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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 06
Page 06
We went that afternoon some 6 kil. through fairly clean forest, barring a few obstacles such as huge, ancient, fallen trees, the insides of which were all rotted away or eaten up by ants. In one of the cavities of those trees I found another quantity of food which had been hidden by my men. Hampered by the Indians, who were giving me no end of trouble as they refused to carry their loads, it took me some little time to catch up with my other men. When I did I found them all seated, smacking their lips. They were filling their mouths as fast as they could with handfuls of sugar. When I reprimanded them there was an unpleasant row. They said they were not beasts of burden, that men were not made to carry, and that therefore they had thrown away all the food. Under no circumstance would they carry loads any farther.
And it should be noted that this international co-operation is not by any means always with similar and racially allied nations. Republican France finds itself, and has been for a generation, the ally of autocratic Russia. Australia, that much more than any other country has been obsessed by the yellow peril and the danger from Japan, finds herself today fighting side by side with the Japanese. And as to the ineradicable hostility of races preventing international co-operation, there are fighting together on the soil of France as I write, Flemish, Walloons, and negroes from Senegal, Turcos from Northern Africa, Gurkhas from India, co-operating with the advance on the other frontier of Cossacks, and Russians of all descriptions. This military and political co-operation has brought together Mohammedan and Christian; Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox; negro, white and yellow; African, Indian, and European; monarchist, republican, Socialist, reactionary--there seems hardly a racial, religious, or political difference that has stood in the way of rapid and effective co-operation in the common need.
Then it was that the youngest of the eight ruling men, in a moment of compassion, confessed his guilt, admitting in a plea to the head-chief for clemency that he was in fact responsible for the attitude his wife had taken. This served only to renew the old chief's anger; he stoutly refused to listen to further appeals and expressed his regret that the first seeds of wrong should have been thus sown. No longer able to keep up the fight, with starvation staring them in the face, and being in nakedness, at the end of the fourth year the women attempted to swim the river in parties, but the attempts resulted only in death, for the swift current would have been too much even for the strongest men to buffet. Seeing this self-sacrifice and realizing that the race would be ultimately exterminated if the women continued it much longer, appeals were made daily to the head-chief to permit the rescue of the remainder. Four times was he sought to grant such permission before he consented, then at dawn of the fifth morning he gave directions to loose the rafts and ferry the women over. A miserable remnant they were, unclad, wan, and wasted; but a return to the old habits of life soon restored them to their former selves, and peace, happiness, and prosperity reigned again.
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