This blog entry is the first two chapters of an autobiography by Hyatt Verrill; I hope to add more chapters as time permits/drf
Thirty Years in the
Jungle
By
A. Hyatt Verrill
With 60 illustrations and a
Sketch Map
John Lane The Bodley Head Limited
First Published in 1929
Made and Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
Digitized March 2012 by Doug
Frizzle
INTRODUCTION
THIS volume is neither a book of travel, a novel, a narrative of
adventure, nor a treatise on jungle life; but, in a way, is a combination of all, for it is an account of the more interesting and unusual experiences of the author during more than thirty years devoted
(though not consecutively) to explorations and scientific investigations in the West Indies, Central and South America.
The book therefore contains much of travel, no little
adventure, a great deal about jungle life, and not a few stories which might
well be embodied in a novel.
As my earlier expeditions
were largely devoted to Natural History, and as many persons are deeply
interested in the birds, mammals and
vegetation of the jungles of
America, I have given considerable space to descriptions of the fauna and flora, and as my later expeditions
have been in the interests of The
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,
of New York City, I have devoted even more space to descriptions of the aborigines or Indians, and my experiences among them. Indians are, in fact, the
most interesting features of the
jungle. In my ethnological researches I have visited many tribes credited with
being hostile and reputed to prevent all strangers from
entering their districts by the simple and efficient method of killing off trespassers
with poisoned arrows or other
equally unpleasant means.
I have also visited a number
of tribes who had never previously seen a civilized man, but I have always been
well treated and received by all, even, if at times, there
were rather exciting and far from comfortable
moments.
I am often asked if I do not
have innumerable adventures, and if I do not run grave risks in my work. To the first query I might reply that I do not have
"adventures" because it is one continuous adventure from the
time one starts into the wilds until
one is safely back to civilization. In answering the
second question, I should like first to point out that the
dangers dwelt upon in most stories of jungle life in America are by no means the real dangers. In the
majority of such tales wild animals, snakes and hostile savages usually play the most important parts when it comes to perils menacing the
white man in the tropical bush.
In reality these are the
most negligible of all dangers, if dangers they
may be called, and the real perils
one faces are sickness, starvation, insects and rapids—all matters which are
seldom mentioned in tales of
adventures in the American tropics.
There is not a wild animal in
tropical America
that is dangerous to man unless wounded. During all the
years I have been in the wildest and
most remote—often unexplored—portions of the
American tropics I have never been bitten by a poisonous snake, and never have
had but one of my men bitten, and that not seriously. Poisonous snakes, in
fact, are about the rarest forms of
animal life, and the Indians, who
travel everywhere barefooted and usually nearly nude, seldom or never give a thought to the
danger of venomous serpents. Hostile
Indians may exist, but if so I have failed to meet them,
though Heaven knows many of those I have visited have had cause enough to
distrust and hate every white man. Personally I do not believe that any South
or Central American tribe ever molested a white man unless the white man was the
aggressor or unless the aborigines
had suffered at the hands of the whites and did not discriminate.
Sickness is an ever-present
and grave danger, even though the
districts are not unhealthful, as so many writers would have the public believe. But no matter how well one
guards one's health, no matter what precautions are taken, there is always the
danger of accident or disease, and, in the
jungle far from civilization, an
accident or sickness that would be trivial elsewhere becomes
a very serious matter. Personally I have had every tropical fever known to the medical world, I believe, including yellow
fever, black-water fever, dengue fever, typhoid, Chagres
and pernicious malaria, and I am still alive and as fit as ever. With a good
constitution as a foundation, and with reasonable care, these
tropical diseases are by no means as deadly as supposed.
Starvation, or, better,
hunger, is another grave peril. I do
not know of any place in the
American jungle where a man can live off the
country.
Game invariably is hardest to
find or to secure when most needed. Fish have a most perverse and remarkable
habit of being non-obtainable when one is hungry; while vegetables, roots,
berries, fruits and nuts are either
devoured before they ripen by the flocks of birds in the
tree-tops or are gobbled up the moment they
fall to earth by the rodents and
small animals. It is absolutely essential that all provisions be carried on a
trip, and any unforeseen incident or accident that delays matters usually
results in short rations or worse. In addition to all this, there is the
ever-present, constant danger of losing one's entire outfit, provisions and
all, in some rapid or cataract.
Rapids are another source of great
danger. Much, in fact most, travelling in the
South American jungle is by canoes or river boats, for moving through the almost impenetrable bush is slow, laborious work
where, very often, it is necessary to cut a way with machetes, and where four
or five miles a day is good progress. Nature, however, has provided innumerable
streams and waterways, and one may reach almost any desired destination by
following these. Usually they are filled with rapids and cataracts, and, when
hauling slowly and by main strength up-stream or shooting the rapids coming
down, life and property are in constant jeopardy.
But neither
rapids, hunger nor disease, nor all together,
are as great a danger to the
traveller in the American jungle as
are the insects.
Mosquitoes are the most negligible of all, for, with the exception of the
low lands below the first rapids,
and the swampy areas, the jungle is remarkably free from mosquitoes, especially those which are carriers
of malaria and other fevers.
Moreover, they are avoided quite
easily by the use of nets, whereas the sand-flies, which swarm in clouds in many
places, make life miserable, carry many diseases, and will find their way through anything coarser than
cheese-cloth. Biting-flies are at times a pest, but not a danger; ants are
legion and a nuisance, but, unless one inadvertently runs afoul of a large
column of army-ants, they are comparatively harmless.
Jiggers or chigoes, a species
of flea that burrows under one's skin and deposits its eggs, are everywhere,
and if neglected may cause ulcers and the
loss of toes or even feet. But they
soon make their presence felt, by a
peculiar, rather pleasant, itching
sensation, and may easily be removed with no resultant ill effects. Throughout the bush, ticks abound, and these
are far more dangerous than any other
denizens of the jungles. The
ordinary large wood-ticks are bothersome; but they
may be picked from one's body
without difficulty and without danger. But not so with the
tiny flesh-coloured maipuri ticks that, at certain seasons, swarm on
leaves and grass by millions and fairly rain upon the
passer-by. Being almost invisible and no larger than the
head of a pin, they are not easily
detected, and at once bury themselves
in one's skin. An intolerable itching ensues, and rubbing and scratching only
make matters worse, for the ticks
are thus killed or injured and infect the
blood, causing sores or ulcers.
The only remedy I have found
is a weak solution of formaldehyde (about one per cent), and even this at times
proves ineffectual. Very often the
infection from these ticks strikes inward, and internal abscesses
and death may follow. Finally there
are the microscopic mites known by
various names such as "foot-rot," "yen-yi,"
"mud-itch," etc. These minute beasts are found in mud and damp earth
and infect one's feet. The skin and flesh are eaten away and become putrid; and, unless the
utmost care and attention is given, a man's foot or even a leg may be lost in a
remarkably short time. Moreover, the
creatures appear to convey a fungus disease, and once foot-rot is contracted it is liable to recur at any
time, even when apparently cured, if the
victim gets his feet wet or muddy.
Hence it will be seen that
even if there is little if any danger
from snakes, wild beasts or wild
Indians, life in the tropical jungle
of the New World is not by any means
all "beer and skittles." It is no place for a tenderfoot, no place
for the inexperienced, and even the man accustomed
to roughing it in the north or in
temperate zones, or who has had a wide experience in camping, tramping, hunting,
exploring or canoeing in other
districts, is usually as badly off in the
tropical bush as is the greenest
beginner.
Even with the greatest care, with the
longest experience, and after innumerable expeditions, one never can prepare for
every eventuality that may arise. One is cut off from
the entire world for weeks, often
for months. There is no means of communication
with civilization, no means of making one's plight known if anything does go
wrong, nothing to do but fight it out.
And, in the early days of my explorations, conditions were
far worse and the difficulties were
far greater than to-day. Thirty-five or forty years ago—even eight or ten years
back—places now readily accessible were remote, isolated, even unknown.
