day.
The river of the savages, which they called misi sipi , or big stream, was a different kind of monster altogether. It eased through the throttle of swamp and forest like a great yellow snake, languid and muscular, exhaling the thick reeks of fertility and decay. In La Rochelle the frontier between water and land was sharply drawn, marked out by the perpendiculars of cliff and castle wall. The savages’ river knew no such boundaries. It sprawled tideless in the sleeping waters of creeks and bayous and seeped into the swamps and forests, where its dark quiescence gave the illusion of solid earth. Everywhere a frenzy of vegetation erupted from its skin, propelled by a fierce and vulgar prodigiousness. Even in winter the curves and planes of the landscape disappeared beneath a dissipation of trees, bushes, vines, canes, mosses, ferns and flabby fungi. Roots and branches twisted over one another, coiling and clasping in a thousand sinuous embraces. Cypress knees pushed through mats of decaying leaves like thrusting cocks, while hanks of matted Spanish wig hung from the clefts of every tree limb, clothed only in the filmy veils of spiders’ webs. On warm days the wet air throbbed with the shameless fecundity of it.
Auguste watched it all, as he had been instructed. He noted the visits of the neighbouring tribes, keeping count of them by a system of different coloured pebbles. He heard no whisper of enmity towards the French and no rumours of war. No Englishmen visited the village. In the early summer there was a brief skirmish with the Tunicas, who were the Oumas’ neighbour, when a warrior of that tribe seized two women of the Ouma as slaves, which brought a swift and violent reprisal from the Ouma warriors. Otherwise all was quiet.
Auguste watched and he waited. Sometimes he even forgot to wait. Along with the other boys, he assisted in the fields, clearing and preparing them for the spring planting. Along with the other boys, he received instruction in the arts of running and of hunting, in the dressing of skins and the fashioning of weapons. The savage children were given their first bows and arrows and their first toy spears as soon as they could walk, and many were already skilled in their use. To test them one of the old men of the savages secured a clump of dried grass, twice the size of a fist, to a pole the height of a small tree. The first boy to bring down the hay would receive a prize. Auguste watched as the tallest of the boys, whose name was Tohto, drew and fired eight arrows into the air, setting them off so rapidly that the first one reached the ground only after the eighth was despatched. His friends whooped and cheered. The elder did not smile.
‘Hunting is not simply a matter of dexterity, my son,’ he said gravely. ‘To be a great hunter you must learn the virtues of endurance, of patience, of humility. And accuracy too,’ he added, his eyes bright in his lined face. ‘Look. You have lost eight arrows but the grass has lost not one hair from its head.’
The guns brought to the village by the commandant remained in the chief’s hut, wrapped tightly in their skins. Auguste was clumsy with a bow and arrow, but his foot was noiseless and his eye was quick. Afraid of the forest, he swiftly learned the shape of it. In the forest silence was not an absence, a hole requiring the darn of chatter. It was hardly silence at all, alive as it was with the creak of frogs, the chatter of the birds, the shiftless slop and suck of the water, but beneath the clamour there was a breathlessness, a sense of suspense, of secrets hidden in the treacherous ground.
Auguste grew skilful in the imitation of the calls of the forest birds so that they might be lured into the snares that the savages hung in the trees. He collected the insects of the forest and studied them, examining the tilt of their wings, the hinged fragility of their legs. Sometimes, if the creature was unfamiliar, he sketched the shape of it into the
The river of the savages, which they called misi sipi , or big stream, was a different kind of monster altogether. It eased through the throttle of swamp and forest like a great yellow snake, languid and muscular, exhaling the thick reeks of fertility and decay. In La Rochelle the frontier between water and land was sharply drawn, marked out by the perpendiculars of cliff and castle wall. The savages’ river knew no such boundaries. It sprawled tideless in the sleeping waters of creeks and bayous and seeped into the swamps and forests, where its dark quiescence gave the illusion of solid earth. Everywhere a frenzy of vegetation erupted from its skin, propelled by a fierce and vulgar prodigiousness. Even in winter the curves and planes of the landscape disappeared beneath a dissipation of trees, bushes, vines, canes, mosses, ferns and flabby fungi. Roots and branches twisted over one another, coiling and clasping in a thousand sinuous embraces. Cypress knees pushed through mats of decaying leaves like thrusting cocks, while hanks of matted Spanish wig hung from the clefts of every tree limb, clothed only in the filmy veils of spiders’ webs. On warm days the wet air throbbed with the shameless fecundity of it.
Auguste watched it all, as he had been instructed. He noted the visits of the neighbouring tribes, keeping count of them by a system of different coloured pebbles. He heard no whisper of enmity towards the French and no rumours of war. No Englishmen visited the village. In the early summer there was a brief skirmish with the Tunicas, who were the Oumas’ neighbour, when a warrior of that tribe seized two women of the Ouma as slaves, which brought a swift and violent reprisal from the Ouma warriors. Otherwise all was quiet.
Auguste watched and he waited. Sometimes he even forgot to wait. Along with the other boys, he assisted in the fields, clearing and preparing them for the spring planting. Along with the other boys, he received instruction in the arts of running and of hunting, in the dressing of skins and the fashioning of weapons. The savage children were given their first bows and arrows and their first toy spears as soon as they could walk, and many were already skilled in their use. To test them one of the old men of the savages secured a clump of dried grass, twice the size of a fist, to a pole the height of a small tree. The first boy to bring down the hay would receive a prize. Auguste watched as the tallest of the boys, whose name was Tohto, drew and fired eight arrows into the air, setting them off so rapidly that the first one reached the ground only after the eighth was despatched. His friends whooped and cheered. The elder did not smile.
‘Hunting is not simply a matter of dexterity, my son,’ he said gravely. ‘To be a great hunter you must learn the virtues of endurance, of patience, of humility. And accuracy too,’ he added, his eyes bright in his lined face. ‘Look. You have lost eight arrows but the grass has lost not one hair from its head.’
The guns brought to the village by the commandant remained in the chief’s hut, wrapped tightly in their skins. Auguste was clumsy with a bow and arrow, but his foot was noiseless and his eye was quick. Afraid of the forest, he swiftly learned the shape of it. In the forest silence was not an absence, a hole requiring the darn of chatter. It was hardly silence at all, alive as it was with the creak of frogs, the chatter of the birds, the shiftless slop and suck of the water, but beneath the clamour there was a breathlessness, a sense of suspense, of secrets hidden in the treacherous ground.
Auguste grew skilful in the imitation of the calls of the forest birds so that they might be lured into the snares that the savages hung in the trees. He collected the insects of the forest and studied them, examining the tilt of their wings, the hinged fragility of their legs. Sometimes, if the creature was unfamiliar, he sketched the shape of it into the
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