The Sea and the Jungle

We reached another and greater tributary of the Madeira, the Rio Jaci-Parana. Here there was a very extensive clearing as great as the one at Porto Velho. The bridging of the Ja...

"Moffat yelled, and ran down to the surf, but the nigger kept right on. There was Moffat up to his knees in the water, and in a fine state. The boat reached the schooner--and no...

"'You and your policeman,' she said. 'Look now, my dandy boy, and see more than your money's worth.' And she rubbed the glass again. Then Jack took another look. It was a dull d...

Below my rock, on the land side--to which I had turned my back--was a monstrous cesspool. It was in the centre of the village. It was the capital of all flies, and the source an...

And at last there were the huts and tents of the Caracoles, still and quiet under the vertical sun. No train was there, nor did it look a place for trains. My steamer was sixty...

I prided myself on the select reading I had brought aboard with me. But what devilish black art the sea air worked on those choice volumes, however, I cannot explain. I have no...

Seeing we were almost off Madeira we had some amount of right to the July sun under which we had run. For the first time since the Mumbles our decks were quite dry, and cherry r...

He was pointed out to me first as a singular fellow who kept doves; a tall, gaunt man, with a deliberate gait, perhaps fifty years of age, in old garments, long boots laced to t...

"I went. There was nothing to see, except a slit-eyed tigress sitting up in a corner of her cage, blinking at the lantern, and looking rather spooky. A rather small creature, an...

The contours of this predatory fish express extraordinary speed and power, and its armed mouth has been upturned by Providence the better to catch the flying fish as they drop b...

I fought one side of the door, and the wind fought the other. My hurry to open the door was great, but the obstinate wind jammed it firmly. Without warning the wind released its...

There is no doubt the forest influences our moods in a way you at home could not understand. Our minds take its light and shade, and just as our little company, gathered in the...

_Jan. 29._ When shouting awakened me this morning I saw the Chief hurry by my cabin, half-dressed, and looking very anxious. By the almost stationary foliage I could see the shi...

For me, I was in no mood to discuss whether balm is to be got in Gilead, when we come to the place; but stumbling among the lumber on the deserted deck of the S.S. "Capella," I...

In the low ground beyond Porto Velho up stream there was another place in the forest where sometimes we would go, the approach to it being through a deep cutting made by the rai...

The Doctor was on the Skipper's right hand, and the Purser next to the Doctor, and on the opposite side, the chief mate. There was the plump and bald-headed German steward, in w...

We continued our walk, entering the forest again on another path. Here the growth was secondary, and the underbush dense on both sides of the trail. The voices of the village st...

Being the narrative of the voyage of the tramp steamer _Capella_ from Swansea to Para in the Brazils, and thence 2000 miles along the forests of the Amazon and Madeira Rivers to...

Yet it must be said that if ever men should have honour for holding to a duty when it was far more easy, and even more reasonable, to leave it, then I submit the claim of those...

Under the shadow of the awning aft, in his deck chair, the Doctor is preparing our defences by sounding a profound volume on tropical diseases. This gives us but little confiden...

_Jan. 25._ We had been under way for more than an hour when my eyes opened on the illuminated panorama of leaves and boles unfolding past the door of my cabin. The cicadas were...

We returned to the steamer in the late afternoon, bringing with us two Brazilian pilots, who were to take us as far as Itacoatiara. We sailed next morning for the interior. Para...

"In two hundred miles we reached a clearing. Why it should have been at that particular place did not show. But there it was, the tangible link in an invisible, encompassing sch...

Suddenly the sunrise ran a long band of glowing saffron over the shadow to port, and the vague summit became remarkable with a parapet of black filigree, crowns and fronds of pa...

But he knew, when they did not, that there was but one more day to tick off the calendar to complete the exile. He had turned back that day to the earlier pages of the diary and...