When I first visited Santo Domingo,
the interior was a wilderness where
law and order were unknown, where there
were no roads, and the half-savage
natives lived more primitively than aboriginal Indians. To cross the island necessitated a terrible journey of
several weeks in those days. But to-day one may cross from
coast to coast in a few hours by automobile,
and the interior of the republic is safer and tamer than many of the environs of our great cities.
Five years ago the man who set out from
Cochabamba in Bolivia en route to the
Beni was regarded by the natives as
one bent upon suicide, and, if he reached his destination alive, he was lucky
if he made the trip in three weeks.
To-day one may fly across in a few hours in perfect safety, and may sleep and
eat in a fairly comfortable hotel,
instead of trusting to the
hospitality of Indians who were not averse to dining on human flesh.
Until within a few months ago
the journey from
Lima, Peru, to Iquitos on the Amazon
was a heart-breaking trip by foot, horseback and canoes requiring five or six
weeks. At the present time, thanks
to motor-trucks and aeroplanes, the
traveller leaves Lima in the
morning and, on the afternoon of the third day, is safely ensconced in a good hotel
at Iquitos.
No doubt, within a few years,
regular sightseeing trips will be made to Indian villages in the heart of the
Amazonas jungle; tourists will swarm about the
headwaters of the Orinoco,
and localities now known only to the
jungle beasts and birds and the
naked Indian huntsmen will be winter playgrounds for wealthy men and women from
the north.
I have recorded my own
experiences and have written of my trips and of conditions as they were at the
time they were made, beginning some forty years ago. Hence, if I mention some spots as being remote, or almost unknown, but
which to-day are scarcely off the
beaten tracks, or if I refer to some
tribe as savage or primitive, when the
same Indians are now civilized, supposedly Christians and wear store clothes, it must be borne in mind by the reader that I am describing things as they were and not as they
are.
To write of all my
experiences in detail, to describe all of my trips and expeditions, would
require many volumes and would result in many repetitions. Very often one trip
into the bush is very like another, and, on my hundreds of expeditions, incidents,
scenery, experiences, hardships and even adventures have been repeatedly
duplicated. I have therefore
endeavoured to select the most
varied of my experiences in different localities and to avoid, as far in possible,
repeating descriptions of scenery and conditions.
It is probable that among the great variety of readers who may find the time or the
inclination to peruse this hook there
will be an equally wide variety of tastes, and what may interest one may fail
to interest another. I have therefore
endeavoured to embody as great a variety of experiences and of subjects as
possible in my narratives, a range varying from
scenery to hunting, from camp-life
to running rapids, from geography to
ethnology, from botany to zoology,
from adventures to the peaceful home-life
of the aborigines.
Particularly I have tried to
bring out the human side of my
various experiences—the characters
and characteristics of the men who
have been with me through manifold hardships and dangers; the psychology of the
Indians with whom I have dwelt; the strange, often weird and paradoxical individuals
I have met; the almost uncanny lure
and appeal of the vast tropical
wilderness; and the customs, beliefs, habits and admirable traits of the wild, unspoiled aborigines, for the purpose of studying whom
most of my expeditions have been undertaken.
London
September
27, 1928.
CONTENTS
Introduction
......... v
CHAPTER I
My First Trip
to the Jungle ..... i
Travelling to the Tropics forty years ago—St.
Thomas—Down the Islands—A
friend in need—"Cockroach"—Off to the
mountains—Plants and birds—Strange tales—Vegetation—The
Mountain-Whistler—Insects—Where rain is measured by the
yard!
CHAPTER II
Among
the Mountaineers . . . . . .11
Laudat, a patriarchal village—At home in the
village—Strange customs—Jumbies—Telling
tales—Obeah—Voodoo—Hercules beetles—My captive jumbie—Off to the Boiling Lake—In the
crater—Nature's cooking-stove—The Diablotin—The Mountain Lake—Giant parrots—At the Carib village—Tribal customs—I
purchase the chief's daughter.
CHAPTER III
Marooned
in the Forest ...... 31
On the
Diablotin mountain—Above the
clouds—Short rations—Marooned—Starvation—Through the
torrent— Weird tales—Papa Kali—Showers of stones—A mysterious disappearance—Power
of Obeah men—Down with Yellow Jack—Nursed by the
mountaineers—Old friends.
CHAPTER IV
Off
to Central America ...... 47
Lure of the Tropics—Havana in
Spanish days—Colon—The Ithmus before the Canal—Over the
mountains to San Jose—An
earthquake-wrecked city—Outlaws and bad men—Costa Rican types—Revolutions with
coffee—The "calico " army—Spotless town—Honesty.
CHAPTER V
In the
Costa Rican Jungles . . . . .
57
Jimenez—In the jungle—An adventure with army-ants—A narrow
escape—Tapir—The tapir hunt—A mutual surprise—A lucky shot.
CHAPTER VI
El Tigre ......... 65
The mountain jungles—Strata
of wild life—Jaguars—After the black
jaguar—A narrow escape—Killing a jaguar with the
machete—A jaguar tale—A morning surprise party—At bay—In a tight corner—In the nick of time—The woman
who was killed by a jaguar—A midnight visitor—Seeking shelter with a
jaguar—Drowning a jaguar.
CHAPTER VII
In
the Land
of El Dorado
...... 79
New work—Off to South
America—The front door to the
wilderness—The jumping-off place of civilization—Getting a crew—Up river—In the creek—The Boer exile—Hermanas's camp—A wily
savage—A midnight scare—The ghost laid.
CHAPTER VIII
My
first Boat Trip through the Wilderness . . 95
The start—The camp—The first
falls—Hauling through the
rapids—Whirlpools—A close shave—Wild life and vegetation—A strange way of
fishing—Indians—Travellers from Brazil—Back
to civilization.
CHAPTER IX
Into
the Hinterland . . . . . . .107
Preparations—Multum in
parvo—Easy going—Making camp—Through the
falls—The jungle—Botanical marvels—Indian hunters—The tree-top world—Shooting
fish—Creepy tales—Babricotting—Visitors—Definite news.
CHAPTER X
Among
the Poison Makers......123
The trail—Into the bush—The deserted benab—The Patamonas—Strange
drinks—The poison-makers—Trading— Charms and beenas—Tattooing—Unwelcome attentions— Indian housekeeping—A food made from poison—The most deadly savage weapon—Wurali—Witch-doctors—An
amazing feat.
CHAPTER XI
The
People who Eat Alone......145
Into the
Carib country—At the Carib
village—The surly chief—Adding insult to injury—Swift retribution—I meet Kumwarry—My
blood-brother—Strange names—Superstitions—Stories
and tales—The People-who-eat-alone—The story of the
first Carib—The "father of
snakes "—A queer talisman.
CHAPTER XII
The
Generalissimo ......
The Orinoco labyrinth—Among the swamp-dwellers—The last outpost—Across the boundary—An international birthday party—I meet the Generalissimo!—Attacked!— Retreat!—Wounded!—The
Generalissimo's mishap—The triumph of the
Generalissimo.
CHAPTER XIII
In
the Haunts of the Buccaneers .
. . .181
At Panama
again—Great changes—Unknown tribes—A nightmare voyage—The lunatic—At Bocas—Paradoxical
towns—The haunt of the
Buccaneers—Descendants of the freebooters—Across
the bay—The first Indians.
CHAPTER XIV
Surprising
Discoveries......99
A daughter of the filibusters—The "American" chief—Among
the Boorabbees—The devil-strings—The
chief's son to the rescue—Off to the "wild" Indians—Over the top—An amazing discovery—English of a different
"species "—Friends of the
buccaneers—Boorabbees and buccaneers.
CHAPTER XV
Off
for the Unknown....... 221
The end of the line—Señor Toro—Simple housekeeping—Tisingal—The
story of the lost mine—Discouraging
news—I meet Cordova.
CHAPTER XVI
In
the Land
of Tisingal......33
Hard going—At the Indian hut—Word of the
king—Hard going—Terrible days—The soldier-hermit—The Indians' god—Tisingal
again—At the Commisario's—We
are given an escort.
CHAPTER XVII
The
Guardians of the Lost Mine.....
We meet the Crown Prince—In the
palace of the king— Descendants of the Mayas—Home
life at the palace—A wily chief—The
Princess has a tummy ache—The king's gratitude—A surprising invitation—At the gateway to Tisingal—The Doraks arrive—A Jekyll
and Hyde tribe.
