Lost Worlds by David Yeadon Read Free Book Online
Authors: David Yeadon
afternoon heat people slept under tarpaulin canopies and anywhere else they could find shade. The river was misty, sheened in a humid haze, through which the sun was a silver shimmering blur leaching the color from the scene.
I rarely went to my cabin. It was far too hot during the day and full of unwashed, rumbling bodies at night. I preferred the gangway, where I could follow the shadows, doze a little, smell the burning wood from the always-active barbecues, capture a breeze or two, and even imagine I heard drums—distant and echoing—from the line of jungled shore on the far horizon.
Occasionally I’d spot a crocodile or a floating log—it was hard to tell the difference. At one point, as we followed a channel marked by more floating mats of water hyacinths (usually evidence of adequate river depth and lack of sneaky sandbars) I saw four large mounded creatures wallowing in the shallows by a river island. I had misplaced my binoculars and in the zoom lens of my camera it was hard to distinguish their shapes. I think they were hippos.
Even in the sudden downpours that came out of nowhere in the middle of the afternoons I managed to stay outdoors under the broad canopies of the boat’s superstructure. The rain thrashed and pounded the river into submissive flatness and carried in it the smell of fires and wet earth and rotting jungle.
As evening closed in, the earthy aromas were more intense and the breezes fresher. Then came the night (that all too quick transition from dusk to darkness one always experiences on the equator), with yet another surge of disco music and fights and dancing and boozing and all the other more illicit activities deep down in the subterranean dankness of the barge bottoms, where people sat and gambled and fought and loved and slept on tiny rectangles of straw matting. Our huge spotlights attracted brilliant flashing streams of moths and flying insects like endless fireworks displays.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and surges of sheet lightning flashed across the silent jungle shores, reflected in the dark waters.
And then the dawns. Those slow cool dawns, as we eased up the still river, bathed in winey morning air, watching the striations of color push away the stars and the Africa-black night and bathe the boat and its sleepy-eyed occupants in liquid essences of gold and amber and lemon before the first smack of heat and the beginning of another long day. Edging ever deeper into the heart of darkness….
Life on the boat, at least on our section of the main boat, settled into a series of lazy reveries. Occasionally Paul and I would meet and chat and introduce ourselves to other passengers. But for long periods I just sat and watched the slow brown-silver river, sometimes broad and vast as a desert, sometimes broken in a filigree of channels between mud-shore islands. Except for the occasional fisherman and his family living in straw huts shaded by palms, bamboo, and papyrus fronds, the islands were devoid of visible life. Torrents of sounds came from their jungled depths, particularly in the evening, but I rarely saw any of the sound makers. Like so much in this vast country, they were invisible—their presence indicated more by suggestion than perception.
The journey eased on, days slipping into nights and slowly into days again. The heat was still merciless, but I’d found ways to alleviate its impact—sleeping, moving around to find choice, shady places fanned by river breezes, dousing myself regularly in water and letting it evaporate slowly, or, when really necessary, uplifting my mood with a glass of almost lethal “Whiskey-Zairois,” whose moonshine contents I can only guess at. Sex had been offered me in a multitude of variations but not accepted. How could any sane individual consider hearty couplings in this torpor? A slow, gentle Thai-style massage maybe, after a cold shower—but no one thought to offer that.
I should have known all this calm and
I rarely went to my cabin. It was far too hot during the day and full of unwashed, rumbling bodies at night. I preferred the gangway, where I could follow the shadows, doze a little, smell the burning wood from the always-active barbecues, capture a breeze or two, and even imagine I heard drums—distant and echoing—from the line of jungled shore on the far horizon.
Occasionally I’d spot a crocodile or a floating log—it was hard to tell the difference. At one point, as we followed a channel marked by more floating mats of water hyacinths (usually evidence of adequate river depth and lack of sneaky sandbars) I saw four large mounded creatures wallowing in the shallows by a river island. I had misplaced my binoculars and in the zoom lens of my camera it was hard to distinguish their shapes. I think they were hippos.
Even in the sudden downpours that came out of nowhere in the middle of the afternoons I managed to stay outdoors under the broad canopies of the boat’s superstructure. The rain thrashed and pounded the river into submissive flatness and carried in it the smell of fires and wet earth and rotting jungle.
As evening closed in, the earthy aromas were more intense and the breezes fresher. Then came the night (that all too quick transition from dusk to darkness one always experiences on the equator), with yet another surge of disco music and fights and dancing and boozing and all the other more illicit activities deep down in the subterranean dankness of the barge bottoms, where people sat and gambled and fought and loved and slept on tiny rectangles of straw matting. Our huge spotlights attracted brilliant flashing streams of moths and flying insects like endless fireworks displays.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and surges of sheet lightning flashed across the silent jungle shores, reflected in the dark waters.
And then the dawns. Those slow cool dawns, as we eased up the still river, bathed in winey morning air, watching the striations of color push away the stars and the Africa-black night and bathe the boat and its sleepy-eyed occupants in liquid essences of gold and amber and lemon before the first smack of heat and the beginning of another long day. Edging ever deeper into the heart of darkness….
Life on the boat, at least on our section of the main boat, settled into a series of lazy reveries. Occasionally Paul and I would meet and chat and introduce ourselves to other passengers. But for long periods I just sat and watched the slow brown-silver river, sometimes broad and vast as a desert, sometimes broken in a filigree of channels between mud-shore islands. Except for the occasional fisherman and his family living in straw huts shaded by palms, bamboo, and papyrus fronds, the islands were devoid of visible life. Torrents of sounds came from their jungled depths, particularly in the evening, but I rarely saw any of the sound makers. Like so much in this vast country, they were invisible—their presence indicated more by suggestion than perception.
The journey eased on, days slipping into nights and slowly into days again. The heat was still merciless, but I’d found ways to alleviate its impact—sleeping, moving around to find choice, shady places fanned by river breezes, dousing myself regularly in water and letting it evaporate slowly, or, when really necessary, uplifting my mood with a glass of almost lethal “Whiskey-Zairois,” whose moonshine contents I can only guess at. Sex had been offered me in a multitude of variations but not accepted. How could any sane individual consider hearty couplings in this torpor? A slow, gentle Thai-style massage maybe, after a cold shower—but no one thought to offer that.
I should have known all this calm and