Up the Mazaruni for Diamonds

In pidgin English we made the men understand that we wanted six of them to go up the river with us, some to help us hunt, some to build a "logie" for Lewis and myself.

The next two days our trip was disagreeable because of continued rains, but on the third day we camped at four-thirty close to a "path" that led to the largest Indian village. I...

For four long, busy months, we were to delve into that pebbly soil, and during that time I would also learn much of hunting and fishing that was strange indeed. I was especially...

In the morning I expected to start out, but learned that the cassava cakes must be made. The women had started the process the night before. But after that I frequently saw it m...

The "Big Bend" was a name to conjure with for Lewis and me, for away up the Mazaruni were the diamonds, where the river makes a sharp bend and begins to almost double in its tra...

The upper part of the Mazaruni River is no place for a white man to take up a permanent abode. Only once in a great while has a white man been known to live more than a year in...

The captain sat, complacently smoking, at the stern of the boat, the great steering paddle, tied to the stern with thongs, in his hands. He looked as bored as if crossing the st...

Those were thrilling words to me, for up just around the big bend in the Mazaruni River, which I have already described, lay our diamond fields, and while every inch of the seve...

It was at these times, as I soon learned, that there was much amusement to be had with these blacks. I learned of their many superstitions, their ambitions, likes and dislikes a...

By the time I had watched the cassava cake making process and examined the weapons in the village and noted almost everything of how they lived, the Indians were ready to go on...

That night we pitched camp on the left bank of the river. While preparing supper I was investigating the forest that circled the little clearing and almost jumped out of my skin...

"Here's a queer looking letter," I said to myself one day early in the spring of 1917. I could hardly make out the postmark. It was something of a surprise to receive a letter f...

Their home was not as far away as I had expected. But then, an Indian's "home" is easily made, consisting of some upright poles, roughly thatched with long marsh grass. Beneath...

It was the stentorian shout of Captain Peter. He was a human alarm clock. He never failed to awaken at the first gleam of daylight. In the tropics it does not come on with a slo...

Of course, once landed at the site of our diamond mine, we had to have a comfortable, permanent home. A "logie" it is called here, doubtless a corruption of the Italian "loggia"...

Sunday we sat about camp, reading and chatting for a while. Then we heard the peculiar roaring of the wild red baboons, and the blacks wanted to go into the jungle and shoot som...

Our fifth night was Saturday. We did not intend to travel or work on Sunday. We selected a splendid camp site. Heretofore the blacks had waited and given us the best camping pla...

Then we settled down to steady mining. We built a shed for our tools, and we got the hand pump out, we prepared sieves for jigging and we made "Long Toms" and swinging sieves, w...

"Some like a tall tree, some not so much," said Cavan. And then they discussed the snakes, how they encircle wild boars and other big animals and "squeeze 'em inter a pulp an' e...

Such food as could be eaten without cooking had been served and everyone was asleep except Jimmy, who awaited my coming, and tumbled me into a hammock beneath a canvas shelter....

There was no speeding up against the current, although the light canoe made better progress than our heavy boats. And then I heard a sound that made me think I was back home. It...

This was our fifth night of camping on the banks of the Mazaruni. We were to be two nights here, as we did not intend to travel or work on Sunday.

I was in excellent health. There seemed no danger at all and I believed that I could stay there three or four months longer. It is a great game, full of fascination. You get a f...

Sketch map _Frontispiece_ "Jimmy" _facing page_ 4 We Worked Steadily up the Dangerous River 20 A Jungle "Hotel" 20 Once in a While a Boat Shot Past Us 46 At Times a Portage Must...