CHAPTER XVIII
How I
Became an Indian Chief.....
Wild tales—An unconquered
race—In the Guaymi country—My
friend, Neonandi—Descendants of the
Aztecs— The council—Letter-strings—The temple on the
mountain-top—The sick dance-chief—The coming
of Montezuma— The ceremonial—I become
an Indian chief—The strange stick-dance—Tense moments—Montezuma's
farewell.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Author in Indian Dress
Beché, The Carib Boy
Dominican
Carib Woman
Kaietuerk Falls
The Haunt of the Tapir
A Toucan posing for the Camera in the
Jungle
The Giant Ant Bear
The Tapir's Friend, the Sun Bittern
"Pork Knockers"
(Gold Diggers) going down the River
In The Land of El Dorado
The South American Wax Palm
"It is difficult to say
where Water ends and Land begins”
Indian making a Feather Head-dress
The Edge of the Jungle
Running Rapids
Hauling the Boat through the
Rapids
“Through such rapids we won
our way"
“There are many long
stretches of still water"
Calling the Fish
Paddling up the River
Off for the Hinterland
Contemplation. An Indian
looks down on the World from the
Brink of Kaietuerk Falls
My Indian Hunter
Indians Shooting Fish in Rapids
In the
Guiana Mountains
Kaietuerk Falls
Kaietuerk Falls
A Forest Indian using the
deadly Blow Gun
A Woman
of the Poison Makers
A Forest
Chief in Full Regalia
Indian In Full Dress
"She shouldered her load and walked
off"
Ku-ku-ah Dancers
An Indian Dance
A Carib Indian Family
Carib Girl, British
Guiana
A Carib Musician
My "Blood-Brother"
Kumwarry -Note the bath-towel
talisman
A Carib Warrior
The Boat in which the
Author travelled more than 5,000 miles on the
Jungle streams
"The Father
of Snakes "—an Anaconda that weighed 300 lbs. and was 19 ft. long and 33
inches in circumference
An Arowak Village
Indian Women's
Full Dress, Bead Aprons
Boorabbee House, Bocas del Toro, Valiente Peninsula
Boorabbee Indians in their Devil-Dance
Boorabbee Indian with his Girdle of Scalps
An Indian Belle
Headhunters (Mundurucos Indians) in their Canoe
Carajas Indians of Brazilian Jungles
In the
Land of Tisingal
The "Palace" of King Polu
"They were shock-headed, wild-looking
savages"
King Polu of the
Shayshans (The King refused to be photographed until he had donned a shirt and
necktie.)
Two Guaymi Chiefs—Left Montezuma, Right
Neonandi
Guaymi Indian in Full Dress
The Guaymi Ceremonial Houses on the Mountain top nearly 4,000 ft. above sea level
In the
heart of the Guaymi Country
The Gathering
of the Clans. Guaymis and Sabaneros
arriving at the Ceremonial Hut
Guaymi Woman
pounding Rice
The Guaymi Jazz Band in full action,
Montezuma and Neonandi in centre
MAP
A Sketch Map illustrating the Author's Travels .
THIRTY YEARS IN THE JUNGLE
Chapter 1 My First Trip To the Jungle
HOW vividly I remember my
first trip to the tropical jungle,
although forty years have passed since then.
It was a cold, raw day in February—the
22nd: Washington's birthday—when I started on my first jungle expedition for the purpose of collecting ornithological specimens
in the West Indies.
In those days tourists, and
fugitives from northern winters, did not flock to the West Indies and South America. Such places were
regarded as remote, wild, uncivilized, pestilential; the
homes of deadly serpents,
desperadoes, noxious insects and implacable savages. Their towns were thought
of—when thought of at all—as pest-holes of yellow fever (which was not far from the
truth) and other diseases; it was
considered suicidal for a white man to visit them,
and they were looked upon as
localities to be avoided rather than
sought.
Our first landfall was St. Thomas, and
I never shall forget my wonder and amazement as I gazed for the first time upon the
West Indian isles.
Each day thereafter we cast anchor off a different island
—British, Dutch, French in turn—and each more beautiful, more astonishing and
interesting, than those which had gone before.
St. Croix, with its broad fields of cane, its
park-like hill-sides, its dazzling white coral beaches. Saba, that strange,
upflung volcanic peak whose sturdy Dutch inhabitants dwell in the village
of Bottom
within a crater, and whose chief industry is building boats which are lowered
over a precipice as though the
island were a ship.
Statia, where Admiral Rodney
held the greatest auction in the history of the
world, when he sold the captured
fleet of privateers and blockade-runners with millions of pounds' worth of
illicit merchandise, and where the
American flag was first saluted by a foreign power.
Then St. Kitts, with its
rolling green downs that might well be a bit of the
Surrey coast were it not for the
palm trees; with its majestic, frowning Mt. Misery, its wild apes, its
far-flung cane-fields, and its romantic
history.
Nevis next, with its lofty,
sugar-loaf volcanic peak, its submerged city, and its associations with Lord
Nelson, who was married to the widow
Nesbit in the quaint little parish
church. Nevis, once known as "The Gorgeous Isle," the fashionable spa of the
West Indies;
but now moribund, down at heel and almost deserted.
Then to Montserrat, Antigua,
mighty Guadeloupe, and past Marie Galante and Desiderde to wondrous Dominica.
Here was the end of my journey, and I gazed fascinated as we slipped along the
coast and the vast panorama of endless forests, sky-piercing mountains, dashing
cataracts and purple cañons was unrolled. How, I wondered, would I ever manage
to tramp those mountains, penetrate those interminable forests, search that
dense jungle, and feel sure I had secured all or even most of the species of birds that inhabited the then
little known island? I was green, a veritable tenderfoot, at tropical
exploration; I had no idea of what lay before me, and I had not the remotest idea where to begin.
But I had a good friend in the French-Canadian steward, and he proved a friend
in need. Scarcely had our anchor chain roared through the
hawse-holes when we were surrounded by a fleet of dug-out canoes filled with
laughing, chattering negroes talking an incomprehensible
jargon which I later discovered was the
local patois, a weird combination of
poor French, Carib, Negro, Spanish and English.
From
one of the canoes a fascinatingly
strange-looking character leaped to the
gangway and came, like a giant black spider, up the
ship's side to the deck. He was as
black as coal, his face was scarred and disfigured with small-pox, his small
ferret-like eyes were lustreless and bloodshot, his enormous lips hung
flabbily, exposing two great yellow tusks, and his chin and cheeks were dotted
with little tight-curled wisps of wool. His shoulders were bent and his scrawny
neck stretched forward, giving him the
effect of being in too much of a hurry to wait for his feet; his gorilla-like
arms hung flapping, like the arms of
a scarecrow; and as half of one foot was missing and the
other was swollen to immense size with
elephantiasis he moved with a half-hop, half-scuffle like some enormous insect.
Grinning from ear to ear, he grabbed his battered hat from his kinky head and bobbed to the steward. "How can do?" he exclaimed.
"Bo'soi', M'sieu! How you ketchum, t'ank you ver' kin'ly ma'am, how can
do? "
"Hello, you old
rascal," chuckled the steward.
"Here, sir," turning to me, "I want to introduce you to
Cockroach. He's the fellow to help
you out." Then, to the other: "Cockroach, you old thief, this gentleman
has come to Dominica
to get birds—wild birds—up in the
bush. He'll want a guide or a porter—some
boy who can talk English or near it, and he'll want to know where to go. You
look after him, you black devil, and if I hear you haven't, when I stop in on the up trip, I'll kick you overboard and never give
you another order."
Cockroach, or as he preferred
to be called "M'sieu Cricket," grinned and cackled. "Oui,
M'sieu," he exclaimed. "Me man fo' tha' job, yes, ma'am, kind sir
t'ank you. Me ketchum mángé, ketchum boy, garde Men all t'ing
M'sieu need for know, how can do."
