"PINCH ME, I'M DROWNING!" I gasped for air and
awoke. I found myself sitting as naked as I was born in a shallow puddle of
tepid jungle water. Beside me, tossed aside in all their damp glamour: my maps
my glorious maps. It was steamy and the sun shone over the clearing empty now of
the shanty town and tents. All the native peoples with them gone only I and my
lone canopy still stood.
As I sit writing this still in the buck
for the scalawags must have absconded with my clothing before they departed so
hasty. My mouth tastes of murk and mud, for I must have swallowed a great deal
of jungle water. The last thing I remember was the woman with the facial
tattoos and the steel grey hair. I will try to piece together as much as I can for
this journal. At the quintessence at least I know, my search for long forgotten
treasuries of ancient knowledge started like this.
It was evident that I must reclaim my
maps if the expedition was going to be anything like successful, and if there
is anyone this particular tribe whose word they held dear it was their beloved
and feared medicine man or shaman if you will.
I knew where his shelter laid but didn't want to draw the
attention of the crowd, besides I could hear the corn husks still pelting the
Monsignor. So I slipped out the back of my canopy and just then great peal of thunder
erupted and a downpour was released from the clouds. This brought even
more hilarity to the crowd now, for the Monsignor slipped and sloshed in
the mud, as the people hallooed; jabbering and dancing, they too becoming
coated in mud.
Setting off to find the shaman I thought of
my excursions in the South Pacific and the dire circumstances I encountered with
the witch doctor on one particular island. He was a sanguine cannibal headshrinker
and wanted me to marry his daughter to boot. I thought it best to find my assistant, lazy
as he was, to provide me support. Pacing the pleasure sheds I stuck my head in
surely my assistant was there as he had been since we made camp. "Come
along you scrofulous wretch!" He was snoring asleep with his arm flung
over a lithe girl with long ebony hair that glowed in the low light of the
shed. "Hurry now- the cretins have stolen my maps!" The girl looked
up incredulous as if to say,“How dare you bother our napping” then pointing at
my wet mustaches burst into a peal of laughter. (It seems a trait with these
people: laughing). "Daresay I, stop fleching around, my maps, I say!" I had almost lost my temper. Finally rising up in the lazy manner that was his he had first to comb his part down the center and made sure his tie was just right before venturing out. The rain had
not abated and both of us now were thoroughly drenched through by the time we
arrived at the shaman’s tent. "Stay here, I will shout your name if things
take a turn southerly." He gave me a stupid grimace and with both hands
parted his hair down the middle.
