The Lost World
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."