Benedicto and Filippe show Courage--Confronted with a Mountainous
Country--Steep Ravines--No Food--Painful
Marches--Starving--Ammunition rendered useless by Moisture--The
"pros" and "cons" of Smoking--A Faint Hope--A Forged Tin which
should have contained Anchovies--Curious Effects of Starvation
upon the Brain--Where Money is of no Avail--Why there was Nothing
to eat in the Forest--The Sauba Ants--Sniffed by a
Jaguar--Filippe tries to commit Suicide.
THE departure of those two men added much to our troubles. I had to
abandon at that spot all the unused photographic plates, my sextant and a
large prismatic compass, half the supply of cartridges we had taken with
us, a pair of extra shoes, and a number of other things. With our reduced
loads we made an early start, Filippe that day behaving very bravely.
"Never mind," said he; "if all the others are afraid, I am not. I will
follow you anywhere. After all, nothing can happen to us worse than
death. You have always behaved kindly to me, and I will never abandon
you."
Both Filippe and Benedicto were still poorly, but the violent exertion of
the previous day had done them good and their condition seemed to have
slightly improved.
We started once more across the virgin forest, directing our steps due
west. Filippe this time undertook to open the _picada_, while I, compass
in hand, marched directly behind him, Benedicto following me. Filippe,
who was unaccustomed to go through the forest, was even worse than Miguel
for keeping the correct direction. If I had let him go, he would have
described circle after circle upon himself instead of going in a straight
line.
From that point our march across the forest became tragic. Perhaps I can
do nothing better than reproduce almost word by word the entries in my
diary.
We ate that morning what little there remained of the _mutum_ we had shot
the previous evening. Little we knew then that we were not to taste fresh
meat again for nearly a month from that date.
During September 3rd we made fairly good progress, cutting our way
through incessantly. We went that day 20 kil. We had no lunch, and it was
only in the evening that we opened the last of the three small boxes of
sardines, our entire dinner consisting of three and a half sardines each.
On September 4th we were confronted, soon after our departure, with a
mountainous country with deep ravines and furrows, most trying for us
owing to their steepness. We went over five ranges of hills from 100 to
300 ft. in height, and we crossed five streamlets in the depressions
between those successive ranges.
Filippe was again suffering greatly from an attack of fever, and I had to
support him all the time, as he had the greatest difficulty in walking.
Benedicto had that day been entrusted with the big knife for cutting the
_picada_.
We went some 20 kil. that day, with nothing whatever to eat, as we had
already finished the three boxes of sardines, and I was reserving the box
of anchovies for the moment when we could stand hunger no longer.
On September 5th we had another very terrible march over broken country,
hilly for a good portion of the distance, but quite level in some parts.
The man Benedicto, who was a great eater, now collapsed altogether,
saying that he could no longer carry his load and could not go on any
farther without food.
The entire day our eyes had roamed in all directions, trying to discover
some wild fruit which was edible, or some animal we might shoot, but
there was the silence of death all around us. Not a branch, not a leaf
was moved by a living thing; no fruit of any kind was to be seen
anywhere.
Our appetite was keen, and it certainly had one good effect--it stopped
Filippe's fever and, in fact, cured it altogether.
The two men were tormenting me the whole day, saying they had no faith in
the compass: how could a brass box--that is what they called it--tell us
where we could find _feijão_? It was beyond them to understand it. They
bemoaned themselves incessantly, swearing at the day they had been
persuaded to come along with me and leave their happy homes in order to
die of starvation in the forest with a mad Englishman! And why did we go
across the forest at all, where there was no trail, when we could have
gone down by the river on a trading boat?
On September 6th it was all I could do to wake up my men. When they did
wake, they would not get up, for they said the only object in getting up
was to eat, and as there was nothing to eat there was no use in getting
up. They wanted to remain there and die.
I had to use a great deal of gentle persuasion, and even told them a big
story--that my _agulha_ or needle (the compass) was telling me that
morning that there was plenty of _feijão_ ahead of us.
