tarving men did not take our eyes off that meat
for a second until the man who was cooking it removed the stick and said
the meat was ready. We pounced upon it like so many famished tigers. The
meat was so hot that, as we tore away at the large pieces with our teeth,
our lips, noses, and fingers were absolutely burned by the broiling fat.

Dom Pedro Nunes gently put his hand in front of me, saying "Do not eat so
quickly; it is bad for you." But I pushed him away with what vigour I had
left. I could have killed anybody who had stood between that piece of
meat and me. I tore at it lustily with my teeth, until there was nothing
left of it.

By that time a large bag of _farinha_ had been spread before us. We
grabbed handfuls of it, shoving them into our mouths as fast as we could.

The sensation of eating--normal food--after such a long fast was a
delightful one. But only for a few moments. Pedro Nunes was just handing
me a cup of coffee when I dropped down unconscious, rejecting everything
with a quantity of blood besides.

When I recovered consciousness, Pedro Nunes said I had been unconscious
for a long time. They all thought I was dead. I felt almost unbearable
pain in my inside, and a lassitude as if life were about to be
extinguished altogether.

It was evidently the reaction, after eating too quickly--and I should
like to meet the healthy man who would not eat quickly under those
circumstances--and also the relaxation from the inconceivable strain of
so many weeks of mental worry.

I well remember how Pedro Nunes and his men, when standing around us just
as we began eating that first solid meal, had tears streaming down their
cheeks while watching us in our dreadful plight. Once more Pedro
Nunes--one of the most kindly men I have ever met--sobbed bitterly when
he asked me to take off my clothes and change them for the newer ones he
had given me. I removed from my pocket the contents: my chronometer, a
notebook, and a number of _caju_ seeds which I had collected, and which,
caustic or not caustic, would have been our only food until we should
have certainly perished.

We heard from Pedro Nunes that it would have taken us at least six or
seven days' steady walking before we could get to the first house of
rubber collectors. In our exhausted condition we could have never got
there. As for the damaged raft, it could not have floated more than a few
hours longer--perhaps not so long.

From the spot where I met Pe