for hour after hour along the shore. We forgot the poor, filthy,
ill-mannered coal carriers, and the thought of the misery and squalor of
the town passed with its vanishing, still clad in its cloak of rain. As
the natives appeared to us so inferior to those of the other islands, so
by some law of compensation the coast was revealed correspondingly
beautiful. At four bells the sun sank on the side away from the island,
in a blaze of yellow and orange with one particular cloud touching the
water line with flame color, as if a mighty distant volcano had just
reared its head above the sea, still in the throes of molten erection.
On the opposite side were passing the dark green headlands and fiords of
the land, while upward, high into the sky, there arose now and then some
tremendous cloud, on fire with rich rose or salmon afterglow, or a maze
of other tints defying human name or pigment. In front was the living
blue water dulled by the dimming light and above all the transparent
blue of the tropic sky.
Without warning, from out of the soft folded edges of one of the filmy
clouds, crept a curved edge of cold steel, like some strange kind of
floating shell coming forth from its cloud of smoke, and a moment later
the full moon was revealed, unlike any other color note in this
marvelous scene. The icy, unchanging moon craters, the more plastic
island mountains fringed by the wind-shapen trees, the still more
shifting waters and the evanescent cloud mist, all were played upon and
saturated and stained by colors which were beyond words, almost beyond
our appreciation. Tiny villages, fronted by canoes and swathed in
feathery cocoanut fronds, snuggled at the foot of great volcanic and
coral cliffs.
But the crowning glory was reserved for the last, when we surged past
the _Trois Pitons_, rearing their majestic heads above all the island,
hundreds and hundreds of feet into the sky. Even the moon could not top
one, and after cutting into sharp, silver silhouette every leaf and
branch of a moon-wide swath of trees, it buried itself behind the peak
and framed the whole mountain.
A small wandering rain storm drifted against the tallest piton and split
in two, one half going away down the coast and the rest passing close
enough to us to shower the decks with drops. As it fell astern, it
spread out fanwise and in its heart developed a ghostly lunar
rainbow--the spectrum cleansed and denuded of all the garish colors of
day. At first we could only sense which was the warm, which the cold
side of the bow, then it strengthened and the red appeared as dull
copper or amber buff, and the violet as a deeper, colder blue, cloud
hue. All the time, even when the rain was falling heaviest, the moon
shone with full strength, and when at last we veered away from this
wonder island, it was so high that there was no moonpath on the water,
but only a living, shifting patch of a million electric wires, which
wrote untold myriad messages in lunar script upon the little waves. From
one fraction of time to another, the eye could detect and hold in memory
innumerable strange figures, and the resemblance, if it be not sacrilege
to make any simile, was only to script of languages long, long dead--the
cuneiform of Babylon and the tendril spirals of Pali.
Once a faint light appeared upon the distant shore. Our steamer spoke in
a short, sharp blast which thrilled us with its unexpectedness and the
signal among the palms was quenched. From the great things of the
cosmos, from brilliant Venus, and from the north star low in the sky,
from the new splendor of Formalhaut, rising ever higher in the south,
our thoughts were forced back to the littlenesses of the world war,
whose faint influence reached even thus far to break the thread of our
abstraction.
BARBADOS, IN ECLIPSE AND IN SUN.--The vagaries of a naturalist are the
delight of the uninitiated, and impress simple natives more than
immoderate tips or the routine excesses of tourist folk. One's
scientific eccentricities may even establish a small measure of fame, or
rather notoriety. So it was that as I walked up the landing stage at
Bridgetown, a small ebon personality pointed finger at me and confided
to his neighbor, "See de mon--de tall mon da--he de mon who chase tree
lizards in de cemetry!"
"Yes, George," I said, "I'm de mon who chased them with you two years
ago, but this time we shall catch them as well."
"Anyting you say true, Boss, I'se yo boy."
But as is always true in sport, certainty robs it of the finest element
of excitement, and our successful stalks that afternoon with grass stem
nooses were less memorable than the frantic tree circlings and grave
hurdlings of two years before.
On our return from the cemetery a breeze swept up from the sea, the palm
fronds slithered against one another, and I suddenly caught myself
shivering. The moment I became conscious of this I thought of fever and
wondered if my life-long immunity had come to an end. Then I observed
old hags wrapping themselves up; my eyes suddenly readjusted, I
perceived that the glaring sunlight was tempered; again the strange
mid-day breeze arose and finally I realized that I was witnessing an
eclipse of the sun on the island of Barbados. The natives and the birds
and even the patient little donkeys grew restless, the light became
weaker and strange, and until the end of the eclipse we could think of
nothing else. The most remarkable part to me, were the reflections.
