CHAPTER XXIII.A PAINFUL WALK—BIRD’S NEST FERNS—DOWN THE CURIPUNG—VOICES OF THE NIGHT—AN INDIAN FAMILY—A QUICK JOURNEY—SHOOTING THE FALLS—TIMBER SHOOTS IN CANADA—A LOST CHANNEL—ANTICIPATIONS OF A FEAST—CAPSIZE—A SWIM FOR LIFE—TEBUCU FALLS—HOME AGAIN.
A PAINFUL WALK—BIRD’S NEST FERNS—DOWN THE CURIPUNG—VOICES OF THE NIGHT—AN INDIAN FAMILY—A QUICK JOURNEY—SHOOTING THE FALLS—TIMBER SHOOTS IN CANADA—A LOST CHANNEL—ANTICIPATIONS OF A FEAST—CAPSIZE—A SWIM FOR LIFE—TEBUCU FALLS—HOME AGAIN.
In order to reach Macrebah before our hands and feet were quite worn out, we determined to waste no time but to proceed by forced marches. Poor McTurk, in addition to injured limbs and feverish attacks, was worse off as regards foot covering than I was, as he was reduced to three pair of india-rubber shoes, which he wore one over the other on account of the holes.
With our thin soles, the sharp-ribbed roots made our movements as delicate as walking over eggs, and it was very ludicrous but rather painful to find ourselves now on one leg and now on the other, vainly endeavouring to escape the knobs and pointed projections which thrust themselves against our bruised feet. I could not help thinking of the grasshopper when he said to the bee;
“There’s a time to be sad,And a time to be glad,A time both for working and stopping;For men to make money,For you to make honey,And for me to do nothing but hopping.”
“There’s a time to be sad,And a time to be glad,A time both for working and stopping;For men to make money,For you to make honey,And for me to do nothing but hopping.”
“There’s a time to be sad,And a time to be glad,A time both for working and stopping;For men to make money,For you to make honey,And for me to do nothing but hopping.”
“There’s a time to be sad,
And a time to be glad,
A time both for working and stopping;
For men to make money,
For you to make honey,
And for me to do nothing but hopping.”
During this walk we saw for the first time the great “bird’s nest” fern, adapted for the purpose its name implies. Numbers of these plants grew on the trunks and low branches of the trees, and in many instances they had been made the nesting places of ground-doves. No other species of bird occupied them, but we invariably discovered one or two eggs of the dove, and in one instance the mother allowed us to look at her as she sat on her nest.
Concerning the rest of our foot-journey, it suffices to say that in three days we arrived at Macrebah and there found our boat, the Adaba, all safe. My wonderful boots would certainly not have lasted another day; but I had no further need of them, and in gratitude I hung them to a high pole driven into the sand, and after tracing underneath the well-known words
“Whoever dare these boots displaceMust meet Bombastes face to face!”
“Whoever dare these boots displaceMust meet Bombastes face to face!”
“Whoever dare these boots displaceMust meet Bombastes face to face!”
“Whoever dare these boots displace
Must meet Bombastes face to face!”
I abandoned them as an offering to the Spirit of Macrebah Falls.
The large dacana balli, which we had left covered with white flowers, had now fruited, and the great green nuts fell heavily to the ground. The Curipung River was but little affected by the recent rain, and its claret coloured water reflected the white sand in as clear a purple as when we first saw it. Here we rested for a day and dismissed all the Indian carriers, with the exception of our own six, who formed the crew of the Adaba, and Lanceman and Mazaruni, who accompanied us, when we departed, in a woodskin. “Master will no take boot,” said Charlie with a mischievous grin, as he pointed to the two skeletons swinging near the water’s edge, when we started.
A long day’s journey brought us down to the Mazaruni River. There was little current in the creek, and in some places so little water that there was scarcely sufficient to moisten the throats of the disconsolate herons which, like lone fishermen, moodily gazed at the shallow stream from the pebbly shore.
