WHEN THE RIVER RAN RIOT
There were a number of small settlements scattered along both banks of
the river, but the trader did not stop at any one of them during the
first days after leaving Manaos. He said they were too near the city, to
which the people made frequent trips, so they naturally purchased their
supplies during these visits, knew the market value of everything, and
would not pay the prices he was compelled to charge. It was further
upstream, where the inhabitants were more isolated and the distance too
great for them to make frequent excursions to Manaos, that he expected
to glean his harvest.
The second day passed without incident. In one stretch, where the water
was too deep for poling, the sailors got out long-handled hooks. They
caught these in the overhanging branches and then walked along the board
runways, but now they pulled as they walked instead of pushing, as they
did when poling, and only half could engage in the work, as there was
forest on only one side of them. Therefore, they were divided into two
parties of six each, one resting while the other trudged along the wet,
slippery boards.
It seemed to David as if the branches overhead harbored all the insects
in the world. Each time the hooks were thrust into them a shower of
ants, leaf hoppers and a multitude of other winged and crawling
creatures fell into the boat.
The men seemed not to mind the hordes of creeping things streaming down
their arms and bare backs, beyond an occasional exclamation of annoyance
or some jesting remark when one of their number was deluged with an
exceptionally large number. But when on the third day the hooks stirred
up a nest of the fierce maribundi wasps their tolerant attitude quickly
changed, for the insects were quick to resent the interference with
their domestic affairs.
Several of the wasps darted out of the dense foliage, their red bodies
gleaming like flying sparks. They made straight for the men and
simultaneously there rose a chorus of wild screams mingled with the
clatter and splash of poles that fell from hands now occupied in
striking at the darting specks or in clutching madly at their bodies.
David came to the door of the storeroom to see what had happened; he was
amazed at the strange antics of the sailors, who were now making for the
opening in which he was standing. He was not kept in suspense long.
If a red-hot needle had been thrust into him the effect could not have
been more painful. One of the wasps had discovered David and had plunged
its fiery dagger into his arm.
He dashed back into the storeroom with a cry of pain, and the men
followed in quick succession. They slammed the door as soon as the last
one had entered, and at last they were safe from the attackers.
The batalao, left to its own devices, began to drift downstream, but
none sought to stop it. The crew, packed tight between the boxes and
bales, was too much occupied with a more vital matter, and some of the
men who had been stung a number of times were screaming and moaning in
agony, while from others came not a sound--they had lost consciousness.
David had never suffered such intense pain in his life. His arm throbbed
and burned and was rapidly swelling to huge proportions. At times he was
on the point of fainting and grasped the nearest support to keep from
falling to the floor. The stifling heat in the room added to the
suffering of all.
“Open the door!” Don Marco shouted. He had come through the encounter
unscathed. “Get out into the fresh air,” he added; “we have drifted past
the nest; the danger is over.”
Someone obeyed the first order mechanically and those who could walk
went out upon the deck. They presented a sorry appearance. Some had been
stung on the hands; others on the face or bare backs, the exact spots
being marked by rising protuberances of an angry red color.
In the meantime David was wondering what he could do in the matter of
giving relief. He thought of iodine; that would help. Then he remembered
the snake-bite lancet in his pocket--a hard rubber device that looked
like a short fountain pen, with a sharp steel blade in one end and a
pocket of permanganate of potash crystals in the other. He would try
that, on his own arm first.
After opening the wound with a quick thrust of the keen blade he rubbed
a quantity of the dry powder into it. Then he painted the whole area
with iodine. Relief from the burning pain followed quickly; there
remained only the dull throbbing.
Encouraged, he began working on the sailors. They submitted to his
ministrations and were grateful for the help he gave them.
“The maribundi wasps are terrible creatures,” Don Marco said that night.
“I am more afraid of them than of anything else in the jungle; they are
even worse than snakes, because there are more of them and it is
impossible to escape from them when they are encountered. If a man is
stung four or five times, he dies. And only one sting will often make a
person sick for weeks.”
They had anchored so soon as it was possible to muster enough hands to
row the boat to the bank.
“Are they very common along the river?” David asked anxiously.
“Yes, here and on the Orinoco too; and not only along the water, either.
One is liable to run into them in the forest and in the clearings alike.
They are quick to attack the moment they are disturbed. You must give me
some of your remedy, for it is the best I have ever found. But for your
quick work some of the men would have died.”
The journey was not continued until two days later; the men had
recovered sufficiently by that time to resume their duties. They were
obliged to use the hooks, as before, and could only trust to luck for
the future.
That day they stopped at several clearings and traded with the settlers.
