CHAPTER VIII
"The Outlying Pickets of the New World"
Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at our goal,and up to a point, at least, we have shown that the statement ofProfessor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true,ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even ProfessorSummerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instantadmit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in hisincessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observantsilence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative fromwhere I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians whois injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, withconsiderable doubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand.
When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village where wehad been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by badnews, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessantbickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and mighthave had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speakinghalf-breed, Gomez--a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, Ifancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among suchmen. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut inwhich we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our hugenegro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which allhis race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried intoour presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for thehuge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with onehand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended inreprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and thereis every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the twolearned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted thatChallenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acidtongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that henever cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, asit was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, ofcourse, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined,however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that MillbankPrison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal toallow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard andrepeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to achild. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened andcantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with abrain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age.Brain, character, soul--only as one sees more of life does oneunderstand how distinct is each.
The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkableexpedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily intothe two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking theobvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professorinto each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in abeatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beamingbenevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him inother moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when thethunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it isimpossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull inhis company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as towhat sudden turn his formidable temper may take.
For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds ofyards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one couldusually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them,of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, thedifference depending upon the class of country through which they haveflowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point toclayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made aportage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either sidewere primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of thesecond growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoesthrough them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? Theheight of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anythingwhich I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards inmagnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, wecould dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branchesinto Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roofof verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshineshot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst themajestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, softcarpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comesupon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger'sfull-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have beenignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of sciencepointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwoodtrees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made thiscontinent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Naturewhich depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward inthose products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids andwonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks andwhere a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda,the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue ofipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastesof forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to thelight. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to thegreen surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren inthe effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but otherswhich have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as anescape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine,and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of thecedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was nomovement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as wewalked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of thatmultitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived inthe sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumblingfigures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and atsunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets brokeinto shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the fulldrone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear,while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fadingaway into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged,lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid theshadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this greatAmazonian forest.
And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not farfrom us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we wereaware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn,coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats werepaddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, andour Indians remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze,listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces.
"What is it, then?" I asked.
"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heard thembefore."
"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians,bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us ifthey can."
"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark, motionless void.
The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders.
"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talkthe drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can."
By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that it wasTuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums were throbbing fromvarious points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly,sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breakingout in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by adeep roll from the north. There was something indescribablynerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed toshape itself into the very syllables of th
e half-breed, endlesslyrepeated, "We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can."No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace and soothing ofquiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away frombehind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We willkill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if wecan," said the men in the north.
All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflecteditself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy,swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day oncefor all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest typeof bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spiritwhich upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace amongthe head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature thatthe human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that ifit be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merelypersonal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysteriousmenace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and everyshrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarlof Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with nomore sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians thanif they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society'sClub in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discussthem.
"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumbtowards the reverberating wood.
"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shallexpect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type."
"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am notaware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and Ihave notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard withdeep suspicion."
"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparativeanatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly.
Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard andhat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would have that effect.When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes to other conclusions."They glared at each other in mutual defiance, while all round rose thedistant whisper, "We will kill you--we will kill you if we can."
That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in thecenter of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack.Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, thedrum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoonwe came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long--the very one inwhich Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his firstjourney. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was reallythe first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of hisstory. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our storesthrough the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we fourwhites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any dangercoming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed therapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchoredfor the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less thana hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream.
It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the greatdeparture. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy,continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave anexclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, whichprojected at a peculiar angle over the side of the stream.
"What do you make of that?" he asked.
"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee.
"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. Thesecret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side of the river.There is no break in the trees. That is the wonder and the mystery ofit. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-greenundergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my privategate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand."
It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by aline of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them forsome hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid andshallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. Itmay have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side bymost luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for ashort distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly haveguessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairylandbeyond.
For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imagination of mancould conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into anatural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a goldentwilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, butmarvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from abovefiltered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as asheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in frontof us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending athousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenueto a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, butanimal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showedthat they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvetmonkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered atus as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional caymanplunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us froma gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once,too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid thebrushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over itstawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds,stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, andwhite, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us thecrystal water was alive with fish of every shape and color.
For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazy green sunshine.On the longer stretches one could hardly tell as one looked ahead wherethe distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. Thedeep peace of this strange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man.
"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez.
"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's aname for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there issomething fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it."
On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes couldnot last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow.Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled theboats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of theriver. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple ofmiles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as itgrew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challengerhad already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to whichthe canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealedthem among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we shouldfind them again. Then we distributed the various burdens amongus--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest--and,shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage ofour journey.
An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of ournew stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issueddirections to the whole party, much to the evident discontent ofSummerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenlycame to a head.
"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacityyou take it upon yourself to issue these orders?"
Challenger glared and bristled.
"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition."
"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you in thatcapacity."
"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you woulddefine my exact position."
"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity
is upon trial, and thiscommittee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges."
"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of thecanoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I willfollow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me tolead."
Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxton andmyself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professorsfrom sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleadingand explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at lastSummerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, andChallenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some goodfortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had thevery poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforwardthat was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved byour introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both ourProfessors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in theirdetestation and abuse of this common rival.
Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon foundthat it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itselfin a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up toour knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes andevery form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground againand to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflankthis pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, soloud was it with insect life.
On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the wholecharacter of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards,and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropicalluxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave placeto the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thickbrushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw outtheir graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, andonce or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger andthe two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, thewhole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undevelopedsavages rather than the highest product of modern European culture."That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, whenChallenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his formerjourney, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackenedstones, which must have marked a camping-place.
The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which tooktwo days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only thevegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderfulorchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare NuttoniaVexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya andodontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-drapedbanks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered goodcamping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool,where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape ofEnglish trout, gave us a delicious supper.
On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as I reckon,about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge from the trees,which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place wastaken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that wecould only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes andbillhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from sevenin the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one houreach, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous andwearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, Icould not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my visionwas limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me,and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From abovecame one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our headsone saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I donot know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but severaltimes we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quite close to us.From their sounds Lord John judged them to be some form of wild cattle.Just as night fell we cleared the belt of bamboos, and at once formedour camp, exhausted by the interminable day.
Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character ofthe country had changed once again. Behind us was the wall of bamboo,as definite as if it marked the course of a river. In front was anopen plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps oftree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long,whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find ashallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline whichled to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed thefirst of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may nothave been important.
Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van ofthe party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As hedid so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something whichappeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skimsmoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among thetree-ferns.
"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did yousee it?"
His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature haddisappeared.
"What do you claim that it was?" he asked.
"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl."
Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he."It was a stork, if ever I saw one."
Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon hisback and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me,however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had hisZeiss glasses in his hand.
"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won'tundertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as asportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in mylife."
So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of theunknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of whichour leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you willknow as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more whichcould be called remarkable.
And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up thebroad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the greentunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboobrake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination layin full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we sawbefore us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of highred cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as Iwrite, and there can be no question that it is the same. At thenearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and itcurves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts aboutlike a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical.Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, asJose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning,I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it mayeventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. Ihave enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may havethe effect of making the account rather easier to understand.
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