And Cockroach kept his word
and proved an invaluable aid and firm friend throughout my long stay on the island. He had my luggage carried ashore, found
me a place to stop, sent me a bull-necked, good-natured English-speaking
porter, and informed me that Laudat was the best spot at which to start my
collecting and that he would "Ketchum one garçón Laudat boy"
at the market the following morning. The Laudat boy proved a sinewy mountaineer
whose straight hair and yellow skin showed more Carib than negro blood, and
who, through the medium of an
interpreter—for on this British island the
country folk all spoke patois and no English—agreed to have a house provided
for me at his mountain village and to act as my guide and hunter.
Soon after daybreak the next morning we started on our long tramp into the hills, my porter, Charles, carrying my boxes
poised on his woolly head as easily and unconcernedly as though they weighed a few trifling pounds instead of more
than a hundredweight.
Leaving the town, we crossed the
rushing river, followed the road
through seemingly endless lime-groves, and followed an easy gradient around
precipitous hill-sides. Wherever I glanced I found strange, interesting plants,
insects and birds to study. Above our heads palm fronds rustled in the cool breeze. From
the limbs of the
giant trees long vines trailed downward, and orchids and air-plants covered the tree-trunks. Ferns, flowering plants, vines and
spiny shrubs grew in a miniature jungle beside the
pathway. The moist, moss-grown limestone of the cliffs supported a thousand
strange and beautiful forms of plant life. Lizards scuttled over rocks and bushes;
gorgeous tropical butterflies flitted back and forth in the
early morning sunshine, and the
twitter and songs of unseen birds issued from
underbrush and tree-tops. A saucy, sulphur-crested Kiskadee flycatcher
scolded us from its perch on a dead
limb. Perky black Pe'noie finches and their
brown Me'sang mates chirped and garnered their
breakfasts beside the road. Tiny
black mites of Zee-zee-zeb buntings greeted us with their insect-like
attempts at song. Golden-yellow warblers flashed among the
green leaves. From somewhere high up on the
cliff-side a Grieve thrush poured out its melody, and flashing darting
hummingbirds with scintillating ruby throats or emerald crests hovered before the odorous blossoms
of wild plantains and jasmine.
Charles proved a veritable
mine of information, though its accuracy was doubtful. He informed me that the
little green-crested humming-bird was the Fou-fou Bequaa, and the large
ruby-throated fellow the Fou-fou Mardette, and explained that Fou-fou
meant "Crazy-crazy," and the hummers were so called because they
dashed aimlessly from flower to flower. He plucked a wayside fern, laid it upon
my coat-sleeve, slapped it with his palm and, withdrawing it, chuckled and
grinned as I gazed at the perfect
silver-white imprint it had left. He translated the patois name of each bird,
insect and plant into English and, pointing to an immense ceiba or silk-cotton
tree, he solemnly informed me that: "Tha' th' debbil-tree, Chief. No mon
be dare fo' parse tha' tree af'er night makes, Chief; no, sir! When tha' night
make, tha' jumbie folk does gather
roun' 'bout tha' debbil-tree, an' they
cotch any mon as make walk near to he. Yes, sir, Chief; Ah ain' humbuggin', they plenty bad 'nough jumbies this side. Yes, sir;
and they's tha Siconier. Yo'
don' know wha' tha Siconier are, Chief! She tha mos' worses' of all
Jumbie, Chief. All tha day she jus' like any of womans, but when tha night-time
makes she come by tha debbil-tree an' she take off she skin, an' she hang she
skin on tha' debbil-tree an' she fly way to some one' house an' she suck they
blood. Yes, sir, Chief; she bad, she damn bad. An' when tha night finish an'
that mawnin' make, she fly back to tha debbil-tree an' she put on she skin an'
she jus' common ol' womans again."
For the
next half hour Charles related hair-raising, awesome
tales of the "Jumbies" and
their doings. Like all the other
natives, he believed implicitly in these
evil spirits, and, like the majority
of the islanders, he was an equally
firm believer in Obeah or witchcraft. At the
time I laughed at his stories, chaffed him a bit, and found the tales interesting and amusing folk-lore. But
before I left the island I saw, and
heard of, many things which, though no doubt natural, have ever remained
inexplicable mysteries.
Meanwhile, as Charles talked,
we had steadily ascended, until now we were panting and puffing up the steep pathway which zigzagged up and up towards the forest-covered mountain sides ahead. Far below
us the river sparkled and foamed
along its rocky bed. Across the
valley the mountains reared their forest-covered sides in a vast rampart for a
thousand feet and more, and in the
distance, at the head of the valley, tier after tier of mighty peaks and
serrated ridges loomed hazily blue
to the clouds that hid their lofty summits.
Presently, we topped a rise
and came to a rest in the shelter of
a clump of giant bamboos, their
great, shining, beautiful stems shooting like vegetable rockets sixty feet in
air, and their delicate leaves
forming a lattice-work screen against the
sun-bright sky. Just beyond us was the first of the mountain forest; cool,
dark, casting a dense shade over the road. It was the
first tropical forest I had ever seen, and as we entered it I stood gazing,
almost awed, into its depths. The giant trees with their outflung buttress-like
roots, their air-plant covered limbs, their drapery of gnarled, twisted,
rope-like lianas and their hundred-foot tapering trunks fascinated me. Among them grew wonderful tree-ferns with twenty-foot
lacework fronds. Many of the trees were masses of gorgeous pink, mauve or
yellow flowers, and the air was heavy with their perfume. From beside the
pathway the land sloped sharply down
in a deep ravine to a tumbling mountain stream, and from
somewhere in the
cool twilight depths of the forest
came a clear, inexpressibly melodious bell-like note followed by a long-drawn,
plaintively sweet flute-like whistle. Never before or since have I heard a song
so mysterious, so fascinating, so musical. It was as if some
wood-nymph had struck a fairy bell and a dryad had responded on an elfin flute.
"Siffleur montagne!"
exclaimed Charles. "He one kind bird make song too sweet. Yes, sir, Chief.
He make to live in tha high bush an' never show heself. He make to hide from we all time. Yes, sir, yo' mus' to make mighty
sharp an' smart fo' to cotch he, Chief."
Later I obtained many specimens
of the bird, but never have I so
greatly regretted the necessity of
killing a bird in the interests of
science. Shy and retiring, the siffleur
montagne seems the very spirit
of the "high bush." It
never leaves the shelter of the dense forests of the
mountains above the
two-thousand-foot level, and haunts the
semi-twilight of the woods like some flitting grey ghost, pausing now and again to
utter its half-plaintive, half-mournful, wholly sweet song.
Leaving the Mountain Whistler behind, we resumed our climb,
and for several hours toiled ever upward through the
forest. Here plant, insect and bird forms were wholly distinct from those of the
coastal district and lower altitudes. Immense clumps of sweet-scented
pink-flowered begonias grew in profusion. Wherever there was an open space the
earth was starred with golden-yellow dwarf iris. The stiff, upright stalks of
crimson and orange-flowered Mussas flamed in the shadows. Bromeliads of scores of species were everywhere.
Night-blooming Cereus decked
trees and rocks. The silver-fern had given place to its more beautiful
gold-fern relative. Breast-high bracken, giant tree-ferns, palmettoes, climbing
cacti and broad-leaved, fantastic air-plants formed impenetrable jungles at the edges of the
forest. The sun-loving, bright-eyed lizards had disappeared. The butterflies
were mainly dark-coloured Heliconida with splashes of green and scarlet
on their narrow wings. Trilling
grasshoppers and crickets had been replaced by huge brown locusts whose
startlingly loud explosive notes of "Crak! Crak!" had given them their
patois name. Invisible wild doves cooed in the
interlaced tree-tops. Trembleur and Gros Grieve thrushes poured their melodious notes from
the leafy canopy above our heads. A
perky Kosignol wren cocked its head on one side, eyed us speculatively
and burst into a perfect torrent of rollicking song. Mountain flycatchers and
blue-grey warblers chirped and flitted about, and flashing, sapphire-breasted
and gloriously emerald-throated humming-birds poised on vibrating wings before the blooms
of arboreal calks and flaming orchids.