The places were interesting--like notches hewn into the heavy jungle,
openings with ragged edges where the vegetation was advancing in solid
formation to reclaim its own. There was abundant other evidence that the
fight of man against the forest was incessant. Second-growth sprouts
sprang up in the yuca fields in back of the huts and unless they were
cut down promptly they soon formed dense thickets that smothered the
cultivated plants. Besides the yucas, from which the farinha was made,
there were clumps of bananas, plantains, sugar cane and tree melons;
also small plantations of coffee trees. These were from ten to fifteen
feet high, round and bushy, and covered with clusters of small red
fruits. Each of the little spheres contained two coffee beans, their
flat side resting face to face, and the whole surrounded by a thin,
sweet pulp. There were tall breadfruit trees near the huts, their broad
leaves providing shade and the great cylindrical green fruits serving as
an addition to the food supply.
The Brazilian cherries interested David greatly. They were about the
size of the ones he was accustomed to at home, and of the same bright
red color, but had deep grooves in them from stem to tip, so that a
cross section would have the outline of a star.
Most of the people were squatters in the wilderness. They were
Portuguese who had cleared their little patches of land and were
subsisting on the bounty of the soil and the river. They worked little,
except in fighting the forest, as all vegetation grew so luxuriantly and
yielded such abundant crops that little cultivation was needed to
produce all the food they required. They were easy-going, good-natured,
and spent most of their time in their hammocks, conversing and sipping
tea or coffee.
A few of the stations, however, were owned by residents of Manaos, who
visited them occasionally and maintained hired help permanently to
cultivate the soil and care for a few cows, pigs and fowls.
The dwellings were all of similar construction--flimsy structures with
bamboo walls, earth floors and roofs of palm leaves. The tropical
luxuriance of the foliage all around them, however, gave them a
picturesque appearance so that they seemed to fit properly into their
surroundings. A more substantial type of house would have been
impracticable and out of place in such a climate.
“Are there no large ranches along the river?” David asked, after leaving
one of the clearings.
“Yes, there are a few, but they have been started very recently. Each
time I come back this way I find a few new ones, but none of them is
very large. We expect to reach one of them tomorrow; I just heard about
it in Manaos.”
“What is it called?”
“Las Palmas. The owner is one of your countrymen. They say he has an
enormous ranch in the Argentine and is going to make Las Palmas the
best and largest in the Upper Amazon. But it will be hard work and I
doubt if he will succeed.”
“Do you know anything about the owner? What did they say about him in
Manaos?” David asked eagerly.
“Nothing much except what I told you.”
“That might be a good place for me to stop,” David suggested.
“Tired of the river already?” Don Marco asked in surprise.
“No! Just beginning to become interested.”
“Then it must be that you do not like our company. I am sorry,” and the
captain seemed offended.
“No! Nothing of the kind,” David hastened to assure him. “You have been
mighty good to me and I wish I could stay with you on the whole trip.
But my time is limited and I want to see some of the ranch life. To tell
the truth, that is the reason I came to Brazil.”
“As you wish. But I shall be sorry to see you go.” There was a note of
real regret in Don Marco’s voice. “It has been a pleasure to have you
and I have enjoyed your company.”
They reached the landing just before noon of the following day.
“This must be the spot, but where is the ranch?” the Venezuelan asked,
greatly puzzled, as he looked up the narrow trail leading from the high
bank straight through the heavy forest. Aside from this path there was
no evidence of life in the neighborhood.
“I know the river too well to be mistaken,” he continued. “This is the
spot they described to me.”
But the tall, dark trees standing like sentinels over the narrow lane
men’s hands had made at their foot were grim and silent, as if guarding
some secret.
“It may be back from the river a short distance,” David suggested.
“It must be. But a ranch should be on the water, or very near to it.
That is the custom here. They have boats and launches at Las Palmas, but
where are they? This is the landing. We shall see!”
Then, calling to two of his men, Don Marco continued:
“You, Pedro and José, walk down the trail and see how far it is to the
house. Come back at once after you find it. Do not tell anyone your
business or mine.”
The men departed, soon disappearing among the shadows cast by the
tangled branches overhead. Some of the other sailors began to fish,
while David got together his things preparatory to leaving. The cook
prepared slices of the salted pirarucú for the departing guest, for
David had found the flesh delicious and had said so on several
occasions. It was just as well that the cook had taken for granted that
the remarks referred to his cooking, rather than to the natural quality
of the fish, for he showed appreciation in various ways, the most
acceptable of which was the frequent preparation of those things David
liked best to eat.
Hour after hour passed, but the two men did not return. Some of the men
waiting on the boat began to fear that they had lost their way or had
met with a mishap. And David, remembering the many things he had heard
about Las Palmas and the fate that would befall anyone attempting to
enter the place, began to wonder if he were not to blame, for he had
failed to warn them of their danger. It was now too late for regrets,
for the men had been gone more than three hours.
“Why don’t we go after them?” he finally asked the captain. “I will go.
They may be lost.”
“Impossible,” Don Marco returned. “Both are good woodsmen and know how
to find their way.”
“Could they have been attacked by Indians or some animal?”
“It is possible, but I think not. They know how to fight.”
“Then why don’t they return?”
“_Quien sabe!_ We will wait a while longer and see what happens.”
