aid of everything.

One of the men had a toothache. His last tooth in the lower jaw was so
badly decayed that merely the outside shell remained. No doubt it gave
him great pain. I offered to remove it for him--without a guarantee of
painless extraction. The fear of greater pain than he endured--even for a
few minutes--was too much for him. He would not hear of parting with what
remained of the tooth. Result: for twelve consecutive days and nights
that fellow cried and moaned incessantly--holding his jaw with both hands
while riding a quiet mule, and sobbing _hai, hai, hai, hai!_ all day long
at each step of the animal--with variations of _hoi, hoi, hoi, hoi_, when
the mule went a little quicker, and significant loud shrieks of _uppeppe,
uppeppe, uppeppe_ when the animal began to trot, giving the rider an
extra pang. That intense pain invariably stopped at meal-times, and it
did not seem to have an appreciable effect on the man's ravenous
appetite. My men never let a chance go by to let their companions share
to the fullest extent in their sufferings. They had no consideration
whatever for other people's feelings. In all the months they were with me
they never once showed the slightest trace of thoughtfulness towards me,
or indeed even towards any of their comrades.

Mean to an incredible degree in their nature--and I am certain no one
could have been more generous than I was to them in every possible
way--they believed that no matter what I did was due to wishing to save
money. If I would not allow them to blaze away dozens of cartridges at a
rock or a lizard--cartridges were a most expensive luxury in Central
Brazil, and, what was more, could not be replaced--it was because I
wished to economize. If one day I ate a smaller tin of sardines because I
was not so hungry, remarks flew freely about that I was a miser; if I did
not pitch a tent because I preferred, for many reasons, sleeping out in
the open on fine nights, it was, according to them, because I wished to
spare the tent to sell it again at a higher price when I returned home!
They discussed these things in a high voice and in a most offensive way,
making my hands itch on many occasions and my blood boil. But I had made
up my mind that I would never lose my temper with them, nor my calm; and
I never did, trying as it was to keep my promise.

With all this meanness of which they were accusing me, these poltroons
were clothed in garments such as they had never bef