Our search for a wilderness

Toward dusk all the Swallows of the world—or so it appears—fly past in loose bands or singly, northward toward the eta bush to roost, hundreds and thousands of them—Red-breasted,123 Banded,118 Barn,121 Variegated119 and Tree120 Swallows with scores of the Gray-breasted Martins.122 Then the fishers of the savanna appear, looking whiter and more ghostly than ever, against the dark clouds; flock after flock flapping silently over: a score of Egrets32 in an irregular line, then a dozen more smaller troops; Wood Ibises28 higher up and beating heavily, then—and our pulses quicken—a half dozen great Jabirus30—slowly throbbing toward the sunset. The Ducks prefer the river, and above the fluid tide a living river of birds sets upstream, hosts passing until long after dark. We paddle in the early dusk to mid-stream and the whistling stream of Ducks curves gracefully upward, descending again when beyond us. As we go up or down river, we find the bend always overhead; when we leave the river, the host resumes its horizontal flow again. Faintly from behind the house, from the edge of the distant eta bush itself, comes in the evenings a low sound, gaining in volume until the syllables may be framed to human speech—Mo-hóo-ca! Mo-hóo-ca! and we are listening to the evening call of the Horned Screamer,41 a bird known to us only from books.

The night sounds from the lagoon are full of mystery. Sea-cows souse and roll in the river and apparently at the very landing. Otters play and cough and utter gasping sighs which make one’s flesh creep until we learn what they are. The legend of the Warracabra Tigers, which Waterton and all after him recount, may well have had its origin in these great river mammals, who are noisy, fearless and sometimes reach a length of six feet. A beautiful skin which I brought home measures five and a half feet from nose to tip of tail. Water-haas, or capybaras, probably add their share to the confusion, but the major part of the medley is due to crocodiles, who wait until night before beginning their active, noisy business of life, which, be it concerned with food, mate or play, requires a vast deal of splashing and bellowing. This latter is a deep abrupt roaring like the final roars of a lion’s cadence. An eight-foot crocodile was shot in the lagoon a few days before, or rather shot at, as the beast seemed to be none the worse.

Small wonder that, when we consider snakes, crocodiles, otters and voracious fishes, that the gentle Vicissi Ducks prefer the safer vegetation of the marsh itself! The real birds of night were few—but with voices weird and awesome, in perfect harmony with this unpeopled waste. A pair of Parauque-like beings who in uttering liquid accents reiterated their names, mingled with the ever tragic toned questioning of another Goatsucker, pleading with us to end his agonized uncertainty—Whó-are-yoú? Whó-are-yoú?

Early on the morning of our last day, April 15th, I awoke and peered out through the dimness of my muslin hammock net to catch the first hint of dawn. The east soon became lighter and the warp and woof of the cloth softened and disguised the scene which stretched before me from the edge of the veranda. As I lay there half awake, I seemed to see great towering moras, with their masses of dependent parasites, stretching high into the air. This passed, and the savanna became more distinct—the whistle of Ducks’ wings overhead was almost incessant, with now and then the note of a Hoatzin. Dull thuds indicating some one at labor behind the bungalow and the sound of low negro voices added to the imagery and I seemed to be with the black men three score years before, laboring at their island, fighting disease and starvation—harassed by heat, insects and reptiles; ever on the watch for their pursuing masters while the orange headed Vultures soared overhead, waiting for their turn which sooner or later would come.

A bit of comedy broke in upon my dream—the voices of the negroes from their hammocks at the other end of the porch became audible for a moment.

“Wont you tak’ a drink of sompfin to interact de cold?”

“No tanks, ah doesn’t stimulate.”

Parting my hammock net, I found my vision of jungle growth had been prompted by a great bank of black cloud, out of which the sun leaped at that instant and lighted up the beautiful green and blue of savanna and river. Little Green Herons38 were fishing at the water’s edge and a Jacana23 was leading her brood of three small chicks within a few feet of my hammock, down to a causeway of trembling lily pads. The youngsters were very tiny, clad in gray with a large black mark on the nape. Even in comparison with their mother their toes were of enormous length. They kept at her very heels and when she stopped for a moment crept beneath her wings. But at this concentration of weight the water would begin to trickle over the rim of the fragile pads and the mother would hurry on, flashing out the yellow of her wings every few steps, perhaps as a signal to her brood.