The sun was just setting when we arrived at the mouth of the creek, and never before had the scenery of the great river appeared to us so picturesque as it did then. The black water stretched away north and south-east to the wooded hills, whose sides were first a rose colour, then crimson, then purple. Above the dark forest, across the river, a golden green haze expanded itself up and up until it touched the pink and pearl clouds in the east. The sharp promontories of silver sand sparkled as they caught the expiring rays, and stood out so clearly that even on the most distant could be seen the shadowy forms of the egrets or cranes. Then, as the colours all faded into a slowly darkening purple, a mysterious silence prevailed; the cries of the monkeys ceased, the toucans had called “tucáno” for the last time, and the ibises no longer screamed “curri-curri” as they flapped by. The sombre jungle grew blacker, the sky clearer and the thin vapour which stole up from the water’s edge crept along the forest-crest and spread a film over more distant objects. Then on noiseless wing the night-hawks floated past looking like great butterflies, bats skimmed through the forest openings, and fire-beetles suddenly started into life.
Presently the breeze brought faint sounds from the river, a frog croaked, again we heard the fog-horn notes of the howling monkeys, and then the “brieftwilight in which southern suns fall asleep” was over. When the full moon rose, the scene might have been in Greenland. The river changed to a sheet of silver-blue ice, the vapour-clad trees sparkled like dew, the sky and stars were brilliantly clear, and the great sandbank was a drift of the purest snow. On this white bank some travelling Indians had encamped, and their dark figures stood out in as bold relief as those of Esquimaux on a snow-field. The illusion was heightened by the sleigh-like appearance of a woodskin which had been drawn up from the water, and at whose side three dogs were lying asleep.
The night sounds which issue from the forests of Guiana are singularly strange and weird. Whether on broad river, narrow creek, or out in the lonely woods, the traveller is greeted with unearthly sounds that utterly banish sleep. Scarcely had we ensconced ourselves in our hammocks, which had been slung to the trees bordering the sandbank, when the “voices of the night” broke forth. First, the night-jar ran down its scale “ha, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha,” each note lower than the preceding, and each the acme of the most hopeless sorrow. The utter misery told in this bird’s voice must be heard to be believed. Next a mâam uttered its shrill plaintive whistle, whose volume increased until the whole forest resounded with it. Then, as if a warning to the noisy reveller, a loud rattle, like that of a night-watchman, sounded close by. This was the music of a night-hawk. Immediately after came the melancholy cries of a pigeon, like a human voice calling for aid. These sounds were hushed by the dismal wail of a sloth, which, in its turn, gave place to a series of sharp clucks like those of a hen, and which wereproduced by some winged creature of darkness. After a moment’s stillness a stealthy rustle in the leaves betokened the neighbourhood of a snake or lizard, and, farther off, a breaking branch told where a larger animal was pushing its way.
These sounds continued until nearly midnight, that hour when, as Cotton says:
“The goblin now the fool alarms,Hags meet to mumble o’er their charms;The nightmare rides the dreaming ass,And fairies trip it o’er the grass.”
“The goblin now the fool alarms,Hags meet to mumble o’er their charms;The nightmare rides the dreaming ass,And fairies trip it o’er the grass.”
“The goblin now the fool alarms,Hags meet to mumble o’er their charms;The nightmare rides the dreaming ass,And fairies trip it o’er the grass.”
“The goblin now the fool alarms,
Hags meet to mumble o’er their charms;
The nightmare rides the dreaming ass,
And fairies trip it o’er the grass.”
Suddenly the Indians commenced to whisper, for even their sleep had been aroused by the wild screeching of the terrible didi, whose dreaded notes ended in a prolonged and mournful crowing. This unearthly sound seemed to be the climax, and soon the real silence of the night settled down.
“Now night it was, and everything on earth had won the graceOf quiet sleep; the woods had rest, the wildered waters’ face;It was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due,And all the tilth is hushed, and beasts and birds of many a hue,And all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep,In thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide, lay asleep.”
“Now night it was, and everything on earth had won the graceOf quiet sleep; the woods had rest, the wildered waters’ face;It was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due,And all the tilth is hushed, and beasts and birds of many a hue,And all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep,In thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide, lay asleep.”
“Now night it was, and everything on earth had won the graceOf quiet sleep; the woods had rest, the wildered waters’ face;It was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due,And all the tilth is hushed, and beasts and birds of many a hue,And all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep,In thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide, lay asleep.”
“Now night it was, and everything on earth had won the grace
Of quiet sleep; the woods had rest, the wildered waters’ face;
It was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due,
And all the tilth is hushed, and beasts and birds of many a hue,
And all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep,
In thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide, lay asleep.”
