My mission to British Guiana was to find some suitable place to establish a Tropical Research Station, where three of us, a Wasp Man, an Embryo Man, and a Bird Man, all Americans, all enthusiastic, might learn at first-hand of the ways and lives of the wilderness creatures. After seven years of travel and bird-study in far distant countries, I had turned again to Guiana, the memory of whose jungles had never left me. In New York I had persuaded the powers of the Zoölogical Society that here lay a new, a worthy field of endeavor, hidden among the maze of water-trails, deep in the heart of the forests. For these were forests whose treasury of bird and beast and insect secrets had been only skimmed by collectors. The spoils had been carried to northern museums, where they were made available for human conversation and writing by the conferring of names by twentieth-century Adams. We had learned much besides from these specimens, and they had delighted the hearts of multitudes who would never have an opportunity to hear the evening cadence of the six-o'clock bee or the morning chorus of the howling monkeys.
But just as a single photograph reveals little of the inception, movement and dénouement of an entire moving-picture reel, so an isolated dead bird can present only the static condition of the plumage, molt, and dimensions at the instant before death. I am no nature sentimentalist, and in spite of moments of weakness, I will without hesitation shoot a bird as she sits upon her eggs, if I can thereby acquire desired information. But whenever possible, I prefer, for my own sake as well as hers, to prolong my observations, and thus acquire merit in the eyes of my fellow scientists and of Buddha.
I hoped the Pomeroon might prove such a desirable region, and fulfil my requirements to the extent that I might call it home for a season. So I accepted the invitation with a double pleasure, for I already knew what excellent company were friends Lawyer and Judge. As a site for my researches the Pomeroon failed; as an experience filled to the brim with interest and enjoyment, my visit left nothing to be desired.
Besides, I met Ram.
The big yellow kiskadees woke me at daybreak; my bedroom wren sang his heart out as I splashed in my shower; and before breakfast was over I heard the honking of my host's car. We glided over the rich red streets in the cool of early morning, past the thronged and already odoriferous market, and on to the tiny river ferry.
This was on Monday, but Ram Narine was to have yet another day of grace, by a twist in the nexus of circumstance which envelops all of us. The Lawyer's orderly had failed to notify his cabman that the Georgetown steamer left at six-fifty instead of seven. So when we finally left the stelling, with a host of twittering martins about us, it was with sorrowful faces. Not only were the master's wig and gown missing, besides other articles less necessary from a legal point of view, but the ham for luncheon was lacking. The higher law of compensation now became active, and the day of postponement gave me the sight of the Pomeroon Trail. This delay solved the matter of the wig and gown, and the ham was replaced by a curry equal to a Calcutta cook's best. This was served in the Colony House at Suddy Village, where one ate and slept in full enjoyment of the cool tradewind which blew in from the clear stretch of the Atlantic. And here one sat and read or listened to the droning of the witnesses in the petty cases held by the local magistrate in the courtroom below stairs.
I chose to do none of these things, but walked to the sandy beach and along it in the direction of the distant Spanish Main. It was a barren beach, judged by the salvage of most beaches; few shells, little seaweed, and the white sand alternating with stretches of brown mud. I walked until I came to a promontory and, amid splashing muddy waves, climbed out and perched where I ever love to be—on the outermost isolated pile of an old wharf. Scores of years must have passed since it was in use, and I tried to imagine what things had come and gone over it. Those were the days of the great Dutch sugar-plantations, when plantations were like small kingdoms, with crowds of slaves, and when the rich amber crystals resembled gold-dust in more than appearance. What bales of wondrous Dutch lace and furniture and goodies were unloaded from the old high-pooped sailing ships, and what frills and flounces fluttered in this same tradewind, what time the master's daughter set forth upon her first visit to the Netherlands! Now, a few rotted piles and rows of precise, flat Dutch bricks along the foreshore were all that was left of such memories. Inland, the wattled huts of the negroes had outlasted the great manor-houses.
Out at sea there was no change. The same muddy waves rose but never broke; the same tidal current swirled and eddied downstream. And now my mind became centered on passing débris, and in a few minutes I realized that, whatever changes had ruffled or passed over this coastal region of Guiana, the source of the muddy waters up country was as untouched now as when Amerigo Vespucci sailed along this coast four hundred and twenty years ago. I forgot the shore with its memories and its present lush growth and heat. For in the eddies of the wharf piles swirled strange things from the inland bush. First a patch of coarse grass, sailing out to sea, upright and slowly circling. On the stems I could distinguish unwilling travelers—crickets, spiders, and lesser wingless fry. Half-hollow logs drifted past, some deep and water-soaked, others floating high, with their upper parts quite dry. On such a one I saw a small green snake coiled as high as possible, and, serpent-like, waiting quietly for what fate should bring.
And now came an extraordinary sight—another serpent, a huge one, a great water-constrictor long dead, entangled in some brush, half caught firm and half dangling in the water. Attending were two vultures, ravenous and ready to risk anything for a meal. And they were risking a good deal, for each time they alighted, the brush and snake began to sink and allowed them time for only one or two frantic pecks before they were in water up to their bodies. They then had laboriously to take to flight, beating the water for the first few strokes. For several minutes one loop of the snake became entangled about a sunken pile, and now the scavengers boldly perched in the shallow water and fairly ducked their heads at each beakful. Next came a white ants' nest on a lichened trunk, with a multitude of the owners rushing frantically about, scores of them overrunning the confines of their small cosmos, to the great profit and delectation of a school of little fish which swam in the wake.
Most pitiful of all was a tiny opossum, with a single young one clinging tightly about her neck, which approached as I was about to leave. She was marooned on a hollow log which revolved in an arc while it drifted. As it turned, the little mother climbed, creeping first upward, then turning and clambering back, keeping thus ever on the summit. The tail of the baby was coiled about her mouth, and he was clinging with all his strength. It was a brave fight and well deserved success. No boat was in sight, so I could not hesitate, but, pulling off my shoes, I waded out as far as I could. At first I thought I must miss it, for I could not go in to my neck even for an opossum. But the wind helped; one or two heavy waves lapped conveniently against the sodden bark, and I succeeded in seizing the stub. As I reached for the little creature, the young opossum gave up and slipped into the water, and a ripple showed where a watchful fish had snapped it up. But I got hold of the mother's tail, and despite a weak hiss and a perfunctory showing of teeth, I lifted her and waded ashore. The last view I had, showed her crawling feebly but steadily along a branch into the heart of a dense thicket.