Why every chick is not snapped up by hungry crocodiles or other aquatic ogres is a mystery. Every morning this and several other bands, all of three, would thread their way across the lagoon to the reeds beyond.

After breakfast about 8 o’clock, while I was reconnoitering for the best place to begin trapping the Hoatzins, as we wished to take some home alive, tragedy came, sudden and unexpected. A single pitiful cry brought me back to the house in an instant, and there was Milady, who but a moment before had been happily planning with Crandall about preparations for trapping, lying with a broken wrist. A hammock in which she had seated herself for an instant had come untied and given way and it was a miracle that the seven foot drop backward to the ground had resulted in only one broken bone. Game little lady, her first words were, “Oh! we can’t get the Hoatzins”!

The remainder of that 15th of April will ever be a misty dream in my mind. We bandied no words as to the value of Hoatzins in particular, or the whole world of science in general, versus Milady’s hurt, but without confusion quickly organized our plan of action. I had the best corps of helpers one could want; Mr. and Mrs. Vinton, Crandall and Harry. One of us constantly dropped cold water on the injury, another threw together all our belongings; others worked like Trojans to assemble the launch engines, which had been taken apart for cleaning. In two hours we were on the throbbing little boat, passing the Hoatzins and hosts of Ducks with unseeing eyes.

Then two hours later at the railroad bridge came a quick run to the nearest telegraph office, where a sympathetic, 300 pound negro “mammy” presided over the instrument and wept copiously for the “po’ lil’ lady,” while she clicked out an urgent message for a special train. She said “Ah am too sorry for to heah dat bad news,” and when our procession drew up at her little house to wait for the train she called out to Milady the comforting information that “In der midst of life we are in death!” This greatly amused the sufferer, and we settled ourselves for the long wait. As long as one has something to do, any helpful work, to keep one’s hands or mind busy, it is an easy matter to control one’s feelings in a critical emergency. But when one must wait quietly for hours, the long period of inaction is maddening. We tramped up and down the track, telephoning every few minutes to locate the progress of the special along the line. Then Crandall spied a big yellow-tailed snake (Herpetodryas carinatus) crossing the track. Here was an excuse for working off surplus steam, and we both made a dash for it. Crandall caught it by the tail as it was disappearing into the brush and we had an exciting ten minutes getting it unharmed into a snake bag, the active creature succeeding in biting us twice before we muffled it. Visitors to the Reptile House of our Zoölogical Park little imagine, when gazing at this handsome creature, what a relief to our tense nerves its capture meant.

At last the special came in sight and we set out on the wildest of rides to Georgetown. Having seen Milady in a doze on a sofa in the train, Crandall and I climbed up to the railed-in roof of the car and, with the wind beating down our very eyelids, watched the narrow escapes of dogs, cows, donkeys and coolies, from the track at the approach of this unlooked for train. The yellow and scarlet Blackbirds blew up like chaff on either hand. Egrets, Ibises and Jabirus watched in amazement from afar, or flew hurriedly off at the long drawn-out siren whistle, which hardly ceased across the whole country.

We met the single afternoon train, side-tracked to let us pass, and then had an open road to Georgetown. Slowing down, we passed through the station, on through the streets, to within a half block of Mr. Vinton’s house.

Here good Dr. Law took charge and, ten hours after the accident, fitted the shattered bone so skilfully that hardly a trace remains of the bad colleus fracture. The patient had no temperature at the time of the operation, the only ill effect being a short, sharp attack of malaria. I cite all these details chiefly to show the falsity of most of the universal slanders on a tropical climate.

Nine days afterward on April 24th, we sailed from Georgetown, homesick with desire to remain longer in this wonderland. The three short expeditions we had made, served only to whet our eagerness to search deeper beneath the surface, and glean some of the more fundamental secrets which Nature still hides from us. But we had fulfilled the bush-proverb; we had “eaten of labba meat and drunk of river water” and we know in our hearts that some day we shall return.

Meanwhile the thought of that vast continent, as yet almost untouched by real scientific research; the supreme joy of learning, of discovering, of adding our tiny facts to the foundation of the everlasting why of the universe; all this makes life for us—Milady and me—one never-ending delight.