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 of

Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not, it is true,

ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and even Professor

Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that he will for an instant

admit that his rival could be right, but he is less persistent in his

incessant objections, and has sunk for the most part into an observant

silence. I must hark back, however, and continue my narrative from

where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who

is injured, and I am committing this letter to his charge, with

considerable 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 we

had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin my report by bad

news, for the first serious personal trouble (I pass over the incessant

bickerings between the Professors) occurred this evening, and might

have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking

half-breed, Gomez--a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I

fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such

men. On the last evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in

which we were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our huge

negro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred which all

his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out and carried into

our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the

huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one

hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in

reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there

is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two

learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that

Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid

tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he

never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as

it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of

course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined,

however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank

Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to

allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and

repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a

child. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and

cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a

brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age.

Brain, character, soul--only as one sees more of life does one

understand how distinct is each.

The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable

expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into

the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the

obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor

into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a

beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming

benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in

other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the

thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is

impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in

his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to

what sudden turn his formidable temper may take.

For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of

yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could

usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them,

of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the

difference depending upon the class of country through which they have

flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to

clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a

portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side

were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the

second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes

through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The

height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything

which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in

magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above our heads, we

could dimly discern the spot where they threw out their side-branches

into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to form one great matted roof

of verdure, through which only an occasional golden ray of sunshine

shot downwards to trace a thin dazzling line of light amidst the

majestic obscurity. As we walked noiselessly amid the thick, soft

carpet of decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes

upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's

full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been

ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science

pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood

trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this

continent the chief supplier to the human race of those gifts of Nature

which depend upon the vegetable world, while it is the most backward in

those products which come from animal life. Vivid orchids and

wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and

where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda,

the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of

ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes

of forest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards to the

light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhes to the

green surface, twining itself round its stronger and taller brethren in

the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous and luxuriant, but others

which have never been known to climb elsewhere learn the art as an

escape from that somber shadow, so that the common nettle, the jasmine,

and even the jacitara palm tree can be seen circling the stems of the

cedars and striving to reach their crowns. Of animal life there was no

movement amid the majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we

walked, but a constant movement far above our heads told of that

multitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, which lived in

the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark, stumbling

figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at

sunset the howler monkeys screamed together and the parrakeets broke

into shrill chatter, but during the hot hours of the day only the full

drone of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear,

while nothing moved amid the solemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading

away into the darkness which held us in. Once some bandy-legged,

lurching creature, an ant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the

shadows. It was the only sign of earth life which I saw in this great

Amazonian forest.

And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far

from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third day out we were

aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air, rhythmic and solemn,

coming and going fitfully throughout the morning. The two boats were

paddling within a few yards of each other when first we heard it, and

our 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 them

before."

"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians,

bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if

they 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 talk

the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can."

By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that it was

Tuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums were throbbing from

various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly,

sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking

out in a high staccato rattle, and being followed after a pause by a

deep roll from the north. There was something indescribably

nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to

shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly

repeated, "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 of

quiet Nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from

behind there came ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will

kill you if we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if we

can," said the men in the north.

All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menace reflected

itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even the hardy,

swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however, that day once

for all that both Summerlee and Challenger possessed that highest type

of bravery, the bravery of the scientific mind. Theirs was the spirit

which upheld Darwin among the gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among

the head-hunters of Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that

the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if

it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely

personal considerations. All day amid that incessant and mysterious

menace our two Professors watched every bird upon the wing, and every

shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordy contention, when the snarl

of Summerlee came quick upon the deep growl of Challenger, but with no

more sense of danger and no more reference to drum-beating Indians than

if they were seated together in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's

Club in St. James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss

them.

"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking his thumb

towards the reverberating wood.

"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, I shall

expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and of Mongolian type."

"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I am not

aware that any other type of language exists in this continent, and I

have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theory I regard with

deep suspicion."

"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge of comparative

anatomy would have helped to verify it," said Summerlee, bitterly.

Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beard and

hat-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 the

distant whisper, "We will kill you--we will kill you if we can."

That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the

center of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack.

Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the

drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon

we came to a very steep rapid, more than a mile long--the very one in

which Professor Challenger had suffered disaster upon his first

journey. I confess that the sight of it consoled me, for it was really

the first direct corroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his

story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores

through the brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we four

whites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and any danger

coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfully passed the

rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them, where we anchored

for the night. At this point I reckoned that we had come not less than

a hundred miles up the tributary from the main stream.

It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made the great

departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had been acutely uneasy,

continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an

exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a single tree, which

projected 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. The

secret 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 of

it. There where you see light-green rushes instead of dark-green

undergrowth, there between the great cotton woods, that is my private

gate into the unknown. Push through, and you will understand."

