Presently the chief of the Lecco crew chattered with the others. They argued each according to his recollection, for down somewhere on this stretch of the river—it was the River Kaka now since being joined by the River Tipuani and the Coroico River, mountain torrents both—there was an old camp that was our objective. The jungle had long since wiped out every trace and there was nothing to depend upon but the memory of the Leccos. As a matter of fact, there probably is nothing that could be more reliable; it is the one thing they know, is this river, and every turn, every eddy, every tree or drooping vine along the banks is marked down in their primitive minds with the vividness of painted signs. The callapos strung out each in the wake of the other drifting around a long turn of smooth, swift water. The chief grunted, the crew clattered and grunted back in obvious affirmation. The paddles dipped, and from the following callapos came a yell as they, too, began to splash and pry their way out of the current. One after the other they swung round and bumped into shallow water on the heavy gravel of a playa; beyond rose a steep bank overgrown with masses of creeper and jungle.
The Leccos chopped a way in with their machetes, and with a grunt a Lecco announced a find. There was a tent peg, a broken kettle, a broken bottle neck, and a bit of rope. It was the proof of the site of the previous camp in its exact location. Five minutes later the lashings were off the freight and a splashing line of Indians and Cholos were bringing the freight ashore. Here was to be established the permanent camp; the long journey from the coast had reached its goal.
The Leccos and the Cholo workmen were still splashing through the muddy shallows from the grounded callapos packing the freight for the camp when Agamemnon announced himself as cook. Before this moment he had idly occupied himself as valet, butler, laundress—at least since leaving La Paz—faithful adviser, major domo, village gossip, and occasionally the village drunkard. And now when he announced himself as cook no husk of humility could conceal the fact that he regarded all other cook possibilities in that camp on the Rio Kaka with a scornful contempt.
Later it developed that at this particular time his sole knowledge of cooking was confined to an ability to make guava jelly, an accomplishment which, in view of the fact that we were somewhere around five hundred miles by trail and raft from civilization, was of no service at the moment.
The difficulty over the cook situation had arisen suddenly in the first hour of making camp. Back in Mapiri there was a certain fat little Cholo who had sewed a strip of red flannel down his trouser legs in sign of the fact that under some circumstances he was the Mapiri police force; what these circumstances might be never developed for during our long wait he was busy at nothing more official than taking care of the sugar-cane distillery that belonged to the intendente. Before that, rumor had it, he had taught school in Guanai down the river with a row of empty cañassa bottles by means of which he illustrated addition and subtraction. This was as far as the school went; with that course completed, it issued its diploma. This little Cholo urged himself as cook and, as we needed a cook, he was added. As it turned out he was probably the only man in Bolivia who could not cook, or at any rate the only one who had never passed the stage of being able to boil water.
When the callapos swung in to the playa and grounded on the shallow beach the cook started to get his first meal. The water was brought to a boil successfully in a large kettle between two logs. Presently it began to exude half-cooked rice and cheerfully the fat Cholo added another kettle to hold the overflow. Presently, also, both kettles began to exude half-cooked rice and two more kettles were added to the logs. Once again the pots seethed and frothed and again came forth the overflow of half-cooked rice, still swelling, from four interminable geysers.
Dully the Cholo beat at it with an iron spoon and the Leccos grinned at him as they filled their little pots with the overflow. Heaven alone knows how much rice the cook started with, but in the end half the fire was drowned out, every Lecco had his little pot of half raw rice, a row of big jungle leaves had each their little mound of rice alongside the fire log, and the hot tropic air was drifting sluggishly with the odor of burnt rice. And every pot and kettle in camp held remnants of the salvage. Therefore, it was that Agamemnon became cook.
CHAPTER XVI
OPENING UP THE JUNGLE
Among the Cholo workmen it developed that each preferred to cook for himself with his own little pot and over his own individual fire. It was too great a waste of time and energy to have eighteen men building eighteen fires three times a day in order to cook their fifty-four meals. So a compromise was effected. The original Cholo cook—who was good for nothing—kept up one long fire on which the row of pots simmered. After each meal enough would be issued to each pot owner for the next meal. In the early morning the general day’s rations were issued. The Cholos wrapped them in smudgy bandanas and laid them away beneath their bunks—their bunk shack of cane, charo, being the first thing attended to—and then traded back and forth according to fancy, a little rice for a gristly shin bone of chalona, or some chancaca for a bit of coffee or chuño. Coca formed a regular part of the ration and was regularly used by all the workmen.
Agamemnon as a cook developed famously. As to results one could never properly place the blame upon him. With the exact and retentive memory of the utterly illiterate he followed directions with absolute fidelity. He was of the same family as that famous cook who, after having been instructed by the missus in cake-making, invariably threw away the first two eggs because in the original effort the first two had proved to be undesirable citizens. Agamemnon was of this order, yet he never failed to throw in all the frills of table service he could think of. This came from his days of stewarding on the Pacific coasters.