It was all an entrancing
wonderland to a nature-lover, and so interested was I in my surroundings that I
scarcely realized that we had travelled many weary miles since dawn, had
climbed upwards for three thousand feet, and still had far to go. But Charles
had a practical mind and suggested it was "Time for make to res' an' mange"
So, where a little rill
spouted from among the rocks into a fern-shaded basin, we halted for
our noonday meal. Near me was a clump of bracken, and perched upon one of the
blue-green fronds a tiny mite of a humming-bird squeaked and chirped, raising
its helmet-like crest, ruffling its jewelled feathers and exhibiting every
symptom of diminutive fury at my presence. Its actions could mean but one
thing, and presently as I searched carefully among the
ferns, I found the hidden nest.
Built of spiders' webs and fern down, decorated with bits of green moss and
grey lichens, it was fastened to the
under-side of a frond within a few inches of the
miniature cataract among the rocks.
Much as I would have valued
it for my collections, I could not bring myself to disturb it, and left the angry atom
of birddom to enjoy its dainty home in peace.
So far we had been fortunate
in having clear weather. But as we
resumed our way the sky became
overcast, a cloud mass drifted across the
forest-clad mountain side, and rain commenced
to fall in torrents. Even partly sheltered as we were by the
trees, we were soon drenched to the
skin and chilled by the cold wind.
The road of volcanic tufa became slippery and treacherous and, at this point,
skirted the verge of a thousand-foot
precipice with nothing visible beneath but the
all-enveloping clouds. But Charles merely grinned and assured me this was the
rule rather than the exception, and that "it make plenty rain in tha high
bush all time like so." His statement I discovered was far too
conservative, for there was a
superabundance rather than "plenty"
of rain in the Dominican mountains. In fact, Dominica
is one of the rainiest countries on
earth, and its mountainous districts hold all world records for rainfall. It is
a common saying in the island that the precipitation is measured by yards and
not inches, which is no exaggeration, for the average rainfall at Laudat is
over three hundred inches a year!
The precipitation is
practically incessant, for even when no real rain falls the
mountains are bathed in clouds and
water drips steadily from the trees, and, except for brief intervals, there is a steady drizzle. But one becomes
accustomed to almost anything in time, and I soon became as heedless of rain
and soaked garments as the mountaineers themselves.
But on that first day, when,
shivering, soaked, mud-spattered and miserable, we turned into a narrow side
path, and passing through a dense dripping jungle came to a fence with a
clearing and houses beyond, I felt as if a shelter and dry garments would be
heaven indeed. I found my Laudat boy, Rolles by name, awaiting us, and a few moments later I was in the
quarters he had provided for me, and which were to be my home for many months to come.
Chapter 2 Among the Mountaineers
LAUDAT, I found, was a tiny
hamlet of perhaps a dozen thatched huts scattered at random
over a clearing of several hundred acres, on the
brow of a mountain overlooking the
magnificent panorama of the Roseau Valley
nearly five thousand feet below. I say magnificent, but that applies only to
the rare intervals when the sky cleared and the sun appeared. Ordinarily Laudat
was isolated from the rest of the
world in an all-enveloping mass of clouds, and the
valley was a vast sea of drifting, billowy mist.
The village was, in a way, a
strictly family affair, for all the inhabitants were related, and all were
governed by the eldest of the clan or patriarch of the village. Originally, no
doubt, some Frenchman had settled there and had taken unto himself a mulatto or
perhaps a Carib wife. But there was
little of the French left, aside from the
local patois, the courtesy and
hospitality of the people and their names. Largely they
were more Carib than negro, though some
were nearly black and had kinky heads, while others
had the Carib skin and features with
African hair or the straight black
hair of the aborigine combined with negroid features. But all were alike in
their cleanliness, their anxiety to please, in their
welcome, and in their pride at being Laudats.
The hut in which
accommodation for me had been arranged was large and well built of hand-sawn
slabs with a thatched roof, and was floored with boards. Its furnishings were
simple, consisting of hand-made chairs, benches, tables and beds. A few chromos
of religious subjects were on the walls, which were papered from floor to
rafters with old newspaper and magazine pages. In a way I had been greatly honoured, for it was the home
of the village patriarch, Andre Laudat, an old dignified man with dark brown
skin, straight hair, and Carib features, who welcomed me with the formality of
a reigning potentate— which in fact he was.
His family consisted of a
wrinkled, wizened, deaf and nearly blind wife who sat mumbling to herself in a
corner; a buxom, full-bosomed Amazon of a russet-brown daughter named Le Brun;
a stocky, magnificently-muscled son named Leon; and a shy-eyed, golden-skinned
quiet-voiced Carib boy named Beché, who appeared to be a sort of general
servant. Rolles, I learned, was the old man's son-in-law; but I soon gave up
all attempts at solving the mysteries of Laudat relationships, for they were
far too complicated to master.
My room,
separated from the others
by a flimsy partition of cane and newspapers, contained a home-made bedstead minus springs or mattress and
which might well have served a penitent monk, two hand-made benches, and a
rough table. But it was ample for my needs, and, having donned dry clothing, I
felt quite comfortable and at home, and ready to do full justice to the meal which was being served in the next room.
With the
inborn courtesy of these people, a
separate table had been prepared for me in deference to my supposed prejudice
against dining with coloured folk, and Beché had been assigned to attend to my
wants.
My appetite was excellent,
and the food, consisting of highly seasoned salt codfish, baked breadfruit,
boiled yams, fried eggs, roast agouti and stewed guavas, was far better than
anything I had reason to expect, even though my throat was raw from the fiery
red peppers which were used in profusion.
Even before the meal was over visitors began to arrive, partly
to welcome but largely to look
curiously upon the white man from America.
Both Leon and his father spoke a sort of English, so that conversation
was possible, and very soon the
little house was filled to overflowing with Laudats young and old from every hut in the
village. Every one smoked, every one drank, but all were orderly, and though they laughed and chattered, joked and sang, they were not boisterous.
Mainly the
conversation seemed to be of Jumbies and spirits, of which Laudat appeared to
have more than its due share; and I very quickly learned some most surprising and interesting facts about the local Jumbies. Although door and windows were
wide open, I noticed that as darkness came on the
daughter of the house stuffed bits
of paper into the keyhole in the door lock and into the
bolt-holes in the window shutters.
But imagine my astonishment when I was informed that this was to prevent a
certain species of Jumbie from
entering the house! This particular
spirit was known as "La Fl'emme," and appeared in the form of a
dancing light. But its most remarkable characteristic was that it could only
enter a house by way of a keyhole. Doors and windows might be open, but unless there was an unstopped keyhole available poor La
Fl'emme must remain outside. La Fl’emme was a rather harmless sort of Jumbie
and no one present could recall ever having known or heard of anyone being
injured by it. But there were others of most dangerous, unpleasant, and malignant
character. "Le Buk," for example, who took the
form of a goat and frequented the
roads at dead of night. His favourite pastime was to dash at the lone wayfarer,
suddenly change into his normal form as a monstrous, fiery-eyed, horned devil,
and wrestle with his victim until he had broken all his bones. As no one could
tell the Buk from a real goat until too late, the only safe procedure was to shoot any goat met on
a road at night, for once the Buk's
goat form had been destroyed he was quite harmless until he could find another goat to enter.
Even more awesome was
"Chawah," a demon who in the shape of an owl perched by the wayside
or upon a fence and, at the approach of a human being, swelled into enormous
proportions, and seizing the unfortunate one carried him off to some unknown
lair where he could be devoured at leisure. Then there
was the Siconier of whom Charles had told me—a sort of island vampire; the Jumbie who took possession of the dead and appeared as a decomposed
awful corpse to see which was to die a lingering death; and scores of others, each more weird, malignant and terrifying
than the rest.
As the
tales were told and the people,
wide-eyed and nervous, drew closer together,
numerous moths, beetles and other
insects buzzed about, attracted by the
flickering candles. Each time a moth would appear some
member of the gathering would seize it, scorch its wings in the candle flame, and toss it out of doors. This
needless cruelty struck me as strange, and I inquired the
reason.
"Eh! Eh!" exclaimed
Leon.
