Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/258

 226 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [October,

course it is impossible to get the Indians to do these little things without so much, explanation and showing as would require more exertion than doing them oneself. By dint, however, of another purge, an emetic, washing and bathing, and quinine three times a day, I succeeded in subduing the fever ; and in about four days had only a little weakness left, which in a day or two more quite passed away. All this time the Indians went on with the canoe as they liked ; for during two days and nights I hardly cared if we sank or swam. While in that apathetic state I was constantly half-thinking, half-dreaming, of all my past life and future hopes, and that they were perhaps all doomed to end here on the Rio Negro. And then I thought of the dark uncertainty of the fate of my brother Herbert, and of my only remaining brother in California, who might perhaps ere this have fallen a victim to the cholera, which according to the latest accounts was raging there. But with returning health these gloomy thoughts passed away, and I again went on, rejoicing in this my last voyage, and looking forward with firm hope to home, sweet home ! I, however, made an inward vow never to travel again in such wild, unpeopled districts without some civilised companion or attendant.

I had intended to skin the remaining turtle on the voyage and had bought a large packing-case to put it in ; but not having room in the canoe, it had been secured edgeways, and one of its feet being squeezed had begun to putrefy, so we were obliged to kill it at once and add the meaty parts to our stock of " mixira " (as meat perserved in oil is called), for the voyage.

We continued our progress with a most tedious slowness, though without accident, till we arrived on the 29th of October at the sitio of Joao Cordeiro, the Subdelegarde, where I intended staying some days, to preserve the skin and skeleton of a cow-fish. I found here an old friend, Senhor Joze" de Azevedos, who had visited us at Guia, now ill with ague, from which he had been suffering severely for several days, having violent attacks of vomiting and dysentery. As usual, he was quite without any proper remedies, and even such simple ones as cooling drinks during the fever were shunned as poison ; hot broths, or caxaca and peppers, being here considered the appropriate medicines. With the help of a few sudorifics and