We struggled on kilometre after kilometre, one or another of us
collapsing under our loads every few hundred metres. We went over very
hilly country, crossing eight hill ranges that day with steep ravines
between. In fact, all that country must once have been a low tableland
which had been fissured and then eroded by water, leaving large cracks.
At the bottom of each we found brooks and streamlets of delicious water.
Of the eight rivulets found that day one only was fairly large. It fell
in little cascades over rock. We could see no fish in its waters.
The forest was fairly clean underneath, and we had no great difficulty in
getting through, a cut every now and then with the knife being sufficient
to make a passage for us. I had by that time entirely given up the idea
of opening a regular _picada_, over which I could eventually take the men
and baggage I had left behind.
We found that day a palm with a bunch of small nuts which Benedicto
called _coco do matto_; he said they were delicious to eat, so we
proceeded to cut down the tall palm tree. When we came to split open the
small _cocos_ our disappointment was great, for they merely contained
water. There was nothing whatever to eat inside the hard shells. We spent
some two hours that evening cracking the _cocos_--some two hundred of
them--each nut about the size of a cherry. They were extremely hard to
crack, and our expectant eyes were disappointed two hundred times in
succession as we opened every one and found nothing whatever to eat in
them.
We were beginning to feel extremely weak, with a continuous feeling of
emptiness in our insides. Personally, I felt no actual pain. The mental
strain, perhaps, was the most trying thing for me, for I had no idea when
we might find food. I was beginning to feel more than ever the
responsibility of taking those poor fellows there to suffer for my sake.
On their side they certainly never let one moment go by during the day or
night without reminding me of the fact.
On September 7th I had the greatest difficulty in getting the men out of
their hammocks. They were so exhausted that I could not rouse them. We
had had a terrific storm during the night, which had added misery to our
other sufferings. Innumerable ants were now causing us a lot of damage.
Filippe's coat, which had dropped out of his hammock, was found in the
morning entirely destroyed. Those miniature demons also cut the string to
which I had suspended my shoes in mid-air, and no sooner had they fallen
to the ground than the ants started on their mischievous work. When I
woke up in the morning all that remained of my shoes were the two
leather soles, the upper part having been completely destroyed.
Going through the forest, where thorns of all sizes were innumerable,
another torture was now in store for me. With pieces of string I turned
the soles of the shoes into primitive sandals; but when I started on the
march I found that they hurt me much more than if I walked barefooted.
After marching a couple of kilometres, my renovated foot-gear hurt me so
much in going up and down the steep ravines that I took off the sandals
altogether and flung them away.
That day we went over eleven successive hill ranges and crossed as many
little streamlets between them. My men were terribly downhearted. We had
with us a Mauser and two hundred cartridges, but although we did nothing
all day long but look for something to kill we never heard a sound of a
living animal. Only one day at the beginning of our fast did I see a big
_mutum_--larger than a big turkey. The bird had never seen a human being,
and sat placidly perched on the branch of a tree, looking at us with
curiosity, singing gaily. I tried to fire with the Mauser at the bird,
which was only about seven or eight metres away, but cartridge after
cartridge missed fire. I certainly spent not less than twenty minutes
constantly replenishing the magazine, and not a single cartridge went
off. They had evidently absorbed so much moisture on our many accidents
in the river and in the heavy rain-storms we had had of late, that they
had become useless.
While I was pointing the gun the bird apparently took the greatest
interest in my doings, looked at me, stooping down gracefully each time
that the rifle missed fire, singing dainty notes almost as if it were
laughing at me. The funny part of it all was that we eventually had to go
away disappointed, leaving the bird perched on that very same branch.
As the days went by and we could find nothing to eat, my two men lost
their courage entirely. They now refused to suffer any longer. They said
they had not the strength to go back, so they wanted to lie down and die.
Many times a day did I have to lift them up again and persuade them
gently to come on another few hundred metres or so. Perhaps then we might
find the great river Madeira, where we should certainly meet traders from
whom we could get food.
