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Cornugaya Directory 09
Page 05
As the river seemed to describe a big loop, I had left it three days
before, seeing plainly by the conformation of the country that we should
strike it again sooner or later. We were marching once more by compass.
My men, who had no faith whatever in the magnetic needle, were again
almost paralysed with fear that we might not encounter the stream again.
A thousand times a day they accused me of foolishness in leaving the
river, as they said it would have been better to follow its tortuous
course--notwithstanding the trouble we had in following it, owing to the
dense vegetation near the water--rather than strike once more across
country. They were beginning to lose heart altogether, when I told them I
could see by the vegetation that we were once more near the water.
Anybody accustomed as I am to marching through the forest could tell
easily by the appearance of the vegetation some miles before actually
getting to a stream.
We crossed two streamlets flowing west. Benedicto and Filippe were in
such a bad way that it was breaking my heart to look at them. Every time
they fell down in a faint I never knew whether it was for the last time
that they had closed their eyes. When I felt their hearts with my hand
they beat so faintly that once or twice I really thought they were dead.
That day I myself fainted, and fell with the left side of my face resting
on the ground. When I recovered consciousness some time later, I touched
my face, which was hurting me, and found that nearly the whole skin of my
cheek had been eaten up by small ants, the lower lid of the eye having
suffered particularly. A nasty sore remained on my face for some two
months after that experience, the bites of those ants being very
poisonous.
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