Of the people themselves, of their strange ways and customs, I might write a full chapter, were I so disposed. I have no reason to think that they varied greatly from the majority of the wilder tribes in the great forests of the Amazon. They were small in stature, short-lived, and very dirty. They went well-nigh naked, and many suffered from a particularly loathsome disease, the character of which I know not, save that it left their skin marked black in patches. I feared, at first, that this would prove contagious; but, either my nationality or else my cleanly habits--for I bathed daily in the river--preserved my health and personal appearance.
In regard to my bathing, I can relate a strange thing. It being the rainy season, the river was alive with alligators. I was at first considerably frightened of these horrid reptiles; but I soon discovered that all that was necessary was to beat the surface of the water violently with a stick in order to scare them away. Of course, it was needful to exercise a certain amount of discretion, to keep one's eyes open whilst in the water; and I do not say that there was no danger present. But the fact remains that the South American cayman, one of the most formidable-looking brutes in all the world, is a cowardly beast and by no means greatly to be feared.
If that be so, I have another story to tell concerning the snakes of that dark region; for these I never ceased to fear, and not without good cause. My boots had long since ceased to be of the least practical use, and I had presented them, not without ceremony, to the head man of the village where I stayed. I was obliged therefore to go bare of foot in the forest, like the natives themselves, and day and night I walked in constant peril of my life.
For the underwoods were populous with serpents of all kinds, many of which were venomous. They were usually to be found in the vicinity of water, and amongst them I cannot fail to mention the gigantic tree and water snakes, in whose deadly coils a full-grown man might well be crushed to death. More than once I set eyes upon these great, evil, stealthy monsters; and on each occasion my very blood ran cold. But I have yet to write of what I have called--for no better reason than that there is melodrama in the name--the Glade of Silent Death, where in part the tragedy of all my narrative attains some sort of a crisis--a crisis, at least, for one of whom I dare say more than I would of any other: that he well deserved his fate.
Now, had I been content to eke out the remainder of my years with these untutored people, I should never have beheld the wonders of which I have to tell. I think I realised that if I continued to live as a savage, I must eventually myself become a savage, forgetting all I had ever learned of Christian civilisation. So I made up my mind to take my life into my hands, and set forth alone into the Wild.
Beyond doubt, my ulterior motive was to regain the confines of the civilised world, to hear again the voices of men speaking my own language--even the lazy Sussex twang. But I was moved firstly not so much by a desire for liberty, as by the spirit of adventure. For I had caught something of the rover from John Bannister, as I sat listening to his stories to the soft accompaniment of the wash of the English sea; and I would find out all I could concerning the quest of Amos Baverstock and the secret of the Greater Treasure of the Incas, which the more civilised of the Indians called the "Big Fish."
And so I asked the savages to guide me back to the place where they had found me, within sight of Cahazaxa's ruined temple. Though I never knew but a score of words of their language, I was now proficient in the art of conversing by signs and the drawing of pictures in the mud, as I was also something of a woodsman and--though but a few months older than when I had been kidnapped--no longer a boy, but the beginnings of a man, who was like to have a hard part to play. Life in the wilderness had made me self-reliant. To the wanderer in savage places peril comes naturally enough, and death itself is all in the work of the day.
But it was one thing to ask, and another to receive. The chief man of the community--for it was hardly a village--was all against the project. In the first place, he and the rest of them had grown to be fond of me--I was regarded as both a curiosity and something of an acquisition. Secondly, I soon discovered that they stood in fear and trembling of the ruins, which they firmly believed to be haunted.
Though they might have restrained me by force, we argued the matter out, and it came to a question of will-power--or obstinacy, if the word suit you better--and I had my way.
Accordingly, one morning I set forth into the forest, accompanied by a guide. I was dressed in the remnants of my shirt, tied like a kilt about my waist, and carried a ten-foot blow-pipe and a score of darts; and beyond these I had neither arms nor clothing. I was just a white savage in a great dark wilderness, with my life in my own hands and all Nature at war against me. And I doubt if I can even say that I was white, for I was now tanned almost to the colour of the wild men amongst whom I had lived.