The Misadventures of a Tropical Medico

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THE MISADVENTURES OF A TROPICAL MEDICO

By

HERBERT SPENCER DICKEY

In Collaboration with

HAWTHORNE DANIEL

With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Contents 6

DEDICATION 7

ILLUSTRATIONS 8

CHAPTER I 10

CHAPTER II 26

CHAPTER III 39

CHAPTER IV 49

CHAPTER V 62

CHAPTER VI 73

CHAPTER VII 84

CHAPTER VIII 94

CHAPTER IX 103

CHAPTER X 120

CHAPTER XI 120

CHAPTER XII 120

CHAPTER XIII 120

CHAPTER XIV 120

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 120

DEDICATION

To

ROBERT D. BLACKMAN

A WHITE MAN

ILLUSTRATIONS

Dr. and Mrs. Dickey in a burial care on the Rio Orinoco, Venezuela

Avenida Eduardo Riberio, Manaos, Brazil

The pirarucu, a very large South American fresh water food fish

The town of Cucuhy is a Brazilian outpost on the Rio Negro

The Cuiapo-Pihibi, or People of the Plains, Rio Tomo, Colombia

Cuiapo-Pihibi children

Cedar logs at a sawmill near Manaos, River Amazon, Brazil

Dr. Dickey surrounded by admiring Indians

A Jivero Indian with a blow-gun, Oriente, Ecuador

A Jivero and his wife

Jivero ladies dancing

Members of the Chihuasi tribe of head hunters

A Jivero Indian of Ecuador with a spear

Strewing barbasco in the stream to stun fish which are later caught and eaten

Dr. and Mrs. Dickey at home near Macas, Oriente, Ecuador

The Thinker. Study of a Jivero indulging in a rare occupation

The Cuiapo-Pihibi version of the four-oared shell, Rio Tomo, Colombia

Sanitarem, a town on the Brazilian Amazon

Tea with a Tokano Chief on the River Vaupes, Brazil

The million dollar theatre at Manaos, Brazil

Using the Broca chart on Cuiapo-Pihibi Indians at Rio Tomo

A market scene at Ambato, Ecuador

Types of Jivero Indians

A Jivero using his blow-gun

Ciudad Bolivar on the River Orinoco

A hard bit of trail on the way to Chanalá, Ecuadorian Andes

Commerce in the jungle

A physician’s strange fee

Down the Napo River in a mahogany canoe

A Jivero Indian with his spear and uniform

The head of Anguashi mounted on a wooden spear

THE MISADVENTURES OF A TROPICAL MEDICO

CHAPTER I

SOUTH AMERICA has, for me, a tremendous fascination. Just why that should be true I find it a bit difficult to explain, for my thirty years in various portions of the continent have not been especially pleasant, or elevating, or lucrative. Nor have I lived for much of the time in any of the continent’s several magnificent cities, where wealth and culture create an atmosphere as different from that of the rest of South America as black is different from white. Neither have I a very good reason for having gone there in the first place, although my reason for staying, once I arrived, is more easily understood.

The fact is that South America was not in my mind at all when I, having just become an M.D. with a tightly rolled sheepskin to prove my claim to that great eminence, decided to make an effort to obtain a position as surgeon on board some passenger ship or other in order that the salt breezes of the bounding sea might blow a little strength into my frame, which had never been remarkable for excessive stamina. I did not obtain the position for which I was searching, but I was, finally, offered free transportation on a freighter to Jamaica, and at the same time obtained a letter of introduction from the Colombian Consul General in New York to the general commanding the forces of the Republic of Colombia then in the field against the revolutionary Liberals. Such a letter, I was assured, was tantamount to a commission as captain in the medical corps of the Colombian Army, and with that I decided that I should be content, especially as I had one hundred dollars in gold—all my own—in addition to the pass to Jamaica. That I did not know exactly how to get from Jamaica to Colombia was, at the moment, a minor problem, and I consequently bade farewell to my family in Highland Falls, New York, from which in all my life before I had never traveled further than a few hundred miles, and on Christmas Eve, 1899, arrived in Brooklyn, there to search for the freighter Erna, upon which I was to embark to make my fortune.

I had never before been away from home on Christmas Eve, and when I found that the ship, which I had imagined would be a hive of activity making ready to depart, was, in reality, utterly and completely deserted by every member of her crew save only a watchman, my heart grew numb. I had been told that the Erna was to sail at six A.M. Christmas Day, and now I could learn nothing about her plans, for the watchman, left alone with several bottles of gin, had consumed what he could, and was sprawling, with his head buried in his arms, across the dining room table in the compartment that, for lack of a better term, was named the saloon. Sterterous puffs of alcoholic breath came from between his lips, but that provided me with no information save that he was temporarily out of this world.

Before coming aboard the ship I had provided against the contingency of being late for dinner, and had brought with me two bottles of sarsaparilla, two ham sandwiches, and two others in which mustard greatly predominated over the Swiss cheese for which I had asked the proprietor of a lunch-wagon that I had passed. But now that I had reached the deserted ship, I found that my appetite had strangely waned, with the result that two sandwiches and a bottle of sarsaparilla remained for my breakfast. Furthermore, that was just as well. After I had spent a miserable night on a transom seat in the saloon—for I did not have the courage to preempt any of the staterooms, fearful, as I was, that I might be routed out by the bucko mate—I dared not go ashore and walk the half mile or so to the lunch wagon for more food lest the crew return and take the ship out during my absence. I shook the watchman into half consciousness a dozen times, but he had no English, and his remarks, which I sensed rather than understood, seemed to be highly derogatory and lacking in real information.

