Part 7 (2/2)

Of the still more distant consequences I cannot write, for the book of the future is tightly sealed. But we may recall that a trail once was cut through coa.r.s.e, high gra.s.s and belts of cedar, which in time became the Appian Way. And a herd of aurochs breasting in single file dense shrubby oaks and heather toward a salt lick may well have foreshadowed Regent Street; the Place d'Etoile was perhaps first adumbrated by wild boars concentrating on a root-filled marsh. And why should not the Indian trail which became a Dutch road and our Fifth Avenue, have had its first hint in a moose track down the heart of a wooded island, leading to some hidden spring!

We left our boats stranded on the Mazaruni River bank and climbed the steep ascent to our new home in the heart of British Guiana. Our outfit was unpacked, and the laboratory and kitchen and bedrooms in the big Kalac.o.o.n house were at last more than names.

And now we surveyed our little kingdom. One path led down to our boats, another meandered eastwards through the hills. But like the feathered end of the magnetic arrow, we drifted as with one will to the south.

Here at the edge of our cleared compound we were confronted by a tangle.

It was not very high--twenty feet or so--but dense and unbroken. Like newly trapped creatures we paced back and forth along it looking for an opening. It was without a break. We examined it more closely and saw a mult.i.tude of slender, graceful cane stems hung with festoons and gra.s.s-like drapery. One of us seized a wisp of this climbing gra.s.s and pulled downward. When he dropped it his hand dripped blood. He might as well have run a scroll saw over his fingers. The jungle had shown its teeth.

We laughed and retreated to the upper floor for consultation. The sight we saw there decided us. In the distance ”not too far,” to use the hopelessly indefinite Guiana vernacular, high over the tumbled lower growths towered the real jungle--the high bush. This was the edge of that mighty tropical ocean of foliage, that sea of life with its surface one hundred, two hundred feet above the earth, stretching unbroken to the Andes: leagues of unknown wonderland. And here we were, after thousands of miles of voyaging to study the life of this great jungle, to find our last few yards blocked by a ma.s.s of vegetation. There was no dissenting voice. We must cut a trail, and at once, straight to the jungle.

Before we begin our trail, it will be wise to try to understand this twenty-foot tangle, stretching almost a mile back from Kalac.o.o.n. Three years before it was pure jungle. Then man came with ax and saw and fire and one by one the great giants were felled--mora, greenheart, crabwood--each cras.h.i.+ng its way to earth after centuries of upward growth. The underbrush in the dark, high jungle is comparatively scanty.

Light-starved and fungus-plagued, the shrubs and saplings are stunted and weak. So when only the great stumps were left standing, the erstwhile jungle showed as a mere shambles of raw wood and shriveled foliage. After a time fire was applied, and quickly, as in the case of resinous trees, or with long, slow smolderings of half-rotted, hollow giants, the huge boles were consumed.

For a period, utter desolation reigned. Charcoal and gray ash covered everything. No life stirred. Birds had flown, reptiles and insects made their escape or succ.u.mbed. Only the saffron-faced vultures swung past, on the watch for some half-charred creature. Almost at once, however, the marvelous vitality of the tropical vegetation a.s.serted itself.

Phoenix-like, from the very heart of the ashes, appeared leaves of strange shape and color. Stumps whose tissues seemed wholly turned to charcoal sent forth advent.i.tious shoots, and splintered boughs blossomed from their wounds. Now was the lowest ebb of the jungle's life, when man for the success of his commercial aims, should take instant advantage.

But plans miscarried and the ruin wrought was left to nature.

The destruction of the jungle had been complete and the searing flames had destroyed all forest seeds. In their place, by some magic, there sprang up at once a maze of weeds, vines and woody shrubs, reeds, ferns and gra.s.ses, all foreign to the dark jungle and whose nearest congeners were miles away. Yet here were their seeds and spores, baffling all attempts at tracing their migration or the time they had laid dormant.

When we had begun to penetrate this newborn tangle we found it possible, by comparing various spots, to follow its growth in past time. The first things to appear in the burned jungle area were gra.s.ses or gra.s.s-like plants and prostrate vines. These latter climbed over the fallen tree-trunks and covered the charred stumps with a glory of blossoms--white convolvulus gleaming everywhere, then pale yellow allamandas, and later, orchid-like, violet, b.u.t.terfly peas which at first flowered among the ashes on the ground, but climbed as soon as they found support. Little by little, a five-finger vine flung whole chains of bloom over stumps, logs and bushes, a beautiful, blood-red pa.s.sion flower, whose buds looked like strings of tiny Chinese lanterns.

