Sound of Butterflies, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

other two, I can’t begin to explain the relief I feel at having a surgeon on the expedition with us. Although he wasn’t much help when I was ill on the boat (he being sick at the same time), it gives me great comfort to know that he will be in the jungle with us and has come prepared with every manner of instrument and medicine that he can carry. I don’t know much about the hospitals here in Brazil, but in any case, there may be times when we are too far away from them, and diseases like malaria are rife. Ernie himself is an energetic fellow. I can’t quite bring myself to call him Dr Harris, as he has about him the boisterous manner of a schoolboy that I find alternately charming and irritating. He has started to taunt George in a way that I wouldn’t dare, but I suppose he is taking advantage of George’s stoic nature to have a bit of fun.
    John Gitchens is something of a gentle giant, I feel. He is very quiet, and he has enormous rough brown hands and a big beard, which George complains is quite out of fashion. John doesn’t talk about himself at all, but Ernie told me that he has seen many more adventures than we can hope to in our lifetime. He is the oldest of us all, nearly forty, and when he looks at me I feel as if he is reading my every thought. He has the most expressive, large brown eyes that I think I have seen, though the rest of him seems to hide behind the beard. On the voyage, when the rest of us would sit down in the evening to read, he would position himself near a porthole and stare out to sea. If we wanted to play cards, he had to be coaxed quite strongly to make a fourth for bridge, sometimes refusing altogether, at which times we had to include the captain — who treated us as his honoured guests — or one of the other passengers. When we arrived at our house today, John disappeared into the forest for some hours. When he came back, the colour had returned to his cheeks and he looked alive again.
    Nothing has been seen of our benefactor, Mr Santos. We were met at the dock by one of his men, who showed us to more than adequate lodgings on the outskirts of the city — close to the forest. Within five minutes we can walk into the interior and never know that we are near civilisation. More on this later.
    The overwhelming impression I have of the city is that it seems to be competing with the jungle for space. There is greenery everywhere — sprouting from ledges, growing out of cracks in the buildings — and there is a heady smell of fruit from the mango trees and the blossoming orange and lemon trees. It is a curious cocktail. Banana palms grow on every roof and balcony with giant leaves that are glossy and opulent. The richness of smells and abundance of nature are a heavy contrast to the poverty of human life. Even the grander buildings have fallen into disrepair. The population has swelled recently, and I don’t know if the city is coping with the influx of people come to work in the rubber trade. There is a jumble of humanity here — whites, Indians, Negroes, and different mixtures of all three, all with their own name as if they are new races — mameluco (white and Indian), mulatto (Negro and white), cafuzo (Negro and Indian) and caboclo (all three). The dock was overwhelming with its crowds and its intense stickiness, as if a fire were constantly burning nearby. At least on the river there was a breeze — in the city, between the buildings, there is none.
    You will not believe, Sophie, the kind of cargo that was on board our ship, bound for Manaus, which is hundreds of miles up the Amazon. The captain informed us that there were grand pianos, paving stones from Europe, hundreds of cases of French champagne and other wines, cheese from Devon, fur coats from Paris (in this heat!) and many other extravagances. He even told us they had bags and bags of laundry, which had been sent from Manaus to Lisbon to be washed. Evidently the locals in Manaus don’t trust the water from the Amazon,