“It wasn’t a big river—only a little streamlet of about six feet in width, yet pretty deep, for it came up to our shoulders when we stood in it; but it was quite enough for us, and we dashed into it, plunging in and rolling over in our hot haste and eagerness to drink, so wildly, so madly that it was a wonder that we did not drown one another, all clumped up together as we were. We swilled and swilled till we well-nigh felt that we were bursting; while some continued to drink even after their stomachs were unable to contain any more, and the water rolled back out of their mouths. We were more like beasts than human beings for over a quarter of an hour; and then, we roared with an agony of pain from the distension this sudden repletion gave us. After a time, however, this passed off and we felt more comfortable, when we were able to sit down by the green banks through which the stream leaped and raced along in its course down to the sea to the westwards beyond. The river, we could now see, when we had more leisure to contemplate it, came from a little cataract or waterfall that sprang down a niche in the rocks at the point where two gorges met, and if we had gone half a mile further to the eastward we must have missed it. Providence surely guided our steps that day, for I’m certain we could not have lived another twenty-four hours without water, nay, not twelve!
“As soon as our thirst was appeased, all of us began to feel ravenously hungry; the men, to my eyes, seeming by the looks they were casting at each other as if they would turn cannibals if no other proper food turned up. Glancing about the little glade where we were resting, I fortunately saw just by the side of the streamlet some lace-like leaves of a climbing plant which resembled very much what I knew in the West Indies as the water yam—a very good vegetable that serves the niggers there instead of our potato, and indeed some folks, myself included, like it better than that even, when roasted, with lots of butter on it.
“I told Jem of this; and he, fortunately having his knife with him slung on to the lanyard round his trouser band—he was the only one of us that had a weapon of any sort—at once began to dig about the roots of the plants, soon dragging out from the ground a large bulb something like an elongated beet-root. It was the water yam, sure enough. I recognised it the moment I looked at it, and I was glad that the leaf had attracted my attention; so, telling Jem it was all right, he at once sliced it up into six pieces and shared it out to us. I can’t say it tasted nice, being raw; but it was something in the food line at any rate, and we ate it all ravenously, the same as we would have eaten the leather of our boots if we had any.
“Jem Magellan dug out three more yams, one of which he shared out in the same way and which was just as quickly demolished; but the two others he reserved for the next day, in case we should not chance to come across any more plants. Then, we had another good drink of water, which tasted not the less sweet the more we had of it; and as the sun was now setting we turned in for the night by the bank of the stream, intending to stay there a bit until we had recruited ourselves after all the exhausting privation and terribly hard work we had experienced in getting through the bush since quitting Cocoa-nut Bay, as we had christened the place we had come ashore from the wreck of the pinnace.
“Next morning we woke up more at our usual time aboard ship, soon after the sun rose, the rest and food and drink having refreshed us so greatly that we felt almost ourselves again; but we were still mighty hungry and polished off our two yams for breakfast in a brace of shakes, the men not listening to the injunctions of Magellan and myself that perhaps they would feel the want of them more before the day was out. Now they had had their ravenous cravings appeased, they thought they had come to the end of all their privations. Poor chaps, they and myself had to suffer a good deal more yet before we had quite done with Madagascar!
“A little later on, a sort of large parrot or cockatoo came flying down the valley, perching on the branch of a tree near the waterfall, where he began to croak away; so Denis Brown ups with a piece of stone and chucking it at the bird brings it down. In a moment he had picked off the feathers, when Magellan, taking out his knife again, cuts the parrot into six portions, entrails and all, and distributes it amongst us. That was the first thing we had between our teeth in the shape of meat for nearly six days, for we had our last meal on board the pinnace the day before she upset; so the fowl tasted better to us than the best fancy dish ever served up at the lord-mayor’s dinner—the only thing against it being that there was so little of it, divided amongst the six of us! However, it was a godsend any way; and it gave us so much additional strength and courage, combined with the effects of the yams we had already eaten and the plentiful supply of good water, that it was unanimously resolved, after having a thorough rest that day by the side of the river, to resume our march to Majunga the next morning at daybreak and to keep on till we got there.
“But, ‘Man proposes and God disposes,’ says the old proverb, and a very wise one too, as we proved before the next forty-eight hours went over our heads.
“There was no breakfast this morning of our second day’s rest by the banks of the river that had so providentially been sighted in time to save our lives; but, notwithstanding that drawback, the whole party of us started gaily afresh on our way through the jungle, resuming our southerly course towards Majunga. Magellan and I regretted very much that we had omitted bringing the empty water barrico from Cocoa-nut Bay with us, for now we could have filled it and carried a supply with us in the event of our being unable to come across another spring; but none of the other men would carry it, and he and I after taking it along for a time had thrown it away before the end of our first day’s pilgrimage, it being as much as we could do to drag ourselves along without being hampered with an empty cask that might after all be a useless incumbrance.
“So, once more depending on the chance of what we might meet with on the way, we set out; our way was, as at first starting, lying again uphill and the steepest bit of climbing we had yet had. In spite of our good intentions of the previous night, what with prospecting our journey and one thing and another, it was past mid-day before we got well off from the valley, and it was nightfall when we reached the top of the third mountain; but the men were not near so tired as they had been on the last two days of our wandering before getting water, and even now did not complain again of thirst as they had done at their former halts for the night—moaning through their sleep and bursting out sometimes in incoherent ravings as if they were going mad. From the top of this eminence, too, we had more of an outlook than we had yet been able to gain, seeing a distant peep of the sea through the trees, and below us far away, wandering in and out between the masses of thick foliage, the silvery gleam of a river coursing its way to the coast. We went to sleep, therefore, with the comfortable assurance that everything would turn out well for us on the morrow, when we should be in clover if appearances were to be trusted.
“Alas, it was a day of calamity and greater peril than we had yet undergone!