It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot marked by a

line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes through them for

some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into a placid and

shallow stream, running clear and transparent over a sandy bottom. It

may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by

most luxuriant vegetation. No one who had not observed that for a

short distance reeds had taken the place of shrubs, could possibly have

guessed the existence of such a stream or dreamed of the fairyland

beyond.

For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imagination of man

could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a

natural pergola, and through this tunnel of verdure in a golden

twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but

marvelous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above

filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a

sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front

of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a

thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue

to a land of wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but

animal life was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showed

that they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvet

monkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes, chattered at

us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash an occasional cayman

plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsy tapir stared at us from

a gap in the bushes, and then lumbered away through the forest; once,

too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the

brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its

tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds,

stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and

white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the

crystal 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 where

the distant green water ended and the distant green archway began. The

deep 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 a

name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think that there is

something fearsome in this direction, and therefore they avoid it."

On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoes could

not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growing more shallow.

Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the

boats up among the brushwood and spent the night on the bank of the

river. In the morning Lord John and I made our way for a couple of

miles through the forest, keeping parallel with the stream; but as it

grew ever shallower we returned and reported, what Professor Challenger

had already suspected, that we had reached the highest point to which

the canoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, and concealed

them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should

find them again. Then we distributed the various burdens among

us--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, and the rest--and,

shouldering our packages, we set forth upon the more laborious stage of

our journey.

An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outset of our

new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining us issued

directions to the whole party, much to the evident discontent of

Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty to his fellow-Professor

(it was only the carrying of an aneroid barometer), the matter suddenly

came to a head.

"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in what capacity

you 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 that

capacity."

"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps you would

define my exact position."

"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and this

committee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges."

"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one of the

canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way, and I will

follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader you cannot expect me to

lead."

Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxton and

myself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors

from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading

and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last

Summerlee, with his sneer and his pipe, would move forwards, and

Challenger would come rolling and grumbling after. By some good

fortune we discovered about this time that both our savants had the

very poorest opinion of Dr. Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward

that was our one safety, and every strained situation was relieved by

our introducing the name of the Scotch zoologist, when both our

Professors would form a temporary alliance and friendship in their

detestation and abuse of this common rival.

Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soon found

that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that it lost itself

in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, into which we sank up to

our knees. The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and

every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again

and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank

this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so

loud was it with insect life.

On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that the whole

character of the country changed. Our road was persistently upwards,

and as we ascended the woods became thinner and lost their tropical

luxuriance. The huge trees of the alluvial Amazonian plain gave place

to the Phoenix and coco palms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick

brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out

their graceful drooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and

once or twice there were differences of opinion between Challenger and

the two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words, the

whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts of undeveloped

savages rather than the highest product of modern European culture."

That we were justified in doing so was shown upon the third day, when

Challenger admitted that he recognized several landmarks of his former

journey, and in one spot we actually came upon four fire-blackened

stones, which must have marked a camping-place.

The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slope which took

two days to traverse. The vegetation had again changed, and only the

vegetable ivory tree remained, with a great profusion of wonderful

orchids, among which I learned to recognize the rare Nuttonia

Vexillaria and the glorious pink and scarlet blossoms of Cattleya and

odontoglossum. Occasional brooks with pebbly bottoms and fern-draped

banks gurgled down the shallow gorges in the hill, and offered good

camping-grounds every evening on the banks of some rock-studded pool,

where swarms of little blue-backed fish, about the size and shape of

English 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 was

taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we

could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and

billhooks of the Indians. It took us a long day, traveling from seven

in the morning till eight at night, with only two breaks of one hour

each, to get through this obstacle. Anything more monotonous and

wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I

could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision

was 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 above

came one thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads

one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do

not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, but several

times 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 formed

our camp, exhausted by the interminable day.

Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that the character of

the 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 an

open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of

tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long,

whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a

shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which

led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the

first of these hills, that an incident occurred which may or may not

have been important.

Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the van of

the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he

did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, something which

appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from the ground and skim

smoothly off, flying very low and straight, until it was lost among the

tree-ferns.

"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, did you

see it?"

His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had

disappeared.

"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 his

back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me,

however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his

Zeiss glasses in his hand.

"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't

undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a

sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on in my

life."

So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge of the

unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost world of which

our leader speaks? I give you the incident as it occurred and you will

know as much as I do. It stands alone, for we saw nothing more which

could be called remarkable.

And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you up the

broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down the green

tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and through the bamboo

brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At last our destination lay

in full sight of us. When we had crossed the second ridge we saw

before us an irregular, palm-studded plain, and then the line of high

red cliffs which I have seen in the picture. There it lies, even as I

write, and there can be no question that it is the same. At the

nearest point it is about seven miles from our present camp, and it

curves away, stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about

like a prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical.

Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as

Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo, insists upon returning,

I send this letter back in his charge, and only hope that it may

eventually come to hand. I will write again as the occasion serves. I

have enclosed with this a rough chart of our journey, which may have

the effect of making the account rather easier to understand.