Back of Beyond by David Yeadon Read Free Book Online Page B

the two of them introduced me to the finer points of the frog-barbecuing. I won’t belabor the details but as a Yorkshire friend of mine used to say, “It weren’t arf s’bad.”
     
     
    The next day was hard going through the jungle. My guides were way ahead of me as usual. Then Pan turned suddenly with a raised hand and beckoned. We peered together through the sticky gloom at the path ahead (path, of course, being a euphemism for the almost invisible indentations in the rampant foliage). At first I saw nothing unusual but, as my eyes focused, the whole jungle floor became a mass of movement, like a rippling green pond. Tens of thousands, who knows, maybe millions, of leaf fragments with neatly clipped edges were moving upright through the low ferns, each one carried by a tiny brown ant.
    “The ants who carry the leaves,” Tin explained.
    “Leaf ants?”
    He nodded and smiled. We watched the procession, like a New York harbor regatta of little green spinnakers tacking in unison. A magnificent display of precision, endlessly parading in front of us, with the participants totally oblivious of our intrusion. Once again that sensation of absolute order-in-chaos, finite patterns in the green infinity. A single-mindedness of purpose that at once amazed and alarmed.
    What a shambles we humans seem to make of our pathetic efforts at coordinated action and social harmony. Ah, you say, but we are given the freedom of choice, liberation from pure unquestioning instinct. We find our higher meanings through trial and error, in freedom. True, to some extent, I suppose, certainly the error bit, but many of the great religions would have us believe that our ultimate destiny is a similar single-mindedness, a similar harmony of “living as one” in mutual tolerance and support. Transferring the great unifying concepts of God into our collective daily lives. Well, if these leaf ants have a god, he must be delighted by their unity. As for me, I’m still well and truly in the error stage of the trial and for the moment at least, that’ll have to suffice. But thank you, little leaf ants, for your reminder of what we all could become one day (one day in the far, far distant future, I hope).
     
     
    As we approached our isolated tepui, the view became more elusive. Occasionally it would rear up like a vast totem over the trees. But most times it was hidden behind jungle curtains or thick cloud cover with only its dark base exposed.
    While climbing the lower flanks we lost sight of it altogether. The jungle closed in around us. Tin and Pan improvised a trail through the scratching palm scrub and dangling vines. We were ascending, so at least we were headed in the right direction. But the tepui gave us no clues. Having beckoned us from afar it now ignored us as we flailed around its muddy slopes.
    Then we had our first real moment of contact. Tin was leading us up along a streambed full of tiny waterfalls and still, black pools. It was a wet, tiring slog with no rhythm to it at all—slime-coated rocks, unreliable handholds, and a couple of dousings. I was getting rather fed up with the whole idea of this journey until the jungle drew back, light tumbled into a clearing, and a filigree of waterfalls, like floating gossamer, rained down on us.
    We looked up and there she was, all three thousand feet of her, rising straight into a clear evening sky. There seemed to be no way up. The walls were too sheer. It was a beautiful and very depressing sight. My legs decided they’d had enough and buckled. I just wanted to sleep.
    Then the rock face vanished again, and the dainty waterfalls floated down out of thick clouds. Maybe it was better that we couldn’t see the impossibility of the climb otherwise I might have given up and set off back to the camp. Tin and Pan seemed to have no such reactions. They claimed to have made the journey once before and only failed to reach the top because one of the two elderly Germans they were guiding broke his