FullReads

“Some weeks after this–perhaps two, I can’t remember exactly–a party of my men whom I sent out for plantains and corn (our provisions were running low) returned to camp bringing me a scrap of paper which a white man had given them. They had found him half dead a day’s journey away. On it was scrawled in French a request for food and help. I started at once, taking the things I knew would be wanted. The young Belgian offered to go with me–he was always ready to help–but Judson had gone to a neighboring village and there was no one to leave in charge but him. I had now not only begun to like him but to trust him.

“I have seen a good many starving men in my time, but this lost stranger when I found him was the most miserable object I ever beheld. He lay propped up against a tree, with his feet over a pool of water, near where my men had left him. His eyes were sunk in his head, his lips parched and cracked, his voice almost gone. A few hours more and he would have been beyond help. He had fainted, so they told me, after writing the scrawl, and only the efforts of my men and the morsel of food they could spare him brought him back to life. When I had poured a few drops of brandy down his throat and had made him a broth and warmed him up his strength began to come back. It is astonishing what a few ounces of food will do for a starving man.

“He told me he had been deserted by his carriers, who had robbed him of all he had–food, ammunition, everything–and since then he had wandered aimlessly about, living on bitter berries and fungi. He had, it appears, been sent to Zanzibar by his government to straighten out some matters connected with one of the missions, and, wishing to see something of the country, he had pushed on, relying on his former experiences–he had been on similar excursions in Brazil–to pull him through.

“Then followed the story of the last few weeks–the terrors of the long nights, as he listened to the cries of prowling animals; his hunger and increasing weakness–the counting of the days and hours he could live; the indescribable fright that overpowered him when he realized he must die, alone, and away from his people. Raising himself on his elbow–he was still too weak to stand on his feet–he motioned to me to come nearer, and, as I bent my head he said in a hoarse whisper, as if he were in the presence of some mighty spirit who would overhear:–

“‘In these awful weeks I have faced the primeval. God stripped me naked–naked as Adam, and like him, left me alone. In my hunger I cried out; in my weakness I prayed. No answer–nothing but silence–horrible, overpowering silence. Then in my despair I began to curse–to strike the trees with my clenched fists, only to sink down exhausted. I could not–I would not die! Soon all my life passed in review. All the mean things I had done to others; all the mean things they had done to me. Then love, honor, hatred, revenge, official promotion, money, the good opinion of my fellows–all the things we value and that make our standards–took form, one after another, and as quickly vanished in the gloom of the jungle. Of what use were they–any of them? If I was to live I must again become the Homo–the Primeval Man–eat as he ate, sleep as he slept, be simple, brave, forgiving, obedient, as he had been. All I had brought with me of civilization–my civilization–the one we men make and call life–were as nothing, if it could not bring me a cup of water, a handful of corn or a coal of fire to warm my shivering body.’