Up The Mazaruni For Diamonds - free ebook by William La Varre

UP THE MAZARUNI FOR DIAMONDS

BY WILLIAM J. LAVARRE VETERAN SCOUT BOSTON MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 1919 COPYRIGHT · 1919 BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A To My Mother and Father...

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FOREWORD

LaVarre is adventuring in the right spirit. His diamond hunting is instructive as well as interesting. He has brought back from the field information which will help others who intend to traverse similar trails. Though younger than most explorers he has carefully endeavored to prepare himself for the field by study and travel. He believes in the theory of hard work and preparedness, the essentials of the successful explorer. In these days when there is so much endeavor which seems to be for the

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CHAPTER I “ARE YOU GAME TO TRY IT?”

“HERE’S a queer looking letter,” I said to myself one day early in the spring of 1917. I could hardly make out the postmark. It was something of a surprise to receive a letter from British Guiana, as I finally deciphered it, but the contents were even more surprising. The letter was from my friend Dudley P. Lewis. “I need a partner in a diamond mining venture,” he wrote. “Are you game to try it out with me? It will be a long trip full of adventures and dangers, but there are diamonds here to be

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CHAPTER II “IN THE LAND O’ MAZARUNI”

EAGERLY I scanned the waters and either shore, determined that nothing should escape me, that I should see everything and enjoy all that there was to be enjoyed. The captain sat, complacently smoking, at the stern of the boat, the great steering paddle, tied to the stern with thongs, in his hands. He looked as bored as if crossing the street to buy an evening paper. How could he, when there was such glorious adventure, I wondered. But afterwards I realized that twenty years of navigating the riv

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CHAPTER III A FIRE BOAT AND A NATIVE WEDDING

THERE was no speeding up against the current, although the light canoe made better progress than our heavy boats. And then I heard a sound that made me think I was back home. It was the “put—put—put” of a gasoline motor. I was amazed. “Fire boat,” grunted one of the black men. I hailed it. A Dutchman answered and came over to us. It was an ordinary native boat to which he had attached one of those portable motors which may be put on any boat. He was going upstream and gladly took us in tow, much

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CHAPTER IV JUNGLE DAYS BEGIN

SUCH food as could be eaten without cooking had been served and everyone was asleep except Jimmy, who awaited my coming, and tumbled me into a hammock beneath a canvas shelter. I suppose I had slept many hours but it seemed no more than five minutes before I was awakened and crawled out for breakfast. The camp kitchen had been set up, the blacks had already eaten and were getting the boats ready. Our breakfast consisted of boiled rice, salt fish and biscuits. The second day up the river was unev

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CHAPTER V GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE NATIVES

IT was at these times, as I soon learned, that there was much amusement to be had with these blacks. I learned of their many superstitions, their ambitions, likes and dislikes and much of the customs of that wild country that could never be learned in any other manner. This I learned both by means of questions and by listening carefully as they talked to each other. Their English was about as easy to understand as that of the Southern Georgia darkey, when they cared to talk it. A “Dodo” they tol

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CHAPTER VI LIFE ON THE RIVER

“DAYLIGHT ! Daylight!” It was the stentorian shout of Captain Peter. He was a human alarm clock. He never failed to awaken at the first gleam of daylight. In the tropics it does not come on with a slow pink dawn as here, but seems to burst through the gray morning sky in a flash. There was a scramble everywhere and all tumbled out of the hammocks. Camp fires were lighted, tea was boiling and in a short time everyone was getting into the boat. The natives had our shelters down while we were drink

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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 t

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CHAPTER VIII THE GLORIOUS FOURTH

THIS was our fifth night of camping on the banks of the Mazaruni. We were to be two nights here, as we did not intend to travel or work on Sunday. By the time we had our shelters erected and this little mix-up with the blacks had been settled, Lewis suddenly looked up from his notebook in which he was keeping a sort of journal, and said, “Say!” “Say it,” I remarked, lazily, from my hammock where I was resting. “Whoop-ee!” shouted Lewis, leaping to his feet. “What’s got you?” I demanded. “Is it a

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CHAPTER IX BABOON FOR DINNER

SUNDAY we sat about camp, reading and chatting for a while. Then we heard the peculiar roaring of the wild red baboons, and the blacks wanted to go into the jungle and shoot some, as these men are extremely fond of the meat. Off a party of us went, through the thick jungle and into the more open forests on the uplands back from shore. Again I kept my eyes open for the giant snakes I had been told about. But I saw none. Finally some of the blacks, circling ahead, came upon some of the red baboons

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CHAPTER X IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY

OVER the Caburi Falls we found a broad expanse of still water, smooth and, while the current was fairly swift, by no means like the treacherous rapids below. “Better navigating now, until almost up to the Big Bend, sir,” said Captain Peter. The “Big Bend” was a name to conjure with for Lewis and me, for away up the Mazaruni were the diamonds, where the river makes a sharp bend and begins to almost double in its tracks. This is due to the hilly formation and the lowlands between the hills. “This

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CHAPTER XI “UNCIVILIZED,” BUT COURTEOUS, QUIET AND CLEAN

THAT night we pitched camp on the left bank of the river. While preparing supper I was investigating the forest that circled the little clearing and almost jumped out of my skin when I heard, in soft voices, either side of me, the word “Me-a-ree.” I am sure I jumped a couple of feet straight up. There, standing right beside me, were two of our Indian friends. They grinned at my fright. Such good woodsmen are they that they can come upon a person without making a sound. Their naked bronze bodies

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CHAPTER XII A VISIT TO A NATIVE HOME

