CHAPTER XX
PICKING UP JUNGLE LORE
THE upper part of the Mazaruni River is no place for a white man to take up a permanent abode. Only once in a great while has a white man been known to live more than a year in that climate. I have heard of one or two who lived there for several years, but they finally died. It is a strange thing the lure of fortune. Such men know full well that no white man can escape death if he stays there for much more than six months. Yet each individual seems to feel that he will manage in some way to escape the dread and deadly jungle fever. He is having good luck getting diamonds, he stays on and on for “just a few more, just a few more,” so that he may go back wealthy, and then comes the fever and either death or a quick get-away. I could not then foresee the danger that faced me and was to bring a sudden end to my own adventures in the wilds.
Most white men have to use quinine continually. Dud. Lewis took quantities of it every day. He took so much that it made him temporarily deaf. I was afraid to take too much of it as I didn’t care to become deaf nor did I want the headaches that it frequently caused. Of course I took some from time to time, but in small quantities.
One great trouble was our lack of fresh water. We had only the river water and it was dangerous to drink that without purifying it. The Indians and even the blacks seemed to get along well enough on it and would drink right out of the river.
We had “steel drops” with us, a highly concentrated form of iron. One drop in a gallon of water was sufficient to remove the danger of disease from drinking the water. We also used bits of rusty iron. By keeping these in the water it was fairly safe, but it was always muddy. And it was always warm. I learned to get used to it. We used to keep it in jars and pails with a wet cloth over it in order to cool it.
ABRAHAM, FELLING A WOODSKIN TREE
While there were a few poisonous snakes about, they seemed no more plentiful than are the rattlesnakes, copperheads and moccasins in certain parts of the United States, and we had no trouble with them. I never saw any of the big boa constrictors or other snakes, that I had been told about, but presume there were plenty of them in the deep marshlands if one cared to hunt the reptiles.
Frequently I had seen Indians gliding about the river in the most peculiar and frail looking craft I had ever beheld.
“Make um woodskin,” the Indians told me.