You may scarce credit it when I say that I sojourned for many months
with these savage, yet simple, people, and whilst with them received
neither hurt nor insult, but passed my days in pleasant idleness in the
heart of those awe-inspiring woods.
I have since described their ways and mode of living to a famous
ethnologist, one whose business it was to study the sundry races of
mankind; and he believed that I fell into the hands of a tribe of
Caishana aborigines, one of the most primitive races in the world.
Of this, however, no one can be sure; for I learned little of their
language, and of that remembered nothing. Besides, there are so many
hordes of Indians and tribes in the valleys of the Upper Amazon, and of
so few of these is anything definite known, even at the present day,
that a question of such slight importance, for the time being, may
remain unanswered.
It makes, in any case, no difference to my story. I do but state mere
facts, leaving footnotes, queries and the like to scientists and
students. For five months--as I can guess--I lived with this woodland
people; and it pleases me to remember that, in return for their
hospitality and kindness, I was able to render them some service. I
taught them novel methods of catching the fish that abounded in the
rivers, creeks and pools; and I gave them gladly the few belongings that
I had upon me, even a large jack-knife, which the chief of the village
received with unfeigned delight--for they were so uncivilised as to be
altogether unacquainted with the use of iron.
On my side, I learned many things from them, becoming, for instance,
skilled in the use of the blow-pipe--a very deadly weapon, since it made
no more noise than a pop-gun, and the arrows were invariably dipped in
the juice of a poisonous herb that grew plentifully in the forest.
I was much interested in the manufacture of these instruments. Many
were of bamboo, but those of the better quality of a hard wood, from
which the inside had been patiently scraped by means of a bone knife,
until the surface was smooth as glass. Needless to say, to accomplish
this, the shaft had to be split into two pieces, which were afterwards
joined together. It took a skilled worker weeks to make a blow-pipe. A
good specimen was always coveted, and he who possessed one was regarded
as a person of importance. I was instructed also in the craft of making
the darts or arrows; and this was an accomplishment that, more than once
in the course of the next few months, stood me in good stead.
Of the people themselves, of their strange ways and customs, I might
write a full chapter, were I so disposed. I have no reason to think
that they varied greatly from the majority of the wilder tribes in the
great forests of the Amazon. They were small in stature, short-lived,
and very dirty. They went well-nigh naked, and many suffered from a
particularly loathsome disease, the character of which I know not, save
that it left their skin marked black in patches. I feared, at first,
that this would prove contagious; but, either my nationality or else my
cleanly habits--for I bathed daily in the river--preserved my health and
personal appearance.
In regard to my bathing, I can relate a strange thing. It being the
rainy season, the river was alive with alligators. I was at first
considerably frightened of these horrid reptiles; but I soon discovered
that all that was necessary was to beat the surface of the water
violently with a stick in order to scare them away. Of course, it was
needful to exercise a certain amount of discretion, to keep one's eyes
open whilst in the water; and I do not say that there was no danger
present. But the fact remains that the South American cayman, one of
the most formidable-looking brutes in all the world, is a cowardly beast
and by no means greatly to be feared.
If that be so, I have another story to tell concerning the snakes of
that dark region; for these I never ceased to fear, and not without good
cause. My boots had long since ceased to be of the least practical use,
and I had presented them, not without ceremony, to the head man of the
village where I stayed. I was obliged therefore to go bare of foot in
the forest, like the natives themselves, and day and night I walked in
constant peril of my life.
For the underwoods were populous with serpents of all kinds, many of
which were venomous. They were usually to be found in the vicinity of
water, and amongst them I cannot fail to mention the gigantic tree and
water snakes, in whose deadly coils a full-grown man might well be
crushed to death. More than once I set eyes upon these great, evil,
stealthy monsters; and on each occasion my very blood ran cold. But I
have yet to write of what I have called--for no better reason than that
there is melodrama in the name--the Glade of Silent Death, where in part
the tragedy of all my narrative attains some sort of a crisis--a crisis,
at least, for one of whom I dare say more than I would of any other:
that he well deserved his fate.