THEIR home was not as far away as I had expected. But then, an Indian’s “home” is easily made, consisting of some upright poles, roughly thatched with long marsh grass. Beneath this they place their belongings and they sleep in hammocks at night. The forests are full of little colonies or villages back from the river. They hide well back, along small streams, to secrete their camp fires from river travelers. Our friends had moved along by land as we moved by water and this night they joined some

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CHAPTER XIII THE SNAKE THAT DISAPPEARED

THAT night Cavan remarked that we were now getting into the big snake district. “Big snake feller here plenty. Sho’ he scar’ yo’,” said Cavan. “How long?” I asked. “Some like a tall tree, some not so much,” said Cavan. And then they discussed the snakes, how they encircle wild boars and other big animals and “squeeze ’em inter a pulp an’ eat ’em.” It was interesting, but I found myself looking out into the jungle and imagining that every branch I could see was a giant snake. That night I was awa

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CHAPTER XIV DIFFICULTIES OF JUNGLE TRAVEL

THE next two days our trip was disagreeable because of continued rains, but on the third day we camped at four-thirty close to a “path” that led to the largest Indian village. I was determined to visit it and pictured quite a little town. We could see the tall column of smoke from their fires. My companion and I were so eager to get to this village next morning that we did not wait to eat, but, taking a handful of food, set out with one Boviander to carry a knife and lantern. For the first time

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CHAPTER XV HOSPITALITY OF THE JUNGLE FOLK

IN pidgin English we made the men understand that we wanted six of them to go up the river with us, some to help us hunt, some to build a “logie” for Lewis and myself. They agreed to go, but when we suggested that we start right away, they declined. We must wait another day. They could not set out without a supply of cassava, which is to them what our bread is to us, the staff of life. And they declared it too late to venture into the jungle, so we had to arrange to stay with them over night. Th

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CHAPTER XVI CASSAVA CAKES AND BLOW-PIPES

IN the morning I expected to start out, but learned that the cassava cakes must be made. The women had started the process the night before. But after that I frequently saw it made and the process is interesting. Cassava is a root, something like a large turnip, yet longer and more in the shape of an immense sweet potato. The inside is quite white and somewhat soft, a trifle “woody,” like a turnip that we would throw away. These roots grow wild. There is no cultivating necessary, although in som

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CHAPTER XVII ON THE MARCH AGAIN

BY the time I had watched the cassava cake making process and examined the weapons in the village and noted almost everything of how they lived, the Indians were ready to go on with us. They had been eating all night as I explained. Now they took a hasty farewell drink of that pink stuff, cassiri, and took a large mouthful of cassava cake; their baskets were already packed for travel, and so we started. But did they carry their baskets? No indeed! That would have been a disgrace, like a man wash

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CHAPTER XVIII ARRIVAL AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS

NEXT morning the sun was shining brightly. The Indians were coming in from a hunting trip with game. Our blacks had finished their tea and crackers, the shelters were coming down and soon we would be on the way up the river. “We ought to make the big bend by to-morrow,” said Captain Peters. Those were thrilling words to me, for up just around the big bend in the Mazaruni River, which I have already described, lay our diamond fields, and while every inch of the seventeen days’ boat trip up this m

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CHAPTER XIX HOW THE NATIVES HUNT AND FISH

FOR four long, busy months, we were to delve into that pebbly soil, and during that time I would also learn much of hunting and fishing that was strange indeed. I was especially interested in the manner in which the Indians get fish by poisoning them. Of course that seems very unsportsmanlike to us at home, but remember that these natives do not hunt and fish for the sport of it, but to live . And then, bear in mind that while we have telescope steel rods and artificial bait and ball bearing aut

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CHAPTER XX PICKING UP JUNGLE LORE

THE upper part of the Mazaruni River is no place for a white man to take up a permanent abode. Only once in a great while has a white man been known to live more than a year in that climate. I have heard of one or two who lived there for several years, but they finally died. It is a strange thing the lure of fortune. Such men know full well that no white man can escape death if he stays there for much more than six months. Yet each individual seems to feel that he will manage in some way to esca

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CHAPTER XXI THE FIRST DIAMOND!

OF course, once landed at the site of our diamond mine, we had to have a comfortable, permanent home. A “logie” it is called here, doubtless a corruption of the Italian “loggia” which has as its equivalent in English the word “lodge.” Strictly speaking, a logie is a building that is partly open at the sides and consists of more veranda than closed in room. Ours we had built so that it could be closed in, but except in driving rains the sides were always open. We could screen them to keep out mos

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CHAPTER XXII HOW THE PRECIOUS STONES ARE FOUND

THEN we settled down to steady mining. We built a shed for our tools, and we got the hand pump out, we prepared sieves for jigging and we made “Long Toms” and swinging sieves, washing troughs and all the necessary apparatus. If you had happened to come across our outfit it would have seemed very crude to you. Rough washing boxes, rough troughs through which we turned water, shapeless holes in the ground partly filled with water, great heaps of worthless gravel, the dismal sucking sound of the ol

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CHAPTER XXIII GOOD-BYE TO THE JUNGLE

I WAS in excellent health. There seemed no danger at all and I believed that I could stay there three or four months longer. It is a great game, full of fascination. You get a few diamonds to-day. Next day less, next day more, next day scarcely any, next day a big one, and so on. Always it is “To-morrow we may get a ten carat stone,” or “To-morrow we may pull a fistful out of one ‘baby,’” and so the temptation is great to stay on and on. At the rate that we were gathering in diamonds it seemed t

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