Off a party of us went, through the thick jungle and into the more open forests on the uplands back from shore. Again I kept my eyes open for the giant snakes I had been told about. But I saw none. Finally some of the blacks, circling ahead, came upon some of the red baboons and we heard their shots. Hurrying on to get into the fun I heard one howl close to me. Finally I made him out, high in a tree. By good luck I got him with the first shot and he came tumbling down at my feet, quite dead and one of the most hideous looking beasts to be found. My appetite was not whetted in the least at thought of eating him. The blacks came back with two more which they had got after a dozen or more shots. The fact that I dropped one the first shot increased their respect for me because it indicated that I was a dead shot. I did not deny it, although the truth was that I was by no means a crack marksman.
On the way back I suddenly let out a yell and tried to shake something from the back of my hand. From the feeling I was sure it was a red hot poker, jabbed quite through my hand. What I did see was a small red ant. He had hooked his biting apparatus into the skin of my hand and I had to pull him off. There must have been some sort of poison on him for sharp pains, like needles of fire, darted through my hand and up my arm. It was an hour or more before the pain went away.
Jimmy hailed our arrival with the baboons with delight and proceeded at once to dress and cook the one I had bagged. Both Lewis and myself were rather skeptical about eating any. However, we had been without our customary quantity of fresh meat and decided to try some.
Jimmy boiled some of it with salt pork, seasoning it well. Very gingerly Lewis and I tasted it. The meat was dark, very tender and, to our surprise, tasted much like rabbit or gray squirrel meat.
“I feel like a cannibal, eating baboon,” laughed Lewis.
“Darwin said we were related to monkeys, not baboons,” I argued.
“Well, a baboon belongs to the same family. I feel as though I were dining on a distant relative.”
But we soon learned to overcome such feelings and the meat was really excellent. How the darkies did feast on it! There wasn’t an unpicked bone or a shred of it left by the time they were finished.
Monday, our seventh day on the river, found us in the midst of some perilous rapids and facing some tough propositions in the way of portages. In the shallow waters there was no danger from the Perai, or man-eating fish, and the darkies could leap out, fasten a line at the bow and two at the stern and haul the craft up over ledges to still and deep water. But frequently it meant that we were to pile out and lighten the boat by removing the five tons of supplies!
Twice we had to carry those five tons of provisions and other supplies two or three hundred yards around portages while the boys hauled the heavy boat up the ledges. To make matters worse, there was a drizzling rain. After we got further up the river we had less trouble with rains because they came regularly, morning and night, without fail. We made a camp in the rain and ate beneath our shelters.