Filippe the negro was a great smoker. He had brought some tobacco with
him, and he had so far smoked all the time. He said that as long as he
had a cigarette in his mouth he did not feel the pangs of hunger quite so
much.
Since my return to civilization I have been constantly told by smokers
that if I had been a smoker too I might have suffered less than I did.
Now let me tell you what happened to smoker Filippe when his tobacco came
to an end on that painful march. Filippe became a raving lunatic, and in
a fit of passion was about to stick right through his heart the large
knife with which we cut our way through the forest. I had quite a
struggle in order to get the knife away from him, and an additional
strain was placed upon my mind by keeping a constant watch on the knife
so that it could not be used for suicidal purposes.
Poor Benedicto, who was of a less violent nature, from morning to night
implored to be killed. The two together moaned and groaned incessantly,
and accused me a hundred times a day of taking them there on purpose to
die. They certainly made me feel the full and heavy weight of our tragic
position. The mental strain of leading along those two poor fellows was
indeed much more trying to me than the actual lack of food.
In order to save as much as possible of the baggage we carried, I
promised Filippe and Benedicto a considerable present of money if they
were able to take the stuff until we reached the Madeira River.
Late in the afternoon of September 7th, as we were on a high point above
the last range of hills met that day, a large panorama opened before us,
which we could just see between the trees and foliage of the forest.
To obtain a full view of the scenery it was necessary to climb up a tree.
I knew well that we could not yet have reached the river we were looking
for, but perhaps we were not far from some large tributary of the
Madeira, such as the Secundury.
Climbing up trees in the Brazilian forest was easier said than done, even
when you possessed your full strength. So many were the ants of all sizes
which attacked you with fury the moment you embraced the tree, that it
was not easy to get up more than a few feet.
When we drew lots as to whom of us should climb the tree, Benedicto was
the one selected by fate. Benedicto was certainly born under an unlucky
star; when anything nasty or unpleasant happened to anybody it was
always to poor Benedicto. After a lot of pressing he proceeded to go up
the tree, uttering piercing yells as every moment great _sauba_ ants bit
his arms, legs or body. He was brave enough, and slowly continued his way
up until he reached a height of some 30 ft. above the ground, from which
eminence he gave us the interesting news that there were some high hills
standing before us to the west, while to the north-west was a great flat
surface covered by dense forest.
No sooner had Benedicto supplied us with this information from his high
point of vantage than we heard an agonising yell and saw him spread flat
on the ground, having made a record descent.
Filippe and I, although suffering considerably, were in fits of laughter
at Benedicto, who did not laugh at all, but pawed himself all over,
saying he must have broken some bones. When I proceeded to examine him I
found upon his body over a hundred _sauba_ ants clinging to his skin with
their powerful clippers.
Aching all over, poor Benedicto got up once more. I put the load upon his
back and we resumed our journey, making a precipitous descent almost _à
pic_ down the hill side. Our knees were so weak that we fell many times
and rolled down long distances on that steep incline. At last we got to
the bottom, rejoicing in our hearts that we had no more hills to climb,
as I had made up my mind that I would now march slightly to the
north-west, so as to avoid the hilly region which Benedicto had
discovered to the west.
My men had an idea that the great river we were looking for must be in
that plain. For a few hours they seemed to have regained their courage.
We heard some piercing shrieks, and we at once proceeded in their
direction, as we knew they came from monkeys. In fact we found an
enormously high tree, some 5 ft. in diameter. Up on its summit some
beautiful yellow fruit stared us in the face. Four tiny monkeys were busy
eating the fruit. Benedicto, who had by that time become very religious,
joined his hands and offered prayers to the Virgin that the monkeys might
drop some fruit down, but they went on eating while we gazed at them from
below. We tried to fire at them with the Mauser, but again not a single
cartridge went off. Eventually the monkeys dropped down the empty shells
of the fruit they had eaten. With our ravenous appetite we rushed for
them and with our teeth scraped off the few grains of sweet substance
which remained attached to the inside of the shells. We waited and waited
under that tree for a long time, Filippe now joining also in the prayers.