"M'sieu not know La Belle, no? Oui, M'sieu, dese t'ing mek plenty trouble,
yes. M'sieu t'ink dey eensec', yes; but non, M'sieu, dey peoples. Dey obeah
peoples come spy on we, yes. When we
mek burn he wings he go home, yes,
an' t'morrow we mek s'arch an' we mek fin' some
mans, some womans
mek to get burn han's, mebbe burn foots an' we mek know she de La Belle we mek
burn in candle, yes. Oui, M'sieu, I say true, yes."
I forbore to laugh at the childish superstition, for Leon was very much in earnest, and
all the others
believed implicitly in what he said. And the
next day, when, with Leon,
I wandered about the village and in
one hut Leon spied a woman with a bandaged hand and arm, he declared she
was one of the La Belles which had
been scorched the previous night.
Moreover, she admitted it herself, which left me absolutely flabbergasted at the time. But when I came to know these people better, her actions, I found, were
perfectly logical.
To be considered an Obeah
person, a witch doctor, is a distinction and gives the
person great power and influence. In fact, a recognized Obeah man or woman can do pretty much as he or she pleases, for no
one dares cross them or interfere
with them. Even the head-man of the
village would not dream of attempting to enforce laws or regulations on an
Obeah practitioner, and the woman, who had no doubt burned her hand in her own
cooking—if indeed she had burned it at all—saw in her accident a chance to rise
to local fame and power. Moreover, as I learned subsequently, there is a still more remarkable and underlying
reason for this sort of thing. A woman burning her hand accidentally and being
a firm believer in Obeah and the practice of singeing moths, would, by a queer
kink of inverted reasoning and superstition, feel perfectly convinced that she
had taken the form of a moth, had been singed in a candle, and that the actual
burning was the imaginary event as manifested to her at the moment she resumed
her human form.
Such things seem incredible,
but the negro's psychology is a
mystery to the white man, and the African mind is capable of twisting actualities
in a most amazing manner. I have repeatedly known of the natives dying merely
because some Obeah man or woman told them they would die on a certain date,
although they were perfectly strong and healthy. I have known of a man
confessing to a crime
which he did not commit, merely because an Obeah man tossed a "charm"
into a crowd and declared that the one whom it struck was the guilty person.
And I have known of a man recovering from
sickness and approaching death by drinking plain water which an Obeah man
administered. Obeah consists mainly of hypnotic or autosuggestion, and, when
this fails, poison. But with the
negroes the Obeah man seldom is obliged to resort to the
latter course, for absolute faith in his supernatural power is usually quite
sufficient to bring about any result he desires.
Neither
should Obeah be confused with Voodoo. The one is witchcraft, chicanery or what
you will, while Voodoo is a true religion of African origin. Obeah was, and to
a less extent is, rampant in the West Indies,
but with the exception of Hayti I
have never found Voodooism in vogue to any extent. At any rate my Laudat
friends were no Voodooists, and all were, so they
professed, devout Catholics, although just how they
could square Catholicism with Jumbies and Obeah was difficult to understand.
My friend Cockroach had, I
found, shown remarkable foresight in selecting Laudat as the
best spot at which to start my scientific work. Bird life was abundant in the vicinity, the
clearing and cultivated land attracted species not met with in the forests, and the
Laudat men and boys were all born hunters and most experienced bushmen. They
knew the names, habits and haunts of
every bird, quadruped, reptile and insect of the
island, and they took to collecting
as a duck takes to water. Even the
children became ardent naturalists (at so much per specimen), and I was kept
busy caring for the innumerable
birds, birds' eggs, insects, etc., brought in by my small army of collectors.
Very often live creatures would be brought to me, and among these were numbers of the
gigantic and rare Hercules beetles. The males of this insect have a long horn-like projection on the
forward part of the thorax, and extending four inches or more beyond the head,
which carries a second shorter horn. Although perfectly harmless, the male beetles have a dangerous appearance, while the females, lacking the
horns, look most inoffensive. During the
day the creatures remain almost
motionless, feeding upon the sap of
forest trees, but at night they fly
about in the forests, their great wings humming like the roar of a distant aeroplane. Wishing to study the habits of these
little-known beetles, I kept several alive, tethering
them by means of cords attached to the thorax, and it was one of these
captives that caused a most amusing and, for the
time being, exciting episode.
As usual a crowd of the people had gathered
in the outer room, and, as was invariably the
case, their conversation was
entirely of Jumbies, ghosts and Obeah. Wishing to secure some tobacco, I stepped into my room, leaving the
door ajar. As I reached for my tobacco box I dislodged one of my captive
beetles. The next instant there was
a whirr like a gust of wind as the
disturbed insect took flight and headed through the
open door for the candle in the room
beyond. At the unwonted sound of
vibrating wings the already nervous
people screamed, shrieked and cowered, thoroughly believing one of their own Jumbies had put in an unexpected
appearance. The next second they were in total darkness, for the beetle had
reached its goal and the draught from its beating wings had extinguished the
candle. But the insect had at the same time reached the
end of its tether and was whirring
in circles and looping the loop in the blackness over the
heads of the terrified people. Yelling
like maniacs, praying, cursing, screaming, they
huddled together, while from time to time a shriek rose high above the hubbub as the
confused and blundering beetle swooped down and roared past the face of some
girl or woman. Shaking with
laughter, I at last found the cord, hauled in my struggling captive, replaced
her in a box, and shutting the door of my room stepped forward to relight the
candle. Never have I seen such abject terror on any human faces as was depicted
on the features of the cowering crowd in the
hut. They were livid with fright, their
teeth chattered, their eyes rolled
wildly, and it was fully an hour before they
calmed down. For a long time they
refused to believe my explanation of what had occurred, declaring that I had
been mistaken and that the intruder
had been a Jumbie, and it was not until I demonstrated my claim by producing the beetle, and allowing it to fly across the room
once more, that they were convinced.
Once they realized the truth they
took it as a huge joke and laughed as gaily as myself over their own terror. But they
were very careful thereafter to make
sure my door was closed when they
told Jumbie tales in the evenings.
From
the time I had reached Laudat I had
heard stories of the Boiling Lake,
and on clear days the natives had
pointed out a lofty jagged peak, above which a slender column of steam drifted
upward, as the site of the phenomenon.
From all accounts it was an active
crater, and I was of course anxious to have a look at it. Moreover, the Laudat men claimed that certain birds not found
elsewhere were common on the volcano. Even the
sturdy mountaineers admitted it was a terrible climb, and they averred that the
Boiling Lake could only be visited in safety in clear weather
and under certain conditions, stating that the
rain caused immense masses of poisonous vapours to rise from the
crater, while winds from certain
quarters blew the invisible but
deadly gases across the only
possible trail. For several weeks it appeared as if the
combination of meteorological
conditions would never occur, but at last the
hoped-for miracle transpired, and soon after daylight we set out. Rolles led
the way as guide, two other men acted as escort, and Beché trailed alone like a
faithful dog.
For several hours we toiled
up the mountains through the high bush, as the natives call the heavier
forests, splashed through icy-cold streams and crossed innumerable ridges.
Gradually the lofty trees became fewer, and presently we were traversing a
marvellous forest of giant tree-ferns. Steeper and steeper the ascent became;
the tree-ferns gave way to a jungle of dwarf palmettoes, thorny brush and tangled
vines, and before us the mountain-side reared itself in grass-grown slopes for
a thousand feet and more.
Scattered over the bare,
wind-swept area were charred blackened trees; the air was heavy with the smell
of sulphur; above the summit of the peak a column of steam drifted, and to our
ears came a dull rumbling roar like the sound of a distant railway train. Panting,
slipping, helping our progress by grasping bushes and wisps of grass, we
climbed inch by inch up the precipitous slope and gamed a narrow hog-backed
ridge with yawning cañons on either side of the two-foot trail. Bending to the
wind pushing our way through the thick wiry grass, we crossed the ridge and
stood upon the verge of the crater's rim.
