The sergeant insisted, languidly and tropically, on sending one of his armed boys along. We refused. Should anything have happened to the child, such as a sprained ankle in “protecting” us from the savages, we could never have forgiven ourselves. All day long we tramped due eastward through unbroken forest. Monotonously the swamps and mud-holes continued. It would not have been so bad could we have waded all the way barefoot; but the sun-dried stretches between made shoes imperative. Never a patch of clearing, never a sign of human existence—though I still glanced frequently over my shoulder—never the suggestion of a breeze to temper the heat or to break the ranks of the swarming insects! We threw ourselves face-down at any mud-hole or cart-rut, gratefully, to drink. “It was crawlin’ an’ it stunk, but”—anything that can by any stretch of the word be called water is only too welcome in tropical Bolivia. The red-hot poison with which the gnats of days past had inoculated us from head to foot itched murderously. Amateur wilderness travelers have a theory that “dope” smeared over the body will afford protection in such cases, but it would be a strong concoction indeed that could rout the jejenes of the Monte Grande. The only method is to get bit and heal again, as one gets wet and dries again, or goes astray and finds oneself again. The one absolute rule is, Don’t scratch! Not to scratch may drive the sufferer mad, but to do so will drive him doubly insane; and swamp water is infectious to any abrasion of the skin, and an open sore is the greatest peril of tropical travel.
Let it not be fancied, however, that life was sad even with these drawbacks. The song of the jungle was unbroken, the brilliant sunshine joyful, for all its heat. In places the road was completely veiled by clouds of beautiful white butterflies. Sweating freely, there was a spontaneous play of the mental spirits and a sense of splendid physical well-being, not the mind-paralyzing gloom of our northern winters. Up on the high plateau the mind might work as freely, but with this difference: there it seemed to be using itself up, each period of exaltation being followed by the feeling that one was much older, much more worn out, while here there were no such after effects. Though we drank water which, in civilization, would have caused us to die of cramps within an hour, the constant sweating carried off its evil effects, and though gaunt and gnat-bitten, we both looked “the picture of health.” The main rule for keeping well in the tropics is to live on the country, to avoid canned food and dissipation, and above all to get plenty of hard exercise and exposure to the elements. Unfortunately, where food is most needed, it is most difficult to obtain.
A toilsome eighteen miles ended at Pozo del Tigre—there was something fetching about the name of this third fortín,—the “Tiger’s Drinking-place.” Here were four boys, a cossack post in command of a corporal; also at last there was something for sale, for some one had planted a patch of corn back in the forest. Two soldiers brought us choclos and huiro,—green-corn for ourselves and stalks of the same for the mule. The conscripts preferred coffee and rice in payment, for money is of slight value beyond the Rio Grande, but demanded five times what the stuff was worth. It was not sweet-corn, and was either half-grown or overripe, but was welcome for all that. We threw the ears into the fire and raked them out, to munch what was not entirely burned or still raw. The jejenes made it impossible to hold them over the fire to toast. We squatted so closely over the blaze it all but burned our garments, yet the relief was so great, in spite of the smoke in our eyes, that we all but fell asleep into the fire.
The life of these garrisons is dismal in the extreme. The soldiers had absolutely no drill or other fixed duty. In most cases they were too apathetic to plant anything, even to dig a well, however heavily time hung on their hands, preferring to starve on half-rations, to choke in the dry season and drink mud in the wet, rather than to exert themselves. Each “fort” had in the center of the “parade-ground” a crude horizontal-bar made of a sapling. But it was used only for a languid moment, when utter ennui drove some one to it. The impossibility of “team-work” among Latin-Americans was never more clearly demonstrated than by the fact that each soldier cooked his own food separately three times a day over his own stick fire. There was not faith enough among them even to permit division of labor in bringing fire-wood. Each set his marmita, a soldier’s tin cook-pot shaped to fit between the shoulders, on the ends of burning sticks and sat constantly on his heels beside it, lest it spill over as one of the fagots burned away. The fellows were astonished to learn the use of Y-shaped sticks for hanging their kettles.
Toward morning I slept an hour or two from utter exhaustion. It was astonishing how one recuperated for all the day ahead with so short a rest. After all, tramping is not like mental labor; a brief repose is all that is necessary. The savages having deceived us for three days, we lessened our burdens by fastening rifle and shotgun within quick reach on the mule, though still keeping our revolvers handy. Wild animals are commonly hidden away in the silence of the forest, even in such wildernesses, and rarely cross a path used by man; but they are not always unseen. We were tramping side by side when I pointed excitedly at the narrowing vista of the road ahead.
“Deer!” I cried.
The German, his mind perhaps on Indians, all but sprang over his mule. Some two hundred yards ahead a reddish fawn stood grazing, and fresh meat would have been more acceptable just then than eternal riches. As a three-year soldier it was surely my companion’s place to shoot; besides, the rifle and cartridges were his. But he marched stolidly forward. With no officer behind to give a stentorian command, his mind refused to work. Every step was increasing the probability of seeing a splendid venison repast for ourselves and for the soldiers ahead bound away into the trackless forest.
“Schüsse doch!” I cried, in a hoarse whisper.
Alas! I had overlooked the preliminary routine of “Ready! Load! Aim!” The German snatched hastily and blindly at the pack, leveled a gun, and fired. A discharge of bird-shot sprinkled the nearby tree-trunks, and the startled deer sprang with one leap into the unknown. Konanz had caught up the shotgun instead of the rifle!
It must not be gathered, however, that he was not an effective hunter, given prey fitted to his abilities. All this region is noted for its petas, a large land-turtle, with the empty charred shells of which any camping-ground is sure to be scattered. During the afternoon the German actually ran one down.