Now, had I been content to eke out the remainder of my years with these
untutored people, I should never have beheld the wonders of which I have
to tell. I think I realised that if I continued to live as a savage, I
must eventually myself become a savage, forgetting all I had ever
learned of Christian civilisation. So I made up my mind to take my life
into my hands, and set forth alone into the Wild.
Beyond doubt, my ulterior motive was to regain the confines of the
civilised world, to hear again the voices of men speaking my own
language--even the lazy Sussex twang. But I was moved firstly not so
much by a desire for liberty, as by the spirit of adventure. For I had
caught something of the rover from John Bannister, as I sat listening to
his stories to the soft accompaniment of the wash of the English sea;
and I would find out all I could concerning the quest of Amos Baverstock
and the secret of the Greater Treasure of the Incas, which the more
civilised of the Indians called the "Big Fish."
And so I asked the savages to guide me back to the place where they had
found me, within sight of Cahazaxa's ruined temple. Though I never knew
but a score of words of their language, I was now proficient in the art
of conversing by signs and the drawing of pictures in the mud, as I was
also something of a woodsman and--though but a few months older than
when I had been kidnapped--no longer a boy, but the beginnings of a man,
who was like to have a hard part to play. Life in the wilderness had
made me self-reliant. To the wanderer in savage places peril comes
naturally enough, and death itself is all in the work of the day.
But it was one thing to ask, and another to receive. The chief man of
the community--for it was hardly a village--was all against the project.
In the first place, he and the rest of them had grown to be fond of
me--I was regarded as both a curiosity and something of an acquisition.
Secondly, I soon discovered that they stood in fear and trembling of the
ruins, which they firmly believed to be haunted.
Though they might have restrained me by force, we argued the matter out,
and it came to a question of will-power--or obstinacy, if the word suit
you better--and I had my way.
Accordingly, one morning I set forth into the forest, accompanied by a
guide. I was dressed in the remnants of my shirt, tied like a kilt
about my waist, and carried a ten-foot blow-pipe and a score of darts;
and beyond these I had neither arms nor clothing. I was just a white
savage in a great dark wilderness, with my life in my own hands and all
Nature at war against me. And I doubt if I can even say that I was
white, for I was now tanned almost to the colour of the wild men amongst
whom I had lived.
In three days, by easy journeys, my companion and I came to the margin
of the woods, to the great plain of waving grass, in the midst of which
the Temple of Cahazaxa stood upon a hill-top.
I begged of the man to come with me, to serve me as a servant, making
vague promises of reward which I am sure he did not understand; and
though, as I could see, the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak; for
he fell down upon his knees before me, trembling in all his limbs,
craving permission to return.
I could not be heartless. From the tribe I had never received anything
but kindness. But permission to be gone was not all the simple fellow
wanted; for, when he saw that I was determined to go alone upon my way
to the ruins on the hill-top, he again fell down upon his knees, and
implored me to return with him.
In so far as I could take his meaning, the old temple was infested by
ghosts and evil spirits. Singular things for centuries had been known
to happen among those grey, worn stones: weird singing had been heard
and strange coloured lights had been seen of nights, and no man of the
forest who had ever ventured to the hillock had as yet returned alive.
To speak true, these fables--though I believed no word of them--did but
whet my appetite for action. I had a taste for danger. For the first
time in my life, I was conscious of my own individuality. Man or boy, I
was free. I had a part to play upon the stage of life, and the wide
world was my scene. I, too, was upon the same quest as Amos: the hunt
for the Greater Treasure. It was as if something within me urged me to
go forward, like a knight-errant of old, placing my firm trust in
Providence; and I now have little doubt that it was the voice of Destiny
that spoke within me.
And so I bade farewell to the forest tribesman, whom I left upon the
verge of tears, believing in his heart of hearts that I was as good as
doomed; and with a light heart and my blow-pipe, I went my way across
the plain, towards the hill upon which stood the ancient Temple of
Cahazaxa, whilst the sun was sinking in the sky.