Each time a shell dropped our palates rejoiced for a few moments at the
infinitesimal taste we got from the discarded shells. It was out of the
question to climb up such a big tree or to cut it down, as we had no
strength left.
We went on until sunset; my men once more having lost heart. Brazilians
lose heart very easily. At the sight of small hills before them, a steep
descent, or a deep river to cross, they would lie down and say they
wanted to remain there and die. Filippe and Benedicto did not carry more
than 20 lb. each of my own baggage, but their hammocks weighed some 20
lb. each, so that their loads weighed altogether about 40 lb.
We went on, crossing five more streamlets that afternoon, of which one, 2
m. wide, had beautifully limpid water. We nevertheless went on, until
eventually after sunset we had to camp near a stream of filthy water. We
did not mind that so much, because, contrary to the popular idea that
while you are starving you require a great deal of water, I found that
during those days of starvation both my men and myself hardly ever
touched water at all. Personally I am accustomed to drink only with my
meals, and as I had no meals at all I never had the slightest wish to
drink. My men, however, who while on the river, for instance, when we had
plenty of food, drank perhaps twenty times a day from the stream, now
that they were starving only seldom touched the water, and when they did,
only in very small quantities. I do not suppose that my men during the
entire period of starvation drank on an average more than a wineglass of
water a day. Personally I know that I never drank more than half a
tumbler or less in the twenty-four hours during that time. Under normal
circumstances I drink about a quart of water a day. The water, I may say,
was plentiful all the time, and, barring a few occasions, such as on that
particular night, most excellent.
As we had now been four entire days without eating anything at all, I
thought it was high time to open the valuable tin of anchovies--the only
one in our possession. We had a terrible disappointment when I opened the
tin. I had purchased it in S. Manoel from Mr. Barretto. To our great
distress we discovered that instead of food it contained merely some salt
and a piece of slate. This was a great blow to us. The box was a
Brazilian counterfeit of a tin of anchovies. How disheartening to
discover the fraud at so inopportune a moment! I had reserved the tin
until the last as I did not like the look of it from the outside. We kept
the salt--which was of the coarsest description.
On September 8th we were slightly more fortunate, as the country was
flatter. I was steering a course of 290° b.m. (N.W.). I found that
farther south we would have encountered too mountainous a country.
We crossed several streamlets, the largest 3 m. wide, all of which flowed
south. We had no particular adventure that day, and considering all
things, we marched fairly well--some 20 kil. Towards the evening we
camped on a hill. When we got there we were so exhausted that we made our
camp on the summit, although there was no water near.
On September 9th, after marching for half an hour we arrived at a stream
15 m. wide, which I took at first to be the river Secundury, a tributary
of the Madeira River. Near the banks of that stream we found indications
that human beings had visited that spot--perhaps the Indians we had heard
so much about. The marks we found, however, were, I estimated, about one
year old. Although these signs should have given us a little courage to
go on, we were so famished and exhausted that my men sat down on the
river bank and would not proceed. By that time we had got accustomed even
to the fierce bites of the ants. We had no more strength to defend
ourselves. In vain we strained our eyes all the time in search of wild
fruit. In the river we saw plenty of fish; we had a fishing-line with us,
but no bait whatever that we could use. There are, of course, no worms
underground where ants are so numerous. We could not make snares in the
river, as it was much too deep. So we sat with covetous eyes, watching
the fish go by. It was most tantalising, and made us ten times more
hungry than ever to be so near food and not be able to get it.
It is curious how hunger works on your brain. I am not at all a glutton,
and never think of food under ordinary circumstances. But while I was
starving I could see before me from morning till night, in my
imagination, all kinds of delicacies--caviare, Russian soups, macaroni au
gratin, all kinds of refreshing ice-creams, and plum pudding. Curiously
enough, some days I had a perfect craving for one particular thing, and
would have given anything I possessed in the world to obtain a morsel of
it. The next day I did not care for that at all, in my imagination, but
wanted something else very badly. The three things which I mostly craved
for while I was starving were caviare, galantine of chicken, and
ice-cream--the latter particularly.