Soon another type of plant appeared, with hollow and jointed stems, pus.h.i.+ng out fans of fingered leaves, swiftly, wasting no time in branching, but content with a single spike piercing up through strata of gra.s.s and reeds, through shrubs and bushes until it won to the open sky.

This was the cecropia or trumpet tree, falsely appearing firm and solid stemmed, but quite dominant in the neglected tangle.

We started early one morning with small axes and sharp machetes, and single file, began to cut and hew and tear a narrow trail southward. For some distance we found almost a pure culture of the cecropia trees, through which we made rapid progress which aroused entirely false hopes.

It was a joy to crash obliquely through the crisp hollow stems at one blow from our great knives. The second man cut again at the base and the rest took the severed stems and threw or pushed them to one side, cutting away any smaller growths. We soon learned to be careful in handling the stems for they were sanctuary for scores of a small stinging ant, whose race had practiced preparedness for many generations and who rushed out when the stem was split by cutla.s.s or ax.

As we went on we learned that differences in soil which were not apparent when the great jungle covered everything, had now become of much importance. On high sandy spots the cecropias did not get that flying start which they needed for their vertical straightaway dash.

Here a community of hollow reeds or bamboo gra.s.s appeared from no one knows where. They had grown and multiplied until their stems fairly touched one another, forming a dense, impenetrable thicket of green, silicious tubes eight to twelve feet in length. These were smooth and hard as gla.s.s and tapered beautifully, making wonderfully light and strong arrows with which our Akawai Indians shot fish. Slow indeed was our progress through this. The silica dulled and chipped our blades and the sharp points of the cut stems lamed us at a touch.

But whatever the character of the vegetation, whether a tangle of various th.o.r.n.y nightshades, a grove of cecropias, or a serried phalanx of reeds, the terrible razor-gra.s.s overran all. Gracefully it hung in emerald loops from branch to branch, festooning living foliage and dead stump alike, with ma.s.ses of slender fronds. It appeared soft and loose-hung as if one could brush it away with a sweep of the hand. But it was the most punis.h.i.+ng of all living things, insidiously cutting to the bone as we grasped it, and binding all this new growth together with bands more efficient than steel.

An age-old jungle is kind to the intruder, its floor is smooth and open, one's footsteps fall upon soft moss, the air is cooled and shadowed by the foliage high overhead. Here, in this mushroom growth of only three years, our progress became slower and ever more difficult. Our hands bled and were cut until we could barely keep them gripped about the cutla.s.s handles; our trail opened up a lane down which poured the seething heat of the sun's direct rays; thorns penetrated our moccasins and ants dropped down our necks and bit and stung simultaneously with opposite ends of their anatomy. Five minutes' chopping and hacking was all that the leader could stand, who would then give way to another.

Fifty yards of a narrow lane represented our combined efforts the first day.

Direction was a constant source of trouble. Every three or four feet we had to consult a compa.s.s, so confusing was the tangle. Sudden gullies blocked us, a barren, half-open, sandy slope cheered us for a few yards.

It was nature's defense and excelled any barbed-wire entanglement I have ever seen at the battle-front.

Once I came to a steep concealed gully. The razor-gra.s.s had been particularly bad, giving like elastic to blows of the cutla.s.s and then flying back across my face. I was adrip with perspiration, panting in the heat when I slid part way down the bank, and chopping away a solid ma.s.s of huge elephant's ears, uncovered a tree-trunk bridging the swamp.

It brought to mind the bridge from Bad to Worse in the terrible Dubious Land. Strange insects fled from the great leaves, lizards whisked past me, hummingbirds whirred close to my face--the very sound seeming to increase the heat. I slipped and fell off the log, splas.h.i.+ng into the hot water and warm mud, and sat in it for a while, too f.a.gged to move.

Then the rest of the party came up and we clambered slowly to the top of the next rise, and there caught sight of the jungle's edge, and it seemed a trifle nearer and we went on with renewed courage. Shortly afterwards two of us were resting in a patch of reeds while the third worked some distance ahead, when there came a sudden low growl and rush.

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