minute out of the way.

Eleven o’clock was always breakfast time. How those black men could paddle up against a strong current towing our smaller boat, from five o’clock to eleven with only a cup of tea was more than I could understand. Yet they did it, and worked well and never seemed hungry. At eleven we always went ashore and cooked breakfast, cakes, rice, boiled plantains, salt fish and tea. Then we would pile back into the boat again and keep on until just before sunset, trying to make a good landing in time to pitch camp before dark.

That long afternoon was tiresome to me. I scanned the deep foliage everywhere in hopes to see many wild beasts and reptiles. I recalled my school geography, with its woodcuts of jungles showing great alligators on the shores, giant boa constrictors writhing in trees, monkeys hopping from branch to branch and queer, bright-colored birds flitting about. This was jungle, surely enough, with such thick vegetation that only crawling things could penetrate it, yet for hours I saw no signs of life there. There were wonderful orchids that would, if they could be brought to New York, sell for fabulous sums. There were queer looking trees, great fronded palms, hanging moss as thick as large hawsers and other growing things that I knew nothing about.

In Georgetown I had heard tales of giant forty-foot snakes. I never saw one. I did catch a glimpse of a small snake which they told me was deadly poison. He was hanging from a limb over the water. We were paddling close inshore to avoid a current. One of the blacks saw it and in a flash knocked it far away into the stream with a blow of his paddle and kept on paddling, because to him this was a common incident. His eyes were trained to see such things.

That night we camped at Topeka Falls, or just below them, and the roar lulled me to sleep.

I discovered that the first part of our trip upriver was not as full of adventures as I had hoped. But adventure came in good time. The routine was the same, night after night, but there were many new things of interest to see, many narrow escapes and considerable trouble in one way and another. At this camping place I stripped and was about to take a swim.

“Hey, quit that,” shouted Lewis.

“I won’t hurt your old river,” I laughed.

“You won’t come out alive, sir,” said the captain.

“There isn’t an alligator or crocodile or whatever you call ’em in sight,” I insisted and started to dive. Jimmy restrained me.

“No go in. Fish eatum up,” he said.

I laughed at the idea of a fish eating me up. The captain tossed a salt fish into the water. There was a swish and a big fish came and grabbed it. I didn’t get a very clear look at the fish but he looked bigger than a whale and his teeth seemed altogether too prominent for me to fool with.

I discovered that the river was full of “perai,” a decidedly savage fish extremely fond of human beings. One of them will devour a man in a short while.

I gave up my plan of having a swim and Lewis and I satisfied ourselves by sitting on the edge of the small boat and splashing water over each other.

CHAPTER VII
MUTINY AMONG THE CREW

OUR fifth night was Saturday. We did not intend to travel or work on Sunday. We selected a splendid camp site. Heretofore the blacks had waited and given us the best camping place. But we had been treating them so well that they thought our kindness to them was not kindness at all, but fear of them. And so they started to make their shelter on the best spot.

“You can’t have that place,” I said.

“We got it,” grinned one of the men. Most of the others stuck by him. One or two slunk off.

“Go down there,” I commanded.

“We stay here,” he declared and stood his ground.

I was in an uncomfortable position. If I let them have their way this time there would be no living with them. If I got in a fight—they were, after all, twenty-two blacks to three whites—they could overpower us.

Suddenly I had a vision of how they would abuse us if I gave in. I could see them grinning at each other, believing that we were afraid of them. That situation would be unbearable. I turned on the black man and pointed with my left hand down the slope.

“Get down there and stay down!” I commanded.

“I won’t—”

He didn’t say any more. My fist shot out and took him under the ear and he went over like a stick of wood. Then I wheeled to face the others.

I really expected a fight, but the blacks stared at their fallen companion who rolled down the slope, their eyes bulging, and before I had time to bark out a short command for them to get out, they hastily snatched up their belongings and ran down the hill.

I stood there a moment, waiting to let my anger cool off a little to make sure that I would not say things or do things unnecessarily severe or that I would regret. Then I strode down to where they were grouped and where the first black was dazedly rubbing his chin. When they saw me approach they again dropped their things and started to run away.

“Don’t run. You are all right there,” I shouted. They paused and looked at me suspiciously.

“We are running this little outfit,” I said to them, pointing to Lewis, “and we are hiring you to work for us. You know your places. Keep them and you will get good treatment, otherwise you will be the sorriest niggers in British Guiana. For every wrong that you do, you shall be punished. For every good thing that you do you shall be rewarded. We are treating you kindly because it is the right thing to do, not because we are afraid of you. Your punishment for attempting to dispute our authority shall be to sleep to-night without your shelter cloth!”

Then I picked up their shelter cloth, turned my back on them and walked away. To be quite truthful, I was not a little frightened when I turned my back, fearing treachery, yet it was the only thing to do. I knew that I had to make them believe that I was without fear of them or of anything else, otherwise I would not win their respect or co-operation.

Meekly they arranged to hang their hammocks without the shelter cloth, seeming to take it for granted that they had this penalty coming to them for the way they had acted.

“You acted like a veteran explorer,” said old Captain Peter to me. “You did just right, boy. If you had given in they would not have worked, they would have stolen everything and they would have abused you during all the trip.”

Most of the white men that these native darkies knew had been of a rough sort, adventurous Dutchmen and others, who kicked them about and treated them without the least regard until the poor black boys—we call all blacks “boys”—thought that it was the white man’s natural way. When we showed kindness to them and full regard for their comfort they mistook it for fear. And, thinking that we were afraid of them, they decided to run things themselves. It did not take them long to learn that American white men are not brutes and that when they worked hard and acted on the square they would be treated with kindness. And I am sure no group of native blacks, as a whole, ever worked more faithfully than this bunch after they had learned their lesson. There are always a few exceptions. One or two became lazy, one or two tried to steal diamonds, later, but we had our