Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1042 mountains, our attention was attracted by the sound of shouting and a few minutes later the third—and what proved to be the last—relief expedition padded into camp. The men said that they had experienced great difficulty in crossing small streams now swollen by the torrents of rain into rivers of considerable size, and that they had been on the verge of turning back when they sighted our camp. In the light of what followed I find it ad- visable to state here that while we had care- fully estimated at San Juan the quantity of food necessary per man per diem and had made arrangements accordingly, we had overlooked the possibility of the packers eat- ing the food consigned for our party only for the reason that the cargadores had contracted to supply their own rations. But of the food which left San Juan in the three supply parties I doubt if fifty per cent. reached us, the boxes and sacks having been broken out and their contents eaten or destroyed. Much though we desired it, there was, of course, no redress and we could only un- load the packers and bundle them out of camp as quickly as possible, with instruc- tions to hurry the next load up to us. Just what transpired when these men returned to San Juan I have never been able to ascer- tain, but from reports I found in circula- tion on my return to Lima I believe that we were described as about to perish through our foolhardiness. This theory our agent apparently accepted with great alacrity, for his efforts to support us im- mediately ceased and were never resumed. I hope to meet the agent again some day. But although it was disappointing enough to find our food supplies cut in half, I shall never forget our anger and disgust when we discovered that the twenty-five rifles sent us were antiquated carbines, such as were manufactured shortly after the close of our Civil War. Closer inspection showed that only eight out of the twenty-five could be used at all, and these were none too trustworthy. The remainder we threw away rather than burden our men with weapons that were worse than useless. HOW IT FEELS TO STARVE LZ WAS not a pleasant outlook which con- fronted us now, only half supplied and half armed, and November sth found us with less than two days’ rations in front of Adventure the last and main mountain range, await- ing supplies two days overdue. Though we made every effort to bag game, the eighth saw us existing upon such herbs and grasses as were palatable and even cutting down palm trees to get the succulent green tip which appears at the “Y” of the tree, although continued eating of this was soon found to bring on a painful dysentery. I have often been asked as to why hunters. were not sent back over the trail in search of game, but you can not ask sick and emaciated men to do twice the amount of work they could do when they were well, and the fact that a rugged, food- less mountain range lay at our backs made the matter still more out of the question. We were now at an altitude of five thou- sand feet and to descend to the three-thou- sand-foot level would be at least a four days’ journey, so that it seemed the part of reason to stay where we were and wait for the next provision train. But the train never came, and on the tenth we found starvation staring us in the face. Other things may pass out of my memory in time, but I shall never forget the misery of that awful period of waiting. And yet I think that it is on the second and third day of a fast that the pangs are strong- est. On the fourth day the pains seemed to diminish, and a kind of dull numbness takes their place. Of all our party Lewis seemed to feel his hunger most, although another white man who had come up with the rifle party was also in a bad way. This man was James McRea, who had been a cook for Brown down in Bolivia and had arrived in San Juan too late to join our party at the outset. The exquisite Irony of having obtained a professional cook at just that time did not appeal to us till later. McRea was a short, red-headed Irishman and was by trade, I think, a beach-comber. He was such a character as you could pick up on Kearney Street on any good day before the Fire, ready at a moment’s notice to enter into any project no matter how fantastic or lurid, provided it was venture- some. Like many of his confréres he claimed to be possessed of the gift of tongues. Eight of these tongues, however, seemed to be pure dialect and were quite unintelligible. Brown, also, said that he had never met any one who understood them. Originally, McRea came from C© MICLOOKS ©