Looking however hastily and obliquely at the sun, I perceived nothing
but a blinding glare, but walking beneath the shade of dense tropical
foliage, the hosts of specks of sunlight sifting through, reflected on
the white limestone, were in reality thousands of tiny representations
of the sun's disk incised with the segment of the silhouetted moon, but
reversed, just like the image through the aperture of a pinhole camera.
I suppose it is a very common physical phenomenon, but to me it was a
surprising thing to trace the curve of the eclipse clearly and with ease
in the sunbeams on the pavement beneath my feet, while my retinas
refused to face or register the original.
Barbados is very flat, thoroughly cultivated and said to be the most
densely populated bit of land in the world; all of which guide-book
gossip was discouraging to a naturalist. But besides the cemetery which
was sanctuary for the jolly little lizards, I found a bit of unspoilt
beach, with sand as white and fine as talcum powder, where dwelt
undisturbed many assemblages of small folk. There were land-crabs which
had come to have at heart more affection for the vegetable gardens at
the beach top than for the waters of their forefathers. They had
degenerated into mere commuters from their holes to the nearest melon
patch. The lower part of the beach was that ever changing zone--that
altar upon which each tide deposited some offering from the depths of
the sea. This will some day have a worthy interpreter, a sympathetic
recorder and commentator who will make a marvelous volume of this
intermittent thread of the earth's surface, pulsing, changing--now
showing as water, now as land--but always vital with exciting
happenings.
I sat for an hour on the upper beach and watched the little native folk,
autochthones who for innumerable generations had been so loyal to their
arenaceous home that the sheltering mantle of its pale hue had fallen
upon their wings and bodies. Here were tiny, grayish-white crabs, here
were spiders, which, until they moved, were not spiders but sand. And
when they did move, recognition usually came too late to some fly, which
had trespassed on this littoral hunting ground. Tiger-beetles drifted
about like sand-grain wraiths, whose life wanderings lay between low
tide and the highest dune; veriest ghosts of their brilliant green
brethren farther inland. Ashen wasps buzzed past, with compass and maps
in their heads, enabling them to circle about once or twice, alight,
take a step or two and, kicking down their diminutive front door, to
enter the slanting sandy tube which for them fulfilled all the
requirements of home.
From an aeroplane, Barbados would appear like a circular expanse of
patchwork, or a wild futurist painting set in deepest ultramarine; a
maze of rectangles or squares of sugar-cane, with a scattering of sweet
potatoes and sea island cotton. I got a hint of this when I motored to
the highest point of land, and then climbed the steeple of the loftiest
church. At my feet was the Atlantic with great breakers, reduced by
distance to tiny wavelets twinkling among the black boulders and
feathery palms which were scattered along shore. For more than two
hundred and seventy-five years the church had stood here, and not to be
outdone by the strangeness of the little beach people, the graveyard
boasted the remains of a descendant of a Greek Emperor, who long ago had
been warden.
But again our steamer summoned us and we left the dusky natives with
their weird legends and the tiny island which they love, and were rowed
steadily out beyond the two miles of shallow coast.
When we steamed away from shore that night, no lights except those of
the dining saloon were allowed. Yet the path of the vessel made a
mockery of this concealment. The world did not exist a hundred feet away
from the ship and yet there was no mist or fog. The outward curve of the
water from the bow was a long slender scimitar of phosphorescence, and
from its cutting edge and tip flashed bits of flame and brilliant steely
sparks, apparently suspended above the jet-black water. Alongside was a
steady ribbon of dull green luminescence, while, rolling and drifting
along through this path of light came now and then great balls of clear,
pure fire touched with emerald flames, some huge jelly or fish, or
sargasso weed incrusted with noctiluca. Everywhere throughout the narrow
zone of visibility were flickering constellations, suns and planets of
momentary life, dying within the second in which they flashed into
sight. Once Orion left a distinct memory on the retina--instantly to
vanish forever. Perhaps to some unimaginably distant and unknown god,
our world system may appear as fleeting. To my eyes it seemed as if I
looked at the reflections of constellations which no longer swung across
the heavens--shadows of shadows.
Then four bells struck--silveryly--and I knew that time still existed.
IV
THE POMEROON TRAIL
Ram Narine gave a party. It was already a thing of three months past,
and it had been an extremely small party, and Ram Narine was only a very
unimportant coolie on the plantation of the Golden Fleece. But, like
many things small in themselves, this party had far-flung effects, and
finally certain of these reached out and touched me. So far as I was
concerned the party was a blessing. Because of it I was to travel the
Pomeroon Trail. But it befell otherwise with Ram Narine.
It was, as I have said, a small party. Only two friends had been
invited, and Ram and his companions had made very merry over a cooked
cock-fowl and two bottles of rum. In the course of the night there was a
fracas, and the face of one of Ram's friends had been somewhat
disfigured, with a thick club and a bit of rock. He spent two months in
the hospital, and eventually recovered. His injuries did not affect his
speech, but, coolie-like, he would give little information as to his
assailant.
