which was fit to eat, at a great height upon the tree, but we had not the
strength to climb up or cut down that enormous tree.

All the visions of good meals which I had had until then had now vanished
altogether on that tenth day of fasting, and I experienced a sickly
feeling in my inside which gave me an absolute dislike for food of any
kind. My head was beginning to sway, and I had difficulty in collecting
my ideas. My memory seemed to be gone all of a sudden. I could no longer
remember in what country I was travelling, nor could I remember anything
distinctly. Only some lucid intervals came every now and then, in which I
realised our tragic position; but those did not last long, all I could
remember being that I must go to the west. I could not remember why nor
where I intended to come out.

Everything seemed to be against us. We were there during the height of
the rainy season. Towards sunset rain came down once more in bucketfuls
and lasted the entire night, the water dripping from our hammocks as it
would from a small cascade. We were soaked, and shivering, although the
temperature was not low. I had my maximum and minimum thermometers with
me, but my exhaustion was such that I had not the strength to unpack them
every night and morning and set them.

We crossed two streamlets flowing west. Benedicto and Filippe were in
such a bad way that it was breaking my heart to look at them. Every time
they fell down in a faint I never knew whether it was for the last time
that they had closed their eyes. When I felt their hearts with my hand
they beat so faintly that once or twice I really thought they were dead.
That day I myself fainted, and fell with the left side of my face resting
on the ground. When I recovered consciousness some time later, I touched
my face, which was hurting me, and found that nearly the whole skin of my
cheek had been eaten up by small ants, the lower lid of the eye having
suffered particularly. A nasty sore remained on my face for some two
months after that experience, the bites of those ants being very
poisonous.

Bad as they were, there is no doubt that to a great extent we owed our
salvation to those terrible ants. Had it not been for them and the
incessant torture they inflicted on us when we fell down upon the ground,
we should have perhaps lain there and never got up again.

I offered Benedicto and Filippe a large reward if they continued marching
without abandoning the precious load