_BABOON FOR DINNER_
Sunday we sat about camp, reading and chatting for a while. Then we
heard the peculiar roaring of the wild red baboons, and the blacks
wanted to go into the jungle and shoot some, as these men are
extremely fond of the meat.
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.
Early in the forenoon of the next day we came within sight of Caburi,
the largest falls on the Mazaruni River. At this point the Puruni
River joins the Mazaruni. It was a big job to unload and carry our
provisions and other equipment up over the high ledges by hand, for
while it was only a carry of about a hundred yards, it was difficult
clambering up over steep ledges of the falls with them. It took us
more than half the day just to get over the falls and load again.
I had been taking a number of pictures, but I lost many of them
because I did not know that the warm water of the tropics would ruin
the negatives. The developing tank is excellent at home, but down
there in torrid British Guiana where the water is always from 75 to 80
degrees above zero in temperature, not even the tanks would save them,
the heat of the water softening and ruining the emulsion on the
celluloid films. The only way I could do, as I afterwards learned, was
to take the pictures and then seal the exposed films in tin boxes and
wait until I got back to a cooler climate or to civilization where I
could get ice to put in the fluids.
[Illustration: ONCE IN A WHILE A BOAT SHOT PAST US]
[Illustration: AT TIMES A PORTAGE MUST BE MADE]