close one's eyes and
listen was almost to imagine oneself near the murmuring crowd of a
large city. It was the song of numerous frogs which inhabited a creek
near our _tambo_. Then I would hear four musical notes uttered in a
major key from the tree-tops close by, soon answered by another four
in a similar pitch, and this musical and cheerful(!) conversation was
continued all night long. The men told me that this was the note of
a species of frog that lived in the trees.

One day the jungle took the first toll from us. Young Brabo was very
low; I managed to stagger out of my hammock to give him a hypodermic
injection, but he was too far gone for it to do him any good. He
died in the early afternoon. We dug a grave with our machetes right
behind our _tambo_. No stone marks this place; only a small wooden
cross tied together with bark-strips shows where our comrade lies--a
son of the forest whom the forest claimed again.

The arrival of Death in our camp showed us all how far we were in
the grasp of actual, threatening danger. We stood about the grave in
silence. These men, these Indians of the Amazon, were very human;
somehow, I always considered them equals and not of an inferior
race. We had worked together, eaten and slept and laughed together,
and now together we faced the mystery of Death. The tie between us
became closer; the fraternity of common flesh and blood bound us.

The next day I arose and was able to walk around, having injected my
left arm with copious doses of quinine and arsenical acid. Borrowing
thus false strength from drugs, I was able, to some extent, to roam
around with my camera and secure photographs that I wanted to take
home with me to the States.

I had constructed a table of stalks of the _murumuru_ palm-leaves,
and I had made a sun-dial by the aid of a compass and a stick, much to
the delight of the men, who were now able to tell the hour of the day
with precision. The next day I had another attack of fever and bled
my arm freely with the bistoury, relieving myself of about sixteen
ounces of blood. Shortly after nine o'clock in the morning I heard
a shot which I recognised as being that of Jerome's muzzle-loader;
soon afterward he made his appearance with a splendid specimen of a
jet-black jaguar, killed by a shot behind the ear. He skinned it after
first asking me if I wanted to get up and take a photograph of it,
but I was too weak to do it and had to decline.

The Chief one day bro