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Amber Waves Directory 03
Page 02
I ARRIVED in Manaos in the evening of November 15th. I was very ill indeed, my right foot so swollen that I could hardly stand on it, and so painful that I could not put on a shoe or even a slipper, so that I had to hop about with only a sock over it. The doctor on board had told me that I was suffering from beri-beri, and although I tried not to believe him I was gradually forced to the conclusion that he was right. In fact, atrophy set in by degrees--one of the characteristics of beri-beri being that after a time you feel no pain at all. You can dig a pin into the affected part, or pluck off all the hairs without feeling the slightest pain. I was in a bad way, although I never laid up for an entire day. From the moment I arrived I "got busy," to use an American expression, in order to go to the rescue of Filippe the negro and another man I had left in charge of my valuable baggage near the mouth of the Canuma River, a tributary of the Madeira. It was necessary for me to borrow or charter a steam launch for one or two days, so that I could save men and baggage. I applied to the Governor of the Amazonas, who had received telegraphic instructions from the Central Government to give me every possible assistance. When I called upon him he said he was not the "black servant" of the President of the Republic; that he was practically an independent ruler, and would obey nobody's orders or instructions, especially from the Central Government.
It is, however, strange to reflect how weak man's imagination is when it comes to deal with what is beyond him, how little able he is to devise anything that he desires to do when he has escaped from life. The unsubstantial heaven of a Buddhist, with its unthinkable Nirvana, is merely the depriving life of all its attributes; the dull sensuality of the Mohammedan paradise, with its ugly multiplication of gross delights; the tedious outcries of the saints in light which make the medieval scheme of heaven into one protracted canticle--these are all deeply unattractive, and have no power at all over the vigorous spirit. Even the vision of Socrates, the hope of unrestricted converse with great minds, is a very unsatisfying thought, because it yields so little material to work upon.
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