But they could not come to terms, and at length the steamer population returned on board and for ten minutes with much ringing of bells and screeching of whistles the “Alicia” went through the pretence of getting under way. The woodsman held his ground, though his wood looked as if he had already held it several years. At length we returned to the same mooring and a wash-basin of boiled beef and plantains was carried ashore as a peace offering. This time we struck a bargain, and the two populations exchanged places. The countrymen, of all ages and both sexes, many with evidences of loathsome diseases, one limping on a foot white with leprosy, swarmed into every corner of the craft, gazing open-mouthed at her unbelievable magnificence, sitting cautiously down in the deck chairs, thrusting their fingers into the saucers of dessert that had been set out an hour or two before meal time to give the flies fair play, passing from hand to hand anything that caught their fancy. Their protruding bellies suggested that the hookworm was prevalent. The men wore over one shoulder a satchel-like pouch called a garniel, for their clothing was not such as might safely have been entrusted with their minor possessions.
Meanwhile we had taken advantage of the opportunity to stretch our legs ashore, for whatever their faults these jungle people are not addicted to thievery. Under the edge of the forest, into the dense green depths of which we could wander a little way amid a wealth of woodland aromas and the fitful songs of birds, was planted a little field of corn, the stalks a full ten feet high, even the ears in many cases well above our heads, though the jungle was thick between the rows and there was no sign of other labor than the planting. A bit of sugarcane grew as luxuriantly, and behind the hut stood a crude trapiche, or cane crusher, a mere stump and lever above a dug-out trough. Palm, gourd, mango, and papaya trees, the females of the latter heavy with fruit and the males gay with yellow blossoms, suggested that the spot might have been one of the most flourishing gardens on earth had the inhabitants any other industry or desire than to roll about on their earth floors. From a corner of the patch the stewards cut long reeds and made trumpets of exactly the sound of army bugles.
The houses of the region are very simply built. Four posts, some six inches in diameter and rising as many feet above the ground, are set at the corners of the house to be. Halfway between these are set four smaller upright poles, giving each wall three supports. Along the tops of these, saplings about four inches in diameter are tied with green vines, after which pole rafters are raised. Across these, six to eight inches apart, are laid strips of split bamboo, also tied with vines. The roof is then thatched with dried banana leaves, laid lengthwise with the slope of the roof, those underneath secured by being bent over the bamboo strips, and layer after layer of them piled on until the thatch is a foot or more thick. Two poles, tied some distance apart with green vines, are then thrown over the peak of the roof to keep a sudden gust of wind from lifting the shelter off the dwellers’ heads, and the residence is ready for occupancy.
The deck hands, each wearing on his head a grain sack split up one side, stood in file beside the diminishing woodpile. When his turn came, each grasped the end of his sack in the right hand and held the arm at full length while others heaped it high with cordwood. As soon as he had what he considered a reasonable amount, the carrier threw a rope held in his left hand over the load, caught it deftly in the already burdened right and, pulling it taut, marched down some twenty feet of perpendicular sandy bank and across a wobbly eight-inch plank without a quiver. We envied them the exercise at every landing, but even to have carried a stick on board would have been not only to lose our own caste but to jeopardize that of all our fellow-countrymen.
Nothing would be more futile than to attempt to describe the tropical sunset, exceeded in beauty, if at all, only by sunrise, as it spread across this flat jungle and forest country, the curving river and woodlands. On into the night the languid wood loading continued, lighted up in irregular patches by the lamps of the steamer and flickering oil torches ashore. Long after dark, as the last of the burros was disappearing, the jungle dweller came on board in person and fixed upon me to figure up how much he had coming, openly putting his faith in a foreigner in preference to a native. There were 119 burros, for which he was to receive fourteen cents each. It totalled $16.66, or, as it sounded to him, $1666, and by and by the purser, who would no doubt have beaten him a few hundred dollars in the multiplication but for my pencil, came out of his cabin with an Australian gold sovereign and an immense handful of Colombian bills. I asked the recipient how long he had worked to get the pile together and received the expected South American answer:
The stewards of the “Alicia” in full uniform
Hays catches his first glimpse of the jungles of Colombia
“Ay! Muchos soles, señor,—many suns,” which of course was as exact as he could be about it. Strangely enough he resisted the wheedling of the ragged stewards to exchange his fortune for the cheap straw hats and brass rings they carried for sale and got safely ashore with the entire handful of what, in these wilds, could not have been of any great practical value.