CHAPTER VII

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.

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