Below us the earth dropped in a sheer brick-red and yellow
wall for more than five hundred feet to the
great bowl-like crater of the
volcano; a veritable inferno lay beneath us. From
where we stood the rim swept in a
vast irregular oval several miles in length and a mile across. Everywhere the
bare burned surface was gaudy with reds, yellows, pinks and snowy-white tufa,
ash and sulphur! Through the centre
of the crater's floor a stream of
inky black water flowed, its surface seething and sending up clouds of steam,
while on every side, spurting from the bottom
of the crater, were innumerable
geysers. It was a marvellous, a fascinating sight, but the Laudat men assured me
it was nothing compared to the Boiling Lake itself and pointed to a great mass
of steam rising above a low ridge that spanned the main crater.
Leading the way along the
crater's rim, Rolles turned to the
right and guided us to a place where there
was a deep gap in the ridge. From this spot a narrow zigzag track led down the perpendicular wall towards the bottom
of the crater. It was barely a foot
in width, a mere shelf-like projection, and seemingly passable only for a goat.
That any human being could
descend appeared impossible, and I felt a dizzy, sickening sensation as I gazed
at the steam-spewing surface far
beneath and realized what a misstep or a slip would mean. But Rolles and the others
took it as a matter of course, dropped over the
edge, and stood waiting on the
narrow trail for me to follow. To hesitate was to lose, and summoning all my
courage I lowered myself gingerly over the
verge of the precipice. To this day
I do not know how we ever reached the
bottom in safety. The volcanic ash
was as slippery as soap; at every footstep dislodged pebbles and bits of tufa
went rattling down the sheer wall below us, and there was nothing to grasp, no
hand-hold to steady us or to prevent us from plunging down head-foremost.
The almost prehensile bare
toes of my companions dug into the tufa and prevented them
from slipping to any great extent,
but the soles and heels of my boots
slid, slipped and skidded in horrible fashion. A dozen times my heart skipped a
beat and I felt certain I was lost, but each time, by a seeming miracle, I
recovered my balance, checked myself and continued on my way, until at last,
shaken, scared, but whole, I stood at the
base of the cliff.
The earth upon which we stood
was boiling hot and the surface
seemed to undulate and vibrate. Rolles warned me not to remain in one spot for
long and, to illustrate the danger of so doing, he pushed a stick into the
cinders, and, withdrawing it, jumped to one side as a gush of scalding black
water spouted from the hole. We were standing on a crust only a few inches in
thickness, that covered a bottomless
pit of boiling water, and for a moment
I devoutly wished I were safely back on the
top of the mountain. On every side the geysers hissed and roared, sometimes spouting steadily in one spot, sometimes suddenly dying down to reappear in
unexpected places several rods distant; sometimes
throwing their columns of steam and
water for fifty feet perpendicularly, or again spouting at an angle like the streams of water from
gigantic hose-nozzles. Rapidly we crossed this area, reached solid ground on the further
side, and followed the course of the boiling black stream beside a low ridge. Here,
to my surprise, was a fairly dense growth of plants. There were a number of
species of cacti, some low fleshy-leaved shrubs pink-flowered mallows, coarse
grasses, a magenta convolvulus and wild portulaca, besides gold and silver
ferns. How they subsisted in this
barren mass of burned ash where the
only water was at the boiling-point
was a mystery beyond me. Even more astonishing was the
fact that animal life existed here. Several species of butterflies, two
varieties of flower-beetles, numerous ants and dragon-flies represented the insect world, while the
avifauna consisted of two species of flycatcher, a humming-bird and some small falcons or sparrowhawks. But the most amazing discovery of all was yet to come.
Stopping to examine a pool of
clear steaming water I was absolutely astounded to find that it was alive with the larvae of a gnat-like fly! Although the pool was
practically at the boiling-point, yet the little “wigglers" seemed as much
at home as mosquito larvæ in a rain barrel.
After that nothing would have
surprised me. I should not have been astonished to find fishes swimming in the
boiling stream or turtles basking on the rim of a geyser, and, as I walked
onward, I realized for the first time how
ridiculous it is to assume that life cannot exist on
another planet, even though that planet may be a mass of molten matter. If
Nature could produce fly larvae capable of thriving in boiling water, why
should she not have evolved higher forms of life capable of existing in the midst of flaming gases?
As these
thoughts passed through my mind, we ascended a mound of broken stone, sulphur
and ash, and the Boiling
Lake
was before us. A few yards beneath us was an immense bowl-like depression
perhaps a third of a mile in diameter and filled with a pool of milky-white
water. About the edges it was
tranquil, but in the centre it rose
and fell, sending little waves towards the
shores, as if some hidden monster
were striving to emerge from the depths. More and more violent it became, great
masses of water bubbled and burst, sending up clouds of steam, and presently the entire pond was a churning, seething, hissing
cauldron hidden by the dense vapour
that rose from it. For perhaps ten
minutes the boiling continued, and then, suddenly, the
steam drifted away, the water
calmed, and before my eyes drew away from
the shores and vanished, leaving the great bowl empty and with nothing but an
irregular hole to show where the
water had gone. Calling to me, Rolles beckoned me to follow, and scrambling
downward to the edge of the lake led the
way across the hot, muddy bottom. Scarcely realizing what I was doing, I followed
with the others
in his tracks and reached the
opposite shore. There had not been an instant to spare. Scarcely had we reached
firm ground when the boiling water
came pouring upward through its vent, and five minutes later the bowl was again filled to its brim with the hissing, seething mass.
It was an interesting,
wonderful sight, this gigantic intermittent geyser, but we had come a long
distance, the way had been hard, it was high noon, and our stomachs felt unusually empty.
Selecting a sheltered spot a few rods from
the Boiling Lake, where the Laudat men declared we would be safe from the
poisonous gases, Beché opened the
packs, undid the broad, green
plantain-leaf wrappings, and produced eggs, plantains, yams, a chicken and a
can of coffee. To my surprise I noticed that the
chicken and plantains were raw, but I had much to learn. Wrapping the fowl in a plantain leaf, and picking up the can of coffee, Beché stepped a few yards to one
side, dug a little pit with his machete, dropped the
chicken into the hole and covered it
up. Then he pushed the can of coffee
into another hole. Returning, he
wrapped each egg in a leaf, hurried to a pool near and dropped them into the
water. Then it dawned upon me. He was cooking the
food in Nature's stove. In four minutes the
eggs were ready to be eaten, and a little later we were dining on smoking hot
steamed chicken and were sipping scalding coffee.
By the time we had finished
our meal clouds were appearing above the rim of the crater, and hastily
gathering up their belongings the men hurried on the return journey, declaring
that to be caught in the crater meant certain death. Possibly their fears were exaggerated, but I could well
believe that a downfall of rain, striking that vast hot surface, would result
in a mass of steam which would be far from
comfortable, aside from the
gases it might generate, and that the
trail up which we must climb to the
crater's rim would be utterly impassable when drenched with falling rain.
Climbing up was not nearly so
bad as coming down; we reached the top of the
wall in safety, and as we hurried away from
the edge of the
crater the first big drops came
pattering down from the low-hung clouds. When, tired, wet and hungry, I
reached my home at Laudat that
night, I felt that my day had been well spent. I had looked upon one of
Nature's wonders, a wonder which few white men had ever seen, and I had added greatly to my
ornithological collection. Several species of birds obtained I never saw
elsewhere on the island, and among them was a hummingbird and a thrush, both new to
science.
One evening, as I was
preparing my specimens, Leon
asked me if I had ever heard of the Diablotin or Devil-bird. I had not;
and in his weird English, and aided by the
others who constantly added bits of
fact and fancy, he told me of these
strange creatures.
According to the tales, the
Diablotin had formerly been common
on the upper slopes of the higher mountains and especially on Morne
Diablotin, where it had last been seen. It was a night bird, as large as a
small turkey, with a stout hooked bill, a fat round body, and lived in holes in
the mountain side. As it had been
regarded as a great delicacy by the
natives, it had been so assiduously hunted with the
aid of trained dogs that it had become
exterminated. Possibly, my informant told me, there
might be a few lone individuals remaining, and, he asked, would I care to go on
a hunt for them?
Needless to say I would. That
the bird was some
species of nocturnal sea-bird seemed certain, and from
the description and the habits, it seemed most probably a petrel. But
that any human beings could stomach
a petrel, much less consider it a delicacy, seemed incredible. At any rate,
whatever it was, the Diablotin was
unquestionably a species unknown to science, and I was thoroughly excited at the possibility of finding at least one remaining
Devil-bird.
