My men grinned contemptuously at the idea when I mentioned it to them. They said that all was over. It was no use trying to get away. The Almighty wanted us to die, and we must only lie there and await our end, which was not far off. Benedicto struggled to his knees and prayed to the Almighty and the Virgin, sobbing bitterly all the time.
I struggled up on my feet and proceeded to carry the big vessels to the river bank, where I intended to construct the raft. The effort to take each heavy bottle those few metres seemed almost beyond me in my exhausted state. At last I proceeded to strip the floor of the hut, which had been made with split assahy palms (Euterpe oleracea L.), in order that I might make a frame to which I could fasten the bottles. With a great deal of persuasion I got Filippe and Benedicto to help me. The long pieces of assahy were too heavy for our purpose, and we had the additional trouble of splitting each piece into four. It was most trying work in our worn-out condition. Then we had to go into the forest and collect some small liane, so that we could tie the pieces together, as we had no nails and no rope.
On September 20th, again without food—for we had eaten up all the fruit the previous day—we worked from morning till night in building the raft. Unfortunately, Benedicto stumbled against one of the bottles, which was on the edge of the river; it rolled down the steep bank and floated quickly down stream, and we saw it disappear, unable to go and recover it. So only nine bottles were left.
Raft constructed by the Author in order to navigate the Canuma River with his Two Companions of Starvation.
I made the raft of a triangular shape, with two parallel diagonal rows of three bottles each at a distance of 3 ft. apart; then one set of two bottles. One single garaffon formed the bow of the raft. Naturally I stopped up the necks of the bottles, so that no water should get inside.
While I was constructing the raft I was all the time wondering whether it would have a sufficient floating capacity to carry us three men and our baggage.
When the raft was finished we placed two parallel pieces of assahy from one end to the other, on which we could sit astride, with our legs dangling in the water.
The lassitude with which we did our work and tore down part of the hut in order to build that raft, our only way of salvation, was too pitiful to watch. We absolutely had no strength at all. When we pulled the liane to fasten together the different pieces of palm wood we were more exhausted than if we had lifted a weight of 200 lb. As it was, we could not fasten the pieces of wood properly, and when the raft was finished it was indeed a shaky affair.