With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2

by Unknown

I was getting anxious not only for my baggage, but for the men behind the fort, who had to cut and thrust like madmen; the excitement was intense. The strong raw hides were ripped up as though slashed with a sharp knife, and the bags of beans and farinha were freely streaming their contents on the ground from innumerable rippings from the keen sharp tusks.

Although we in the hammocks were quite safe, the fort was trembling; many of the saddles and bags had been displaced by the sheer pressure of the enemy. Our few miserable firearms appeared to have no more effect than so many pop-guns, although the ground was becoming strewn with the bodies of the slain and disabled. At last I succeeded in getting the men in the hammocks to fire volleys at a given place, and after a time this appeared to have an effect, for as suddenly as the attack commenced, so it ceased; and the animals withdrew simultaneously and in silence.

The Don (his voice chuckling with glee) called to us to get ready again, as they would probably return. “Ah!” said he to me, in a low voice, “what a splendid time we are having!” I thought, however, of the men in the fort, one of whom was stanching blood from his wrist. I told the Don to go and reinforce them; but suddenly the Don became very deaf; he was very snug in his hammock and really could not hear me; but José, like a good fellow, got out, ran for the fort, jumped in, and helped the men to make good the damages. We could still hear the pigs in the bush, and presently, without a moment’s warning, we again heard that diabolical crash of teeth from a complete circle around us, followed immediately by another wild charge, and the battle was again renewed with all its excitement; but then, after the first flush of excitement, we became cooler, and José in the fort was a host in himself; this attack was of much shorter duration, and the enemy once more suddenly retreated. In the pause that then ensued I thought of Rodrigues, as it then occurred to me that I had not hitherto noticed him; his hammock was quite still, and its edges drawn together over his body, that formed a round, ball-like protuberance in the centre. I saw it all, and could picture the poor terror-stricken man, coiled up, with blanched face and bated breath and making himself as small as possible. The men in the fort had behaved very pluckily.

Six or seven other attacks eventually followed, but each one became weaker, and at intervals between of longer duration. The eventful night seemed interminable, and finally it was not until near daybreak that we heard the last grunt.

At the first lights of gray dawn José proposed to reconnoitre, and went off for the purpose. At first he proceeded very gingerly from tree to tree. I proposed to myself to go also, but just at that moment I had a fellow-feeling for the Don’s deafness, and thought what a comfortable place a hammock was, and that really I could do no good; and further I remembered that generals should always occupy high, commanding positions; every one was chary of moving from their places of security.

José soon afterwards returned, and reported that the enemy had finally withdrawn.

Thoughts of the horses and mules then occurred to us, and we anxiously awaited their arrival, for they had acquired the habit of appearing in camp of their own accord in the early morning for their matutinal feed of corn. Thankfully I saw three or four soon after arrive, but two men had to go for the others, that were fortunately found browsing on a plentiful supply of the shoots of young bamboos. Happily the animals had been pasturing in a direction opposite to that from whence the peccaries came, otherwise there would have been a stampede.

Almost the first thing the men did after the final retreat of the peccaries was to slash the skin on the top of the loins of the defunct enemy, and extract the gland that creates the disgusting odor peculiar to these animals; for if not extracted soon after death, it taints the flesh to such an extent as to render it uneatable except by Indians, who do not object to any flavor, and eat all their animal food cooked on the same principle as a European cook prepares a woodcock. There were twenty-seven dead pigs found in and about the camp, and also several wounded, to whom it was necessary to give the coup de grâce. The wounds were mostly from the knives and small axes, but a very considerable number of the wounded must have got away to recover, or linger unfortunately in pain.

Six of the plumpest were selected for drying and salting, the preparations for which, and also to repair the damages done to the bags of provisions, delayed our departure for some time.

An examination of these animals showed them to be a species of peccary resembling that known as the Dicotyles labiatus, but an essential difference was noticeable in the absence of the white lips that give the name to that species; our enemies had black snouts and dark lips, otherwise they corresponded in other points.