For our future progress McTurk arranged the following plan. All the hands, except two, who were unwell and were to be left at Macrebah in charge of the boats, were to take part in the overland journey to where we rejoined the Mazaruni. Then all the original crew, except six of the best men, were to return to Macrebah, and with the two sick ones make the home journey to the settlements in two of the boats. The other boat, “the Adaba,” was to be left on a raised platform, which was built under the trees, to take us back on our return from Roraima. As we had forty-two quakes and only twenty-two men to carry them, Lanceman started off in a woodskin to a neighbouring Arecuna village, to try and get more. He succeeded in obtaining five, so we saw that we should be compelled to make short daily journeys, and after each to send back relays of men to bring on the extra quakes.
Our preparations occupied us for a day and a half, during which time our Indians also cut a short track through the woods from the opposite bank of the river to join the Seroun path, thereby avoiding a tedious and rock-encumbered walk up the shallow creek. As it would require two trips to remove all our baggage to the first day’s halting place, McTurk started early in the morning with the intention of sending back the necessary number of men for the remaining quakes on the following day. I remained behind, so as to superintend the departure of the second detachment, and guard against any unnecessary delay.
CHAPTER XVII.
A “DACANA-BALLI”—STRANGE ROCKS—A ROOT PATH—INDIAN SUPERSTITION—THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL—NEW CARRIERS—A FEATHERED COSTUME—CURIOUS TREES—COCK OF THE ROCKS—CAMP ON THE LAMUNG—A BOA-CONSTRICTOR—STENAPARU RIVER—THE CARIAPU—A BURNING TREE—THE MAZARUNI—CAPTAIN DAVID—PICTURESQUE CAMP.
It was a dismal morning when McTurk set out on his tedious march; the rain fell in torrents, and I congratulated myself on being under shelter, and hoped that by the morrow the weather would have cleared. At intervals during the day the rain ceased, and I was able to ramble about the falls, where there were many botanical treasures in the various agaves, yuccas, and ferns. Wherever a gleam of light shone across the forest border, there the little sun-hairs—as the humming-birds are well named by the Aztecs—darted among the blossoms, and often poised themselves for a minute at a time close to my face, as if wondering to what class of vegetable I belonged.
Under our house was a fine dacana-balli tree, whose large white blossoms lay strewn on the ground, and weighted the green foliage like a snow-fall; in the forks and on the branches were some orchids and pretty pink and white euphorbias, and amongst these flowers, also, humming-birds loved to revel. In the white sand were numerous tracks of wild animals that daily came from the forest to drink, but none ever appeared when I was on watch. Towards evening the atmosphere had cleared, so that I anticipated fine weather, but one of the Indians said it would surely rain again, as the toucans cried so loudly. The birds were weather-wise, as in the night the rain recommenced, and when the carriers arrived next day it was still pouring. There was no time to be lost, so after the men had breakfasted we set off.
After crossing the river, the first part of our journey was to ascend the slopes of the Seroun mountains. As soon as we joined the old path above the creek, difficulties commenced. The narrow trail wound in and out, and up and down, and over and under enormous masses of conglomerate rock, whose smooth and shapely sides, rising perpendicularly for sixty or seventy feet, were crowned by grasses and ferns. Under some of these were flowers and green branches that had been offered to the rock spirits by the superstitious natives; others, with their overhanging crags, formed natural shelters which had served for a night’s resting-place to the less timorous Indians. Between these boulders were deep pits, which were hard to avoid, and into which a false step would have given a drop of thirty or forty feet.
Over rocks and streams, and through quagmires, we made our varied way, and at last caught sight of the Curipung River above Macrebah, far below us. Soon after we reached the top of the hill range, having ascended nearly one thousand feet. Here the path ran through a level forest, but, instead of by boulders, the walking was henceforth made exceedingly fatiguing by the countless roots which composed the track. No ground was to be seen; it was simply a network of roots from which all earth had been washed away, and which varied in size from a sharp thin blade that cut like a knife, to a rounded, full-sized limb, over which you slipped, with every probability of straining your ancle even if you did not break your leg. I wore a pair of moderately-sized shooting boots, but to my unaccustomed soles the proceeding was most painful; a pilgrimage on peas to Rome would have been nothing in comparison. The resemblance to a pilgrimage was rendered all the more striking by the perpetual tolling of the bell-birds,[79] which in spite of the pouring rain uttered their wonderful notes from every part of the forest. Sometimes the ringing sounds produced by these birds resemble “quâ-ting,” at other times you hear a drawling “kóng, kóng, kóng” at intervals, and then the full notes “kóng-kày.” In each case, the last syllable is a note higher than the first, and the tone is more that of an anvil when struck by a hammer than that of a bell. The sounds are remarkably clear and resonant.
The campanero is pure white—strange colour for a tropical bird—and from its forehead extends a long tube which it can inflate at pleasure, and which is covered with small white, downy feathers. Its belfry is generally the topmost dead bough of some lofty tree, and even if in spite of its ventriloquial notes you have discovered its whereabouts, yet its colour renders it extremely difficult to distinguish. Our Indians, and others that we met, did not object to shoot one occasionally, but in Brazil the campanero is greatly dreaded, as its toll is believed to be the cry of a soul condemned to perpetual torments. The American poet Whittier has made this belief the subject of one of his poems, entitled