People say that with money you can do anything you like in the world. I
had at that time on my person some £6,000 sterling, of which £4,000 was
in actual cash. If anybody had placed before me a morsel of any food I
would gladly have given the entire sum to have it. But no, indeed; no
such luck! How many times during those days did I vividly dream of
delightful dinner and supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton, or the
Ritz, in London, Paris, and New York! How many times did I think of the
delicious meals I had had when a boy in the home of my dear father and
mother! I could reconstruct in my imagination all those meals, and
thought what an idiot I was to have come there out of my own free will to
suffer like that. My own dreams were constantly interrupted by Benedicto
and Filippe, who also had similar dreams of the wonderful meals they had
had in their own houses, and the wonderful ways in which their
_feijãozinho_--a term of endearment used by them for their beloved
beans--had been cooked at home by their sweethearts or their temporary
wives.
"Why did we leave our _feijãozinho_"--and here they smacked their
lips--"to come and die in this rotten country?"
All day I heard them talk of _feijãozinho_, _feijãozinho_, until I was
wearied to distraction by that word--particularly as, even when starving,
I had no desire whatever to eat the beastly stuff.
The negro Filippe and Benedicto were really brave in a way. I tried to
induce them all the time to march as much as we could, so as to get
somewhere; but every few moments they sat or fell down, and much valuable
time was wasted.
In a way it was amusing to watch them--poor Benedicto particularly, who
every few minutes would take out a little pocket looking-glass to gaze at
his countenance.
"Am I not thin?" he would ask me a dozen times a day. "I have never been
so thin before. If I had not come with you I should not be so thin. It is
all because we have no food that I am so thin.... If I had not met you I
would never have been so thin!"--and so on all day.
I reminded him that when we were travelling on the river he had
complained of baling the water out of the canoe and preferred to travel
overland; now that we were travelling overland he had a new complaint to
make. It was quite unreasonable. He was not the only one to get thin; we
were all getting thin.
Benedicto greatly objected to carry the 15 lb. weight of glass negatives,
but he did not mind at all carrying a lot of useless things of his own,
which weighed an extra 20 lb. or so!
Since my return I have been constantly asked why, when we were starving,
we did not eat the grass in the forest; why we did not feed on the leaves
or roots of the trees? If we could find no fruit, why did not we eat
monkeys or birds or other animals? why did not we dig for worms and feed
on them?
As I have already stated, there were no worms in the forest because of
the ants, which allow no insect to be underground near the surface. As
for the grass, it takes no very intelligent person to see that it cannot
exist under the trees of the tropical forest. If a few blades of grass
are to be found on the edge of streamlets it does not follow that you can
eat them. That grass is usually poisonous. The same may be said of the
leaves and roots of trees, even admitting that you could reach the
former--which is not the case, as the leaves are usually at a great
height upon the trees, and when you are starving you have not the
strength to climb up. It also follows that where there is no edible fruit
there can be no birds or monkeys, as animals generally have enough sense
not to settle where there is nothing to eat.
Again, even allowing that some rare trees, the fruit of which was edible,
were to be found, it does not do to lose sight of the fact that you may
be passing under that tree at the season when it is not bearing fruit, as
fruit-trees, even in tropical countries, do not always bear fruit at a
time to suit the convenience of the passing traveller.
As I have said, the country we were traversing was there hilly and rocky,
and we were cutting across the headwaters of numerous tributaries, first
of the Tapajoz River, then of the Madeira River--the tiny watercourses,
most of them only a few inches wide, descending in numerous successive
small cascades over rocks--therefore no fish was to be found. When we did
find it in the big rivers we had no way to catch it.
