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THE ELUSIVE TRAIL.

BY CYRIL W. DAVSON.

XIII. THE RETURN JOURNEY.

KNOWING how to rest is a great art. Merely conserving one's energy, refraining from using it, is the negative method of the sluggard. Yet we cannot exactly generate it. We must absorb it from nature, and the body will do that if the mind is at peace. The blood will flow if the arteries and nerves are not tensed by mental obstructions. "Let not the sun go down on thy wrath." No, nor your worries. A single day is a gift; take it as such, and leave the morrows to themselves. I think our mental outlook is much what we make it, and largely irrespective of conditions or countries. Emerson says no change of climate will ever hide a defect in character. Parallax and astigmatism have their origin frequently in the soul. The mind can squint as well as the eye, and when it does, the whole man is askew. Self-discipline is the only discipline, but it does not mean a military attitude of mind, a mere parade of precision. Nature doesn't strut, yet she is precise and orderly. She lives in the present with Time. I will not say that she does not look ahead, but she certainly does not run ahead, and that's what Chatsworth was always doing. He

did not merely, like the conscientious man he was, think out the morrow's work, but tried to snatch at it that very night before time had ripened it on the slow tree of Cause and Effect. He lived ahead of time. The nights were wasted hours. He must push on-he had work to do. So has Nature-vast work, but she never hurries. Thus he used to pass from Mosquitia in the day, to Insomnia at night, a hard and sleepless land, where the stars shine like cold unsympathetic gems, and where mind and body are drained of their energy.

The next day we journeyed

on. Chatsworth was listless, but did not show it. Stern discipline braced his nervesmind over matter, but that's the snag. Matter always wins when time is her ally. Our pace got slower; we were now behind the great lagoon. The country was sodden. The animals began to labour through the marshy land; then a few steps; their feet sank into the treacherous ground, and a dead stop. They could not go a step farther. They would break their legs. We must turn back or walk, and Chatsworth's condition did not warrant the latter. Moreover, there

was the problem of food.
man could not carry that pack-
ing-case for days and days
through a marsh, and there
lay our prime error. We ought
to have accustomed ourselves
previously to living on black
beans; then had they suited
us, we could have attempted
that further journey. Our own
foods were palatable but not
portable, and under these con-
ditions such a drastic change of
diet could easily have caused
serious mental and physical
reactions.

A civilisation. About turn! And
we tramped our weary way
through that mire back to
the horses. A slow jaunt for
many hours brought us past
our balmy resting-place of the
previous night, and finally we
set up camp near the river.
In the morning we reached
the Patuca, stepped on board
the launch, and puffed slowly
upstream, closely examining the
banks, and effecting a landing
now and again to search for
some scrap of evidence. By
this means we were able to
explore considerably farther up
the river, but it was gradually
getting shallower. Then a
bump, and we stuck! We
managed to get her off again
and continue the journey,
threading our
way between
the shoals which were spread-
ing across the whole river, but
eventually we were obliged to
turn. To have gone farther
up into the rising country
would have been a big task,
paddling in canoes and con-
tinually hauling them over
shoals, for our purpose not an
economic proposition.

In the distance we saw a village squatting by the side of a big swamp, whose iridescent and slimy waters stared at us like a huge eye. Leaving the muleteers in charge of the animals, we all started off on foot to visit it. One could hardly hope in such a spot for geological exposures, but you never quite know. It was farther than it looked, and we arrived bathed in perspiration. The village was deserted. There was only one grimy inhabitant -the half-eaten carcase of a dog. At our approach a flapping of wings, and several dark objects flew away. Nature's sanitary squad. The nomads had gone-gone before starvation had exterminated them and spreading their filthy litter like some eczema over the fair face of the wilderness. But enough of this No Man's Land, since we could not go on nor pry beneath that impenetrable cloak. We would hie ourselves back to

So we swung round, and crept slowly and cautiously through the shoals to the open river, where, under the influence of current and motor, away we sped. At this pace we did not take many hours to reach the Toum Roum, the tributary which we had previously travelled up with such labour. Now across Brewer's Lagoon, and by evening we arrived at our pestilential spot

The of utter desolation, and blinked right into the last rays of bleary sunlight. Nausea's a frightful thing.

on the outlet entrance. banks of the lagoon were steep just here, and there was a swell which one moment brought the launch a few feet from dry land, and the next away out again. It was a detestable motion, like a Charleston, but all the time with one leg. You can't anchor even a small ship when she keeps flying up and down a bank like this. Moreover, the tide was going down, and if we did not effect a landing we should soon be farther off than ever. I lay below in the tiny cabin, rolling about like a disused log. Chatsworth, as usual, braced himself up, climbed nattily on to the foot or two of deck space, and stood there silhouetted against the sunset. Then a well-timed leap, and he was clear away on the shore. I, on the other hand, although endowed with a well-balanced mind, have a poor temperament, which at times holds me, stands me still, and then lets me down. When I feel squeamish I have no courage. It's well to know oneself and to decipher the defects in one's character, but not perhaps to delineate them too harshly. Crows' feet and ledger lines may be truth, but they are not art. Even a photograph has to be titivated. How much more so a tale!

"Heh!" I heard Chatsworth's pert cry, "Come on if you're coming."