For three or four hours the silence lasted, only broken occasionally, and for a few minutes at a time, by the moan of a jaguar, or the fierce snappings of the small hunting tigers on the track of some peccaries, or of the night-loving tapir. Before dawn the concert was renewed; the monkeys howled, the mâams whistled piercingly, the honoquas and duraquaras gave endless repetitions of their own name, and with the first streak of daylight the parrots chattered from the tree tops. Day broke, and the camp was again alive.
Bird cries are imitated to perfection by Indians, andwe not unfrequently obtained a pani, or a duraquara, by such means. At night they would note the position of the roosting bird by its notes, and then in the early morn proceed in its direction, attract it by their imitative cries and shoot it.
Amongst the Indians encamped on the sandbank was a family which was on its way to Georgetown, with hammocks and birds for sale. We christened its members the Cowenaros,i.e., cocks of the rock, as they had a fine specimen of the bird in their possession. They were good-looking people, and as the father was the only one who had ever visited the coast, there was considerable excitement with the younger members, especially on the part of Miss Cowenaro, who was going to celebrate her débût into society by a new dress—the first she had ever worn. By some means she had obtained some pink calico, and out of it she had manufactured an extraordinary robe which she was always trying on, or, perhaps, accustoming herself to wear. At any rate, on our way down the river we never arrived near a prominent rock without seeing the young lady perched on the top of it, and evidently lost in admiration of herself.
After leaving Lanceman’s house at Menaparuti where we found all that we had left, the rain, which we could see by the heightened river had been falling heavily in the mountains, burst upon us. The fine weather which had favoured us for so unexpected a length of time, broke up and rain set in. Sometimes the squalls were so severe that the waves almost swamped our boat, and the woodskins, containing Lanceman and Mazaruni, who accompanied us to the Settlement, were only saved by a quick run to shore.
Our journey up the river had by no means been a slow one, in spite of the delays at the cataracts and rapids, but now with the swift current in our favour and the speed with which we shot the falls, up which we had toiled wearily on foot, our progress was extremely quick. Shooting the falls was splendidly exciting, and not unaccompanied by danger. I had once employed a spare afternoon in Ottawa by accompanying the rafts in their descent of the “timber shoots,” and great amusement it was, but devoid of the inspiring element of danger. There the descent was swift but smooth, steerage was unnecessary, and no impediment barred the narrow, wall-edged current. Here it was different, conflicting currents seethed in all directions, broken rocks and half-hidden projections cropped up all around, and nothing but the strong arm and steady eye of both the man at the prow and the man in the stern could save the boat from being dashed to pieces.
To those unaccustomed to it—as I was—the novel sensation of fall shooting is delightful. Choosing the long smooth tongue of water which indicates the safest passage, the words “Give way all!” are spoken, and though the paddles work with intense vigour, and the foaming water is pouring madly at your side, the boat seems to stand still; the rocky walls rush up to you, the waves dash at you instead of from you, the roar increases, the drop looks perpendicular, and still you are apparently not moving; there is a plunge, a wave or two shipped perhaps, and the next moment the boat is floating quietly in the smooth back-water below the falls. Sometimes the difficulties of the descent are much increased by the twists and turns whichhave to be made in the very middle of the fall itself. Our Indians, who had been rather nervous at the first few cataracts, soon recovered their self-possession, and were so elated at their skill that once or twice their valour almost overcame their discretion.
When we reached the Falls of Yaninzaec, the rising water had so altered the appearance of the river that we could no longer recognize our old landmarks. In the island labyrinth we lost the channel which led to the “portage,” and it was in vain that we tried to regain it. All our efforts only brought us to one or other of the great falls, a safe descent of which could no more be accomplished than that of Niagara. Darkness at last came on, and we had to encamp on a small island.
Next morning we were fortunately discovered by the two woodskins—containing Lanceman and the Cowenaros—and under their guidance we reached the portage; passing on our way a curious rock called “the Cabuni”—near the mouth of the river of that name. After carrying the boat over the portage, and reloading it, it was McTurk’s intention to proceed a short way down the river and camp early, so as to replenish our larder with fresh meat. It was many days since we had tasted meat, and our appetites told us that game would be very desirable.
“I shoot and eat one pani,” said Sammy.
“Pani!” said Charlie indignantly. “I eat one maipurie myself.”