And now the majesty of the law was about to inquire into this matter of
Ram's party, and to sift to the uttermost the mystery which concerned
the cooked cock-fowl and the rum, and the possibilities for evil which
accrued to the sinister club and the bit of rock. I was invited to go,
with my friends the Lawyer and the Judge, and our route lay from
Georgetown westward, athwart two mighty Guiana rivers.
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 Zooelogical 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 denouement 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 debris, 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.
I climbed back to my outpost and dried my clothes in the sun, meditating
on the curious psychology of a human which wanted opossums and would
unhesitatingly sacrifice a score of opossums for a real scientific need,
and yet would put itself to much discomfort to save a single one from
going out to sea. Sentimental weakness is an inexplicable thing, and I
finally made up my mind--as I always do--not to yield again to its
promptings. In fact, I half turned to go in search of my specimen--and
then didn't.
The tide had reached full ebb and the sun was low when I started back,
and now I found a new beach many feet farther out and down. Still no
shells, but a wonderful assortment of substitutes in the shape of a
host of nuts and seeds--flotsam and jetsam from far up-river, like the
snake and ants and opossum. There were spheres and kidney-shapes,
half-circles and crescents, heads of little old men and pods like
scimitars, and others like boomerangs. Some were dull, others polished
and varnished. They were red and green, brown and pink and mauve, and a
few gorgeous ones shaded from salmon into the most brilliant orange and
yellow. Most were as lifeless in appearance as empty shells, but there
were many with the tiny root and natal leaves sprouting hopefully
through a chink. And just to be consistent, I chose one out of the many
thousands piled in windrows and carried it high up on the shore, where I
carefully planted it. It was a nut unknown to me at the time, but later
I knew that I had started one of the greatest of the jungle trees on its
way to success.
Ahead of me two boys dashed out of the underbrush and rushed into the
waves. After swimming a few strokes they reached a great log and,
heading it inward, swam it ashore and tied a rope to it. Here was a
profession which appealed to me, and which indeed I had already entered
upon, although the copper-skinned coolie boys did not recognize me as
one of their guild. And small blame to them, for I was an idler who had
labored and salvaged a perfectly good opossum and the scion of a mighty
_mora_ for naught. Here I was, no richer for my walk, and with only damp
clothing to show for my pains. Yet we grinned cheerfully at each other
as I went by, and they patted their log affectionately as they moored it
fast.
Dusk was not far away when I reached Colony House and the Lawyer and I
fared forth to seek a suit of pajamas. For the orderly had with him both
luxuries and necessities, and so we went shopping. I may say at once
that we failed completely in our quest, but, as is usually the case in
the tropics, we were abundantly compensated.
We visited emporiums to the number of three,--all that the village could
boast,--and the stare of the three Chinawomen was uniformly blank. They
could be made in three days, or one could send to Georgetown for most
excellent ones; we could not make clear the pressure of our need. The
Lawyer grumbled, but the afterglow was too marvelous for anything to
matter for long. Indeed, things--wonderful and strange, pathetic and
amusing--were so numerous and so needful of all our faculties, that at
one time my mind blurred like an over-talked telephone wire. My
enthusiasm bubbled over and the good-natured Lawyer enjoyed them as I
did.
Here were two among the many. There was the matter of the poor coolie
woman who had injured a leg and who, misunderstanding some hastily given
order, had left the hospital and was attempting to creep homeward, using
hands and arms for crutches. Her husband was very small and very patient
and he had not the strength to help her, although now and then he made
an awkward attempt. While we sent for help, I asked questions, and in
half-broken English I found that they lived six miles away. I had passed
them early in the afternoon on the way to the beach, and in the
intervening four hours they had progressed just about two hundred feet!
This was patience with a vengeance, and worthy of compute. So,
astronomer-like, I took notebook and pencil and began to estimate the
time of their orbit. It was not an easy matter, for mathematics is to me
the least of earth's mercies--and besides, I was not certain how many
feet there were in a mile. By saying it over rapidly I at last convinced
myself that it was "fivethousantwohunderaneighty."
I gasped when I finished, and repeated my questions. And again came the
answers: "Yes, sahib, we go home. Yes, sahib, we live Aurora. Yes,
sahib, we go like this ver' slow. No, sahib, have no food." And as he
said the last sentence, a few drops of rain fell and he instantly spread
his body-cloth out and held it over the sick woman. My mind
instinctively went back to the mother opossum and her young. The coolie
woman ceaselessly murmured in her native tongue and looked steadily
ahead with patient eyes. Always she fumbled with her dusty fingers for a
spot to grip and shuffle ahead a few inches.