CHAPTER XX

_PICKING UP JUNGLE LORE_

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 that climate. I have heard of one or two who lived there for several years, but they finally died. It is a strange thing the lure of fortune. Such men know full well that no white man can escape death if he stays there for much more than six months. Yet each individual seems to feel that he will manage in some way to escape the dread and deadly jungle fever. He is having good luck getting diamonds, he stays on and on for "just a few more, just a few more," so that he may go back wealthy, and then comes the fever and either death or a quick get-away. I could not then foresee the danger that faced me and was to bring a sudden end to my own adventures in the wilds.

Most white men have to use quinine continually. Dud. Lewis took quantities of it every day. He took so much that it made him temporarily deaf. I was afraid to take too much of it as I didn't care to become deaf nor did I want the headaches that it frequently caused. Of course I took some from time to time, but in small quantities.

One great trouble was our lack of fresh water. We had only the river water and it was dangerous to drink that without purifying it. The Indians and even the blacks seemed to get along well enough on it and would drink right out of the river.

We had "steel drops" with us, a highly concentrated form of iron. One drop in a gallon of water was sufficient to remove the danger of disease from drinking the water. We also used bits of rusty iron. By keeping these in the water it was fairly safe, but it was always muddy. And it was always warm. I learned to get used to it. We used to keep it in jars and pails with a wet cloth over it in order to cool it.

While there were a few poisonous snakes about, they seemed no more plentiful than are the rattlesnakes, copperheads and moccasins in certain parts of the United States, and we had no trouble with them. I never saw any of the big boa constrictors or other snakes, that I had been told about, but presume there were plenty of them in the deep marshlands if one cared to hunt the reptiles.

Frequently I had seen Indians gliding about the river in the most peculiar and frail looking craft I had ever beheld.

"Make um woodskin," the Indians told me.

I examined one and it was nothing more than the bark of a tree. Not at all like the birch bark used by our Indians, nor like rough elm bark, but more like the tough, smooth bark of the basswood or ironwood trees at home.

One time I was fortunate enough to see and photograph the whole process of woodskin canoe making. I went with the Indians back somewhat from the water to where they had located a giant woodskin tree. These trees start at the base with mammoth trunks, which taper up for fifteen feet or more before they continue as a straight and rather symmetrical trunk. The bark of the tapering part is useless in canoe making and so the Indians build a frail platform or foot rest of poles that will enable them to reach the straight, even part of the trunk with an axe. Standing there they soon have the tree felled. But before it falls they build a supporting frame so that it will not lie on the ground, because if this heavy tree were resting its weight on the ground it would be impossible to remove the bark.

When the tree is down and resting on the frames upon which it fell, the Indians arrange poles that will enable them to stand and reach one side. They cut the bark clear around the tree at the length which they wish for the canoe, then they slit the bark in an even line between the two cuts and gradually pry it off, putting in braces until it is wedged open sufficiently to slip off the trunk.

Two braces are then fitted into this, and it is left to dry; as the drying takes place the ends are drawn up a little. That is all there is to it. The canoe is ready for ordinary smooth water traveling, once it is dry, for in the shrinking the braces are so wedged in that they will never pull out. For smooth water paddling the canoe is left with both ends open. But for rough water, in currents and rapids, it is necessary to stop up each end with a sort of vegetable wax drawn from trees much as we get pitch from pine. This wax hardens and thus closes the ends.

There were many things to learn before we were quite comfortable. We had learned how to keep our food, how to have the Indians hunt and cut wood for us, which was all the work they did. For this they were paid the equivalent of $10 a month each, and clothing and lodging. They wouldn't mine--at least there are few Indians who will mine. They would rather have an old red flannel shirt than a peck of diamonds.

We learned about keeping iron in the drinking water and we put tin grease cups on all of the supporting poles of our logie, and of all buildings and shelters, to keep out the stinging ants and other insects.

These insects were decidedly troublesome and we had to keep constant watch of ourselves to prevent serious trouble with them. There is an especially large mosquito which not only stings fearfully but deposits larvae beneath the skin. It is almost impossible to notice this at the time but it soon becomes a live worm in there, and then a great sore breaks out, caused by the bug so that he can crawl out and grow into a mosquito and sting someone else, and start another bug, and so on.

Worse than this were the "nail beetles." These chaps bore beneath the finger nails and toe nails. They do this boring so cleverly that frequently one does not feel it at all. They, too, deposit larvae, and the result is extremely dangerous as great sores come up beneath the nails and one is likely to lose not only the nail, but the finger or toe from blood poisoning, if even worse effects from the poisoning do not set in.

We used a ten per cent solution of carbolic acid as a preventive. Constant watchfulness was the price of freedom from becoming nesting places for 'skeeters and bugs.

If we had food in kettles we had to set the legs in cups of oil to keep out the bugs.

Not far from where our mine is located is the property of the late Major John Purroy Mitchel, former mayor of New York City and later an aviator, who was killed while in training at a Southern aviation field. He knew this country well and had had many adventures down through here where he had considerable success in mining diamonds.