I clambered up, arrived on deck on all-fours, the picture

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But my mouldy brain held me hesitating a few seconds, and I leapt out of step with this lunatic dancing partner to whom I was clinging, and went deep down into the lagoon. The muddy waters rose nearly to my shoulders, and the next swell tossed me like an ungainly frog on to the sand.

Chatsworth laughed, what I thought for him was a little immoderately.

That night we accepted the hospitality of the Englishspeaking native, as we did not want to unload our camp-beds, &c., off the launch just for one night, and it didn't really matter whether you camped out here on the sands or slept inside the only hut. The torment of insects was the same everywhere. I had a sore foot. That tramp through the marshes had opened an already raw place, and I could now hardly walk. We were back some days before the appointed time, and there was, of course, no sign of our mules.

"I tell you what," said Chatsworth; "you go along the coast in the launch with Roatan and get him to drop you close to the prominence where the surveyor's got his

we

was

camp, and I'll foot it along the sunlight, leaving nothing but shore with Valdo until an iridescence bathed in salt meet the mules." It seemed, spray. There was not a ripple seeing the state of my foot, to on the water, just a gentle be the only feasible solution. undulation. The ocean sighing as we ploughed our liquid furrow. We made rapid progress, and towards 2 or 3 P.M. sighted that rocky prominence where the surveyor's camp was situated, and at about 4 P.M. we steered in as close to the shore as possible, to hail the Caribs who were fishing and swimming. A couple of those sportsmen were soon making for us in a dugout canoe. Wishing Roatan and the crew a safe trip back to their island home, I watched my chance, and this time slipped nimbly into the dancing craft at my feet, and away we went.

The next morning, therefore, I limped through the prickly cactus bushes and down to the water's edge. The lagoon was quite calm. One of the crew carried me across the intervening space of muddy waters, and I clambered on to the launch. The engine was started, and, making a big sweep to avoid the shallow banks, the craft shot off into the centre of the swift outlet. There on the right was the long sand-bar, ending in a hazy perspective, from which the morning mists had barely been dispelled. The funny old sun was hanging a few feet above the sea, just as if it had been hauled up and left there. A shoal of birds came screaming past our tiny ship as ebb and engine bore us seawards. Over the bar at the mouth of the outlet, and then the urge of an unseen hand, which pushed us racing onwards into the comparatively smooth waters beyond where the breakers roar. We put up a sail, and I sat in the bow with my legs dangling over the side, apparently the only bit of space where one could remain unmolested. Over that line of foam I could see the tiny figures of Chatsworth and Valdo humping it bravely along that heavy sand, but they were soon lost to us, for the shore began to sparkle and glisten in the gathering

"Trust to us, sah," the Caribs urged, "and we won't even wet you."

I liked these fellows. They stirred my blood. They put the pep into one. That white line of foam began to grow clearer, and tiny wavelets licked and curled around us as into those dancing waters we shot, through roaring waves and dashing foam, until we were thrown up and deposited on to the sand.

"Out, sah, quick!"

But I didn't wait this time, for that under-current seemed to be clawing the shore like a dragon's hand. I lay down for a few minutes, and let the spray splash into my face. Darwin may be right, I thought, that we all came from monkeys,

but these fellows' mothers were where their launch was awaitwithout doubt mermaids. I ing me. We puffed along all rested that night with the surveyor again, and Chatsworth arrived the following evening. Valdo now made a sporting offer to go round the Caratasca lagoon, taking with him only one Indian, and bring back any samples of rock which he might collect. Black beans didn't worry him. He was used to them. We accepted, and he left immediately, returning to Guatemala city some five weeks later.

We made a short traverse up one of the small local rivers into the hills. There was plenty of evidence of the underlying strata, but it was not encouraging. Another twelve hours with the help of the petrol trolleys, and we were back once again in the fruit company's centre at Trujillo. Chatsworth was by now nearly worn out with insomnia, and arranged to go straight to Europe, via the States, to rest and recuperate. The fruit company's manager kindly lent me his ocean-going launch, and, bidding Chatsworth adieu, I embarked on the voyage to Tela, en route back to Guatemala city, my headquarters. I arrived in this swift and powerful launch early next morning.

There was no craft to take me on to Puerto Cortes, but the fruit company offered to help me on my journey overland. Away we went up their fruit line on a petrol trolley, until we reached a small river

day, and at about 8 P.M. that night stopped on a mud-bank near a native village, and at a point where another fruit railway joins this river. This railway now led to Puerto Cortes, my destination for that night. A train was expected and soon came steaming in, but didn't stop. I watched it miserably. There it was tailing away in the distance. Frantic telephonings to Puerto Cortes, but they regretted that it was too late. The last train had already passed my station. It was the very devil to be stranded here in this gloomy spot for the night. Various negro officials offered suggestions.

There was old Bob,

who had a hut in the village.
The very idea set me itching.
Of course, I had been itching
all along, but sometimes one
forgets about it. Then there
was old Ben, the grey-haired
old negro, who had a hut just
close to this station. I could
already see that hut in my
mind's eye: four grimy walls,
a partly boarded floor, but
many broken boards where the
knots came. Pictures from
daily and other papers of our
Royal family, plastered round
like a wall-paper, and inci-
dentally hiding a multitude of
sins. You seldom get earth-
quakes just here, but I bet
that hut just rocked with ver-
min.
min. No, I couldn't face it.
I'd sit on top of my valise on
the platform, scratch, and wait
for the dawn. I was hungry,

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