It then again follows, concerning the country between great rivers, that
where there is no fish, no game, no fruit, no vegetables, and no possible
way of cultivating the land, there can be no inhabitants. That was why
the great Brazilian forest in that region was uninhabited by human
beings.
It was rather pathetic, looking back on those days, to think of the small
cooking pot I carried during that time of starvation in hopes that we
might find something to cook. Its weight was not great, but it was a
cumbersome thing to carry, as it dangled about and caught in all the
vegetation.
As the days went by and our strength got less and less every hour, I
decided not to cut the forest any more, but to go through without that
extra exertion. As I could not trust my men with the big knife, I had to
carry it myself, as occasionally it had to be used--especially near
streams, where the vegetation was always more or less entangled.
That evening (September 9th) we had halted at sunset--simply dead with
fatigue and exhaustion. The _sauba_ ants had cut nearly all the strings
of Filippe's hammock; while he was resting peacefully on it the remainder
of the strings broke, and he had a bad fall. He was so exhausted that he
remained lying on the ground, swarming all over with ants and moaning the
whole time, having no strength to repair the hammock.
When Filippe eventually fell into a sound slumber I had a curious
experience in the middle of the night. I was sleeping in my improvised
hammock, when I felt two paws resting on my body and something sniffing
in my face. When I opened my eyes I found a jaguar, standing up on its
hind paws, staring me straight in the face. The moment I moved, the
astonished animal, which had evidently never seen a human being before,
leapt away and disappeared.
I find that people have strange ideas about wild animals. It is far from
true that wild beasts are vicious. I have always found them as gentle as
possible. Although I have seen nearly every wild beast that it is
possible for man to see in the world, I have never once been attacked by
them, although on dozens of occasions I have come into close contact with
them. I invariably found all wild animals--except the African
buffalo--quite timid and almost gentle, unless, of course, they have been
worried or wounded. These remarks do not apply to wild animals in
captivity.
On September 10th--that was the seventh day of our involuntary fast--we
had another dreary march, again without a morsel of food. My men were so
downhearted that I really thought they would not last much longer. Hunger
was playing on them in a curious way. They said that they could hear
voices all round them and people firing rifles. I could hear nothing at
all. I well knew that their minds were beginning to go, and that it was a
pure hallucination. Benedicto and Filippe, who originally were both
atheists of an advanced type, had now become extremely religious, and
were muttering fervent prayers all the time. They made a vow that if we
escaped alive they would each give £5 sterling out of their pay to have a
big mass celebrated in the first church they saw.
They spoke in a disconnected way, and looked about in a dazed condition,
alternating hysterical laughter with abundant tears. After Filippe's
tobacco had come to an end he had become most dejected, all the time
wishing to commit suicide.
"What is the use of more suffering?" he exclaimed fifty times a day. "Let
me die quickly, as I can stand the pain no more!" Then all of a sudden
his eyes would shine, he would prick up his ears, crying: "We are near
people!--we are near people! I can hear voices! Let us fire three shots"
(the signal all over Central Brazil of an approaching stranger or of
help required), "so that people can come to our assistance!"
That was much easier said than done, because none of our cartridges would
go off. We had one box of matches left. We had taken several boxes of
them, but Filippe had used them all in lighting his cigarettes, and we
had only one left, which I guarded with much care. To please my men we
lighted a big fire, and in it we placed a number of cartridges so that
they should explode. In fact some of them actually did explode, and my
men strained their ears in order to discover responding sounds. But no
sounds came, although they imagined they could hear all kinds of noises.
At this place I abandoned the few cartridges we had, as they were
absolutely useless. They were Mauser cartridges which I had bought in Rio
de Janeiro, and it is quite possible that they were counterfeits.
Taking things all round, my men behaved very well, but these were moments
of the greatest anxiety for me, and I myself was praying fervently to God
to get us out of that difficulty. My strength was failing more and more
daily, and although I was suffering no actual pain, yet the weakness was
simply appalling. It was all I could do to stand up on my legs. What was
worse for me was that my head was still in good working order, and I
fully realised our position all the time.