After another hour had gone by the two men returned, tired and mopping
the perspiration from their faces.
“Well?” their employer asked.
“_Caramba!_” one panted. “Such a place! _Caramba!_”
“Yes,” the other added, “such a place.”
“What is the matter with it?” impatiently. “You act like a pair of
dunces.”
“Miserable,” the first man said. “I never saw anything like it. First
you have to walk your legs off to get there, and when you arrive you
find it is for nothing.”
“That is the truth,” from the second man, “and the trail is terrible.
We had to cross streams on log bridges, wade through ponds filled with
_yacarés_, and splash through mud nearly up to our knees. _Caramba!_”
“But what did you find out?” Don Marco asked impatiently.
“After we had been walking several hours--long after leaving the
forest--a man on horseback rode up to us and asked us what we wanted.
There were houses and sheds not far ahead and he came from that
direction. When we told him he began shooting at us and chased us away.
“We came back faster than we went--much faster, or we should not be here
yet. There were Indians in the woods, too, but we escaped them.”
“But did you tell them you only wanted to find out how far----”
“We tried to, but the barbarian gave us only a half minute’s start
before he began to shoot. We could not talk and run at the same time.”
“You two cowards,” said the captain in disgust. “We have lost a whole
afternoon on your account.”
“Anybody would have acted as we did.”
“Perhaps the man was joking,” David ventured. He was far from being
comfortable.
“We could not read his mind. We know what he said and did, and that was
not very funny,” they said hastily.
“What kind of a place was it--I mean the houses?” David continued. “Did
it look like a real ranch?”
“It did not look like much--from a distance,” one of the men replied.
“But we did not get very near to it.”
“I suppose I shall have to find out for myself then,” he said with a
sigh.
“Are you going to stop here anyway?” asked the captain in surprise.
“Yes. You will have to leave me here.”
“It will be a long walk--and no telling what will happen when you get
there, according to the report of these two.”
“Well, I will have to take a chance. I can follow the trail and go
slowly. I am sure they will not try to chase me away.”
David wanted to start right away, but the captain would not hear of it.
It was too late in the day to undertake such a long tramp through the
forest. And for one unfamiliar with the country the attempt to spend the
night under such circumstances was ill-advised, to say the least, for
the trail was indistinct and difficult to follow even in the daytime.
David reluctantly agreed to the force of these arguments, and as the
boat was to remain there anyway for the night he decided that he would
stay aboard.
After supper they rowed a short distance into the stream and anchored.
It was well that he did not ignore Don Marco’s advice not to attempt to
spend the night alone in that, to him, unknown jungle, for the onrush of
darkness had scarcely enveloped the earth when one of the terrific
storms, as greatly feared as they are common on the Amazon, swooped out
of the west and for two hours held land and river helpless in its
merciless grasp.
The onslaught came suddenly. Before the first warning drops had awakened
the sleepers, a wall of wind and falling water swept down the river and
struck the batalao with such force that it nearly capsized.
The men sprang from their hammocks and crowded into the storeroom, where
they were held prisoner while the storm spent its fury.
The downpour thundered steadily over their heads and here and there a
small rivulet found its way through the roof. Below them, the waves
hissed and boomed as they dashed against the sides of the dancing craft.
And from the forest came an occasional roar, followed by a crash which
told the fate of some great tree that had succumbed to the force of the
gale.
Although sweltering in the close atmosphere of their quarters the men
were in no danger, for thanks to their preparedness the boat was far
enough from the bank to prevent its grounding; and the anchor held fast.
After a while the rain stopped, but the wind did not die down until
daylight came. By this time the waves had attained a great height and
the boat pitched and rocked so violently that those aboard began to be
uncomfortable. All the while one other sound reached their ears above
the shrieking of the wind and the pounding of the waves. It was a dull,
muffled noise coming singly sometimes like the booming of a distant gun,
and again in a rapid succession of roars, rumblings and crashes--some
nearby, others far distant.
Daylight revealed the cause of the disturbance. The constant beating of
the waves had undermined sections of the river bank and long, narrow
strips of it were falling into the water. It was a wonderful yet
terrible sight to see the great masses of trees begin to shudder, then
bow low and finally plunge headlong into the heaving, yellow flood that
had washed the foundation from under their roots.
After this din the whole tangled mass disappeared, only to come to the
surface in a few moments to be swept downstream, the branches waving
above the angry water like so many struggling arms appealing frantically
for assistance.
Each landslide further agitated the water and added to the power of the
waves. And as the men looked up and down the broad expanse of river it
seemed as if the work of destruction must encompass all the land. But
with the coming of the sun the wind slackened and the waves subsided,
and the slides were less frequent and of smaller extent. Finally they
stopped.
Don Marco said they had witnessed a sight that was as unusual as it was
awe-inspiring. Not until days later would the last of the débris
disappear down the stream.
David took his possessions and went ashore and shortly after he had
entered the dripping forest the batalao resumed its way up the turbulent
river.