Now as a pani is nearly as large as a turkey, and as a maipurie,i.e., tapir, is about the size of a small donkey, the speakers must, indeed, have been hungry. For ourselves we had arranged quite a little banquetwith the remnant of the provisions that had been left at Lanceman’s house. There was a tin of mullagatawny soup, a pot of marmalade, a tin of biscuits, and besides a bottle of brandy which we had been treasuring for weeks, there was still a small supply of Seidlitz Powders, which had of late superseded Eno’s Fruit Salt on occasions of great jollification. In order the better to enjoy our intended repast, we had refrained from breakfast on that day, but “l’homme propose, Dieu dispose.”
Having safely descended several cataracts after leaving Yaninzaec, we saw in the distance a pleasant spot for camping, and from the same direction heard a great howling of monkeys which promised sport. We rapidly approached a fall, the roar of whose waters seemed unnecessarily loud. This we descended, but a sharp turn that had been hidden by a high rock revealed another and steeper fall, which it would be madness to attempt to shoot. But it was too late, no power could stop us; we were already in the long swift current which swept down to the deep drop. “Give way!” shouted McTurk, as a glance showed that there was no chance of escape except by the mere possibility of speed; then there was a sweep of paddles, a plunge, a wild swirl of waters, wave after wave rushed over us, and the boat went down. The whole affair had happened so quickly that, almost before I could realise it, I found myself under water and powerless to rise to the surface, as my legs seemed to be entangled in something—probably the framework of the awning we had lately put up as a shelter from the rain. The idea flashed through me that this surely could not be the end of my long looked for Roraimaexpedition, and giving a great struggle up I came to the surface.
The first thing I saw was the Adaba, bottom upwards, floating down the river, and McTurk and two of the crew clinging to her. I soon reached them, and in about thirty minutes, by gently guiding our support towards a rocky island, our feet touched the ground. Higher up the river, in a different direction, we saw that what we thought were the remaining four of the Indian crew, standing on another rocky islet. Almost immediately afterwards the woodskins appeared; having descended on the opposite side of the river, where there was a moderately easy passage unknown to us. They at once unloaded, and pushed out into the river to try and save whatever happened to be floating.
Suddenly the cry was raised “Where is Charlie?” Then we saw that only three men stood on the far rock, and that what we had at first taken for a figure was only a barrel. We never saw him again. Sammy, who sat next to him in the bow, said he saw him spring clean out of the boat before she went down, and strike out for land. No cry was heard; we on the boat thought he was with those on the barrel, and they thought he was with us. As he was a very strong swimmer, we could only suppose that he had been sucked down by the terrible undercurrent, or that he had been dashed against a rock. It was very, very sad, and for a time we could not believe that he was really drowned. For the rest of that day and next morning we searched long and carefully in the hopes of recovering the body, but uselessly. The Indians said that two years ago three natives were drowned in thesame place, and their bodies were never found. The poor fellow had only been married a month before we left Georgetown, and among the crew were two of his wife’s brothers. One of these had a very narrow escape as he was not a good swimmer, and was just sinking when he caught at a pillow floating by, which supported him until he reached the flour barrel that saved the other two. Everything was lost, with the exception of a few hammocks and a tin canister of mine, which, besides Indian curiosities, fortunately contained shirts and other clothes. For the crew had divested themselves of everything when in the water, and not one of their bundles was picked up. Guns, ammunition, field-glasses, provisions, plants, boxes of clothes, in fact almost everything we had, and alas! a human life—the only thing that could never be replaced—all lay in the deep water under the falls of Tebucu.[110]
When we continued our journey, we took Lanceman as a guide to guard against any future catastrophe, and no other accident occurred, with the exception of a hole which was knocked into the side of the boat whilst being let down a fall by means of ropes. From the woodskins we had received paddles to replace those we had lost, and urged on by hunger we made rapid progress, and at last issued from the island-dotted river into the large lake-like expanse of water near the junction of the Cuyuni.
After we had passed the neat houses of the Caribs, the island church came in view, cottages appeared, people with clothes on were seen walking about, therewere ducks and geese, and the different signs of civilization. We soon rounded Palmer’s Point, and after a tremendous squall of rain and wind, arrived at the Settlement, where we received a hearty welcome from the Superintendent and his family. And thus ended our expedition to Roraima, a journey which we had accomplished in a little more than two months.