steering a course of 290° b.m. (N.W.). I found that farther south we would have encountered too mountainous a country.
We crossed several streamlets, the largest 3 m. wide, all of which flowed south. We had no particular adventure that day, and considering all things, we marched fairly well—some 20 kil. Towards the evening we camped on a hill. When we got there we were so exhausted that we made our camp on the summit, although there was no water near.
On September 9th, after marching for half an hour we arrived at a stream 15 m. wide, which I took at first to be the river Secundury, a tributary of the Madeira River. Near the banks of that stream we found indications that human beings had visited that spot—perhaps the Indians we had heard so much about. The marks we found, however, were, I estimated, about one year old. Although these signs should have given us a little courage to go on, we were so famished and exhausted that my men sat down on the river bank and would not proceed. By that time we had got accustomed even to the fierce bites of the ants. We had no more strength to defend ourselves. In vain we strained our eyes all the time in search of wild fruit. In the river we saw plenty of fish; we had a fishing-line with us, but no bait whatever that we could use. There are, of course, no worms underground where ants are so numerous. We could not make snares in the river, as it was much too deep. So we sat with covetous eyes, watching the fish go by. It was most tantalising, and made us ten times more hungry than ever to be so near food and not be able to get it.
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 sweethearts 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.