The country we were travelling over was fairly hilly, up and down most of
the time, over no great elevations. We passed two large tributaries of
the main stream we had found before, and a number of minor ones. The
main stream was strewn with fallen trees, and was not navigable during
the dry season. The erosion of the banks by the water had caused so many
trees to fall down across it that no canoe could possibly go through.
I noticed in one or two places along the river traces of human beings
having been there some years before.
In the afternoon we again wasted much energy in knocking down two
palm-trees on the summit of which were great bunches of _coco do matto_.
Again we had a bitter disappointment. One after the other we split the
nuts open, but they merely contained water inside shells that were much
harder to crack than wood. My craving for food was such that in despair I
took two or three _sauba_ ants and proceeded to eat them. When I ground
them under my teeth their taste was so acidly bitter that it made me
quite ill. Not only that, but one _sauba_ bit my tongue so badly that it
swelled up to a great size, and remained like that for several days. The
entire genus of the Sauba (_Oecodonia cephalotes_) ant is typical of
tropical South America. The largest Sauba is about an inch long, and
possesses powerful scissor-like clippers, with which it can destroy any
material, such as leather, cloth, paper or leaves, in a very short time.
Their method of work is to cut up everything into circles. I remember one
day dropping on the ground a pair of thick gloves. When I went to pick
them up I found them reduced to a heap of innumerable little discs--each
as large as a sixpenny coin. It is with those powerful clippers that the
Saubas, having climbed in swarms up a tree, proceed to despoil it of its
foliage. The work is done in a systematic way, each ant quickly severing
one leaf and carrying it down, banner-like, vertically above its head,
tightly held between its strong mandibles.
It is this habit of the Saubas which has brought upon them the Brazilian
name of _Carregadores_, or carriers. One sees everywhere in that country
long processions of those destructive insects, each individual marching
along quickly with its green vegetable banner, sometimes eight or ten
times its own size and weight. In many cases the Saubas working aloft cut
the leaves and drop them on the ground, where other carriers are waiting
to convey them away. So numerous are the Saubas that in the forest one
can hear distinctly the incessant rustling sound of their clippers at
work. The Saubas use the leaves in order to construct thatched waterproof
roofs over the domes and turrets at the entrances of their extensive
subterranean galleries, which would otherwise become flooded during the
torrential rains prevalent in those latitudes. The roofs are constructed
with wonderful skill, each leaf being held in its place by granules of
earth. The galleries, of immense length and much ramified, are often as
much as 10 to 15 cm. in diameter. The entrances to them are usually kept
blocked, and are only opened when necessary. Above ground the Saubas make
wonderful wide roads, thousands of which can be seen everywhere in the
forest, and upon which endless processions go by day and night. The
workers of the Saubas can be divided into three orders not very clearly
defined, as units of intermediate grades are constantly met. The largest
of those workers possess extraordinarily massive, double-humped heads,
highly polished in the case of members which are visible on the surface,
and dull and hairy in the giant fellows which spend their lives within
the subterranean passages. These hairy Saubas display a single frontal
eye--not found in any of the other Saubas, and, as far as I know, in no
other kind of ant. They never come to the surface except when attacks are
made upon the galleries. Great excitement is shown in the colonies when
the winged ants, of extra large size--especially the females--start out
on their errand of propagating the race.
The workers with polished heads--fierce-looking brutes--do very little
actual work, but seem to be the superiors and protectors of the smaller
workers. In every case the body of all orders of Saubas is solidly built,
with the thorax and head protected by spikes.
Much as I disliked the Saubas for the endless trouble and suffering they
inflicted upon me, I could not help admiring their marvellous industry
and energy. No agriculture is possible where the Saubas are to be found,
and even where they do not exist in Central Brazil, if agriculture were
started they would soon invade the territory and destroy everything in a
short time. Foreign plants do not escape. No way has been found yet of
extirpating them.