CHAPTER VIII
AN UNPLEASANT TRIP
That trip up the Rio Patuca was one of the worst experiences Tom had ever been through, and Bill agreed with him when he said so.
Starting through a narrow inlet, taking advantage of the inflow of the tide, the canoes came into a lagoon; the water was shallow but clear; the banks were lined with the most dense and varied vegetation imaginable; Tom could recognize at a distance, only the cocoanut palms, and the mangroves, with their huge, spreading roots.
The canoes proceeded up the lagoon to a native village, marked by a cluster of coco-palms which seemed to be floating in the water. The whole village turned out to watch the landing of the white men and their young companion and Tom saw that they were as curious about him as he was about them. The young men were clean-limbed and had very fine faces; the girls were almost beautiful, though the older women showed how labor and daily toil aged and furrowed their faces and bent their bodies.
After a stay overnight the canoes set out again, and day after day the routine of paddling, fighting mosquitos, landing for lunch, going forward, finding a place to camp, putting up mosquito bars and trying to prevent them from being filled by the pests before it was too late, was all there was to report.
“They certainly named this country well,” Tom told Bill as they dived under their mosquito netting on the second day of the trip.
The mosquitos were much larger than the Northern species, and were of such a tough, rubbery body that in order to destroy them it was necessary to strike ones-self with great force—“More punishment than relief!” Tom observed, ruefully, as he fought the pests.
“They have to be killed,” replied Bill, “and we’ll have to get our net up earlier at night, because they get worse as we go on, Henry says.”
“Yes,” Tom admitted. “He told me that if anybody stayed out from the protection of his net for an hour at night, he’d be bitten to death!” Bill agreed that it was quite probable.
As they went on, finally reaching and turning into the muddy mouth of the river itself through a narrow channel, Tom and Bill came to the conclusion that their trip had more difficulties in store than the pestilence of the country’s terrible mosquitos. Henry Morgan kept away from them, morose and sullen; when he caught Henry’s eyes bent on him, or on Bill, Tom saw that they were brooding and angry. Henry had long since disposed of his final bottle of “tonic,” and he seemed to be holding and feeding his grudge against Bill and Tom for destroying the other bottle.