The trip was planned for a
few days later, and with Leon, Rolles, the inevitable Beché, and several woefully thin
hunting dogs, we started off. Beché and each of the men carried packs of
basket-work slung on their backs and supported by chest bands, and the two men
were armed with muzzle-loading shotguns, while all three carried the essential machete or
"cutlass," the most useful tool or implement in tropical America.
For a short distance from Laudat we followed the
main road to the very summit of the divide, where, gleaming like a bowl of silver in
the heart of the
forest, is the Mountain
Lake,
a deep, practically fathomless cairn
filling the crater of an extinct
volcano. On the wind-swept,
cloud-draped ridge above it we stopped for a few moments
to gaze across endless forest-clad ranges to the
shimmering Atlantic,
and then plunged into the high bush. For a space the
ground was dense with a tangled jungle beneath the
trees, and slashing right and left with their
cutlasses, the men hewed a narrow
trail. But as we penetrated deeper into the
forest and the towering trees with their interlaced tops shut out all sunlight, the low growths disappeared, and we were soon
walking over open ground between the
mighty boles of the trees that
soared upward like mighty columns to the
first branches, fully one hundred feet above the
earth. So silent, so dim, so peaceful was this high bush that it seemed like a
vast deserted cathedral rather than a forest, and the
effect was heightened by the arching
roof above, the fluted trunks of the trees, and the
drapery of vines and lianas hanging from
the lofty branches. Yet life was not
lacking.
Far above our heads birds
busily garnered their food in silence; great soft-winged brown and grey "ghost"
moths flitted through the shadows; an occasional brown agouti dashed like a
flash of light to its burrow, and from the recesses of the forest came the
notes of the Siffleur montagne, the soft cooing of Ramier pigeons,
and the occasional piping note of a tree-frog.
Suddenly a harsh, raucous cry
rang through the forest, drowning
all other sounds. Instantly my companions
stopped in their tracks and froze into immobility. "Cieeroo!"
whispered Beché, as the others silently and cautiously cocked their guns and
peered with keen searching eyes at the leafy roof ahead. Ciceroo!
At the
Carib's words my blood tingled, for Ciceroo was the
native name of the Imperial parrot, the shyest, wariest and one of the rarest of West Indian birds, and found only on Dominica.
Ever since my arrival it had been my dream to secure a specimen of this
magnificent bird, and now, within a few hundred feet of where I stood, one or
more of the creatures were concealed
in the tree-tops. Presently, a few
rods ahead of us, a golden-yellow fruit dropped to earth, followed by another and another.
At this telltale sign that the
parrots were feeding and unsuspicious, we crept forward as silently as shadows.
Still the bits of fruit dropped from the
mazes of leaves, and with straining eyes and ready guns we peered upward. No
sign of a bird, no movement of the
branches could I see; all was a maze of leaves, vines, branches and flecks of
sunlight. But the eyes of the Carib were far sharper than mine or than those
of the Laudat men. Touching my arm, Beché
pointed a slim, brown finger at a clump of broad-leaved air-plants clinging to
an out-jutting limb. Tense with suppressed excitement, I peered at the spot. And suddenly, as if it had been
materialized from nothing, I saw the Ciceroo clearly.
The next second the forest echoed to the
roar of my gun; wild, hoarse screams came from
the tree-tops; there was a dual report as the
two men fired, and down from their lofty perches hurtled two of the giant parrots. Elated, thrilled, I dashed
forward, while Beché, as if frightened by the
hubbub, raced off through the
forest, my gun in his hand. As I picked up the
first of the fallen Ciceroos and
gazed in admiration at its green and purple plumage, the
sound of a gunshot came from the direction the
Carib had taken, and a moment later
he came back, carrying a third parrot. As I carefully wrapped the three
specimens and placed
them tenderly, almost reverently, in my bag, I thought that even the taking of
a Diablotin could not give me greater elation than thus securing the
three Imperial Parrots. But before the
day was done I had far more cause to congratulate myself upon my success, for a
few hours later, when we heard parrot's scream again, and by a fortunate shot I
brought down two birds at once, they
proved to be not Ciceroos but the
far rarer and almost unknown Nicholls' Parrot, a species now believed to be
extinct and, at that time, known to science by only three specimens in all the museums of the
world.
We camped that night in the forest, our shelter a hastily constructed Ajupa
of palm leaves, and by the light
of flaring torches of aromatic Gomier resin I skinned and prepared my priceless
specimens. Throughout the following
day we tramped through the high
bush, and late in the afternoon we
came to a small clearing planted with yams and pigeon-peas, and stepping from the
jungle, looked across a cultivated hill-side with the
sparkling sea beyond. White surf thundered upon a black beach where were drawn
a number of sharp-ended dug-out canoes, and above the
beach a village of thatched huts was clustered beneath a grove of coco-nut
palms. "La soir!" exclaimed Leon.
"Dees
place da Ca'ib mek to live, M'sieu." It was the
Carib settlement, the home of the
few remaining aborigines of the
island, and Beché's native village.
A few moments
later we were in the village, and Beché
was leading us to his parents' house. All the inhabitants were Caribs, mostly
of pure blood, with the clear yellow skins, the round faces, the soft eyes and
the high cheek-bones of the once ferocious cannibal race; but among them were
many of mixed negro and Carib blood—"black Caribs," as they were
called. But there was nothing savage
nor wild about the villagers. They
were shy, friendly, smiling and hospitable, and it was hard to believe that it was these peaceful, timid
aborigines who, for nearly two hundred years, defied the armies and navies of France, Spain
and Great Britain
and brought terror to the hearts of all enemies, white, black or yellow.
At the
time of my first visit, when we were quartered in Beché's house, the tribe numbered about two hundred, and yet less
than a score could speak the Carib
tongue. They dressed, lived and conversed in much the same way as the coloured
folk at Laudat or other mountain villages, but they still wove—as they do
still—their wonderful waterproof baskets; they still prepared the cassava in
the aboriginal manner and used the woven basketry metapees for extracting
the poisonous juice, and they still kept up some of their tribal customs, their
tribal laws, their tribal religion and—so Leon assured me in a whisper—they
still practised cannibalism at certain ceremonial feasts. Whether or not this was true I cannot say. I found no
evidences of the practice being in
vogue, and I had little more faith in Leon's
statement than in his tales of Jumbies. The Caribs did, however, sell their children, or perhaps better, hire them out. Beché had been purchased and was virtually
a slave—although a very well-treated one, and I came very near finding myself the owner of a member of the
tribe, despite my own wishes. The chief, an elderly fine chap, became
fascinated with a pair of scissors I was using, and as I had bestowed several
small gifts on Beché's parents and other members of the tribe, I presented the
scissors to the chief. The old fellow grunted, grinned, and hurrying off
returned presently leading a very pretty Carib girl, perhaps fifteen years of
age. Through the medium of Leon
as interpreter, he informed me she was his daughter and that she was mine in
exchange for the scissors.
In vain I protested and
declined to accept the girl, who
appeared to take the deal as a
matter of course. To the chief my protests meant merely that I was not satisfied
with the bargain, and he became
quite excited, declaring she was the
prettiest girl in the village, and
he appeared quite peeved and even insulted at my attitude. It would never do to
incur the displeasure of the chief, and something
had to be done which would satisfy all the
parties concerned. So I accepted my involuntary purchase, appeased the ruffled chief by giving him a file and a knife
for full measure, and, explaining that I could not be encumbered by the girl on my long trip to Morne Diablotin, I gave
her into her father's keeping until
I should return to claim her. Evidently Carib custom
provides that goods left unclaimed beyond a certain time can be disposed of,
for when I next visited La Soir, nearly twenty years later, I found my feminine
chattel married to a strapping Carib in whom
I failed to recognize my old friend Beché, and the
mother of several yellow-skinned
aborigines.
Needless to say I did not
claim her; but she recognized me, recalled the
incident, and laughed merrily over it, informing me that "M'sieu was very
stupid not to have known when he had such a good bargain." A statement
which amused Beché immensely.