I did catch a stoker, once, on one of his periodical visits to the ship—to keep the fires up, I suppose—and he told me, in fair English, that we were sailing right away. So I ate my remaining sandwiches, drank my cold sarsaparilla, and gloomily meditated about the joys of Christmas at home.

Then, with nothing to do but wait, I set about reviewing my Spanish vocabulary. I had one hundred words already committed to memory, but I had never pronounced them in the presence of anyone who knew Spanish, and I found later, when I had occasion to try them on such people, that my pronunciation precluded any possibility of my being understood.

I had, also, a list of useful sentences. They were so labeled, at any rate, in my note book. They suffered, however, from the same fatal defect as did my vocabulary of isolated words.

What is your age? read one.

Where do you feel the pain? asked another.

Let me see your tongue, requested a third.

There were twenty of them, and if I were to practice what little I knew of medicine they certainly would be handy, but as pronounced by me they were not Spanish. However, I found that out much later.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, when I had reached the point of seriously considering the idea of returning to Highland Falls where I knew that there would surely be some cold turkey and cranberry sauce left from Christmas dinner, the captain, the officers, and the crew arrived. All were in a high state of alcoholic exhilaration, and all insisted on my joining their joy. A couple of bottles of iced beer, on top of my slight foundation of sandwiches and sarsaparilla, put me to bed. We sailed, but it might almost be said that I was not present when it happened. Certainly I have no further recollection of the beginning of my Odyssey.

Six days later the Erna, arrived at her destination, and fortunately for me I found a Norwegian cattle steamer about to sail for Puerto Colombia. That the captain of this providential vessel demanded ten dollars to take me with him was, I considered, unduly trying to my exchequer, but no argument prevailed to get him to do it for less, and so, perforce, the money was paid over and the voyage began. I had had other plans for my one hundred dollars. In my youthful optimism I felt that with it I could open my office and support myself until large numbers of paying patients began to arrive—a matter of ten days or so, I imagined. But though I believed that the one hundred dollars could accomplish all that, I realized that any great diminution of the amount might create difficulties. However, there was no choice.

I had imagined that the cattle steamer would find her way promptly enough to Puerto Colombia, but I had planned without thought of hurricanes, and one struck us at once. For eleven days we were buffeted about. The fire in the galley was put out and was not relighted until we entered port once more. The cook, for the first time in his thirty years of experience at sea (or so he said), was sea sick. Empty cattle crates, with which the deck was covered, were smashed and washed about in the scuppers or were dashed overboard into the raging sea. The propeller, which rose with every sea until it was clear of the water, raced wildly. The wind picked up a sailor who was crossing the deck, dashed him against a steel stanchion and broke one arm, both legs, and four ribs. He was my first patient, and, mirabili dictu, he lived.

It was a relief to be able to land in the country I had chosen for my field of action, but I can hardly say that my first experience ashore helped my optimism. The very first person with whom I came in contact at Puerto Colombia was Captain Simms, the very practical and widely experienced American wharf master.

I seized the opportunity to have a talk with him, and told him of my plans—my aspirations—rebuilt my air castles before his very eyes. But my enthusiasm left him cold. He was very pessimistic indeed.

Hell! said he. They won’t make you a captain. And even if they do they won’t pay you.

Certain friends had made similar remarks before I had sailed from New York, but somehow Captain Simms’ words seemed to carry conviction with them. However, I could do nothing but try. I did not have money enough to get back to New York. Probably the money I had would not carry me far in Colombia, either, but at any rate I was in Colombia, and couldn’t get away. It was up to me to stay, and while I was forced to stay, there was no point in not making an effort to carry out the plans I had formulated, impractical and wildly imaginary though they were. So I boarded the train for Baranquilla, having decided to go to the best hotel there and begin my campaign.

A score of hackmen awaited the arrival of the train, insistently soliciting the trade of the few passengers who looked as if they could pay for the ride. I chose one—a little open carriage—and told the driver to take me to the Pension Ingles—to which Captain Simms had advised me to go.

Upon getting my destination through his head, the Jehu—a Jamaica Negro—cracked his whip and shouted. The horses—a thin, wiry pair—leaped into instant action, and we whirled away in a cloud of sand. We galloped through streets where the sand came almost up to the carriage hubs. We galloped over the highly irregular cobblestones of other streets, and finally, with a grand, whirling circle, drew up at the door of the hotel.

I was armed with a letter of introduction to Wallace Hoare, the proprietor, and he made me a special rate of fifty pesos a day. That sounds excessive, but exchange at the time was fifty pesos to the dollar (it finally went to one hundred to the dollar), so I decided that I could manage to pay it. For this sum I obtained a front room on the second floor, and three meals a day.

For a further slight inroad on my capital I rented another room on the first floor, and there laid out my surgical instruments. It had been easy after all. I was now a practicing physician.

The captaincy in the army, however, was not so simple. The general to whom I had a letter was in Bogota, and so I was forced to remain a private citizen. I fell immediately into the routine of Baranquilla, took my siesta when the others did, paid as little attention as I could to the clouds of dust and sand that filled the air perennially, and visited the bar regularly. Despite my unfortunate experience with beer on the Erna I drank beer at Baranquilla. Which was fortunate, for if I hadn’t indulged in that pastime, I would have never entered upon my captaincy in the Colombian army, for General Gaitan drank beer also, and I met him at the bar of the Pension Ingles.

Wallace Hoare, to whom I had told my story as I had told it to Captain Simms, was as pessimistic as the wharf master had been, but sometime after I had arrived he did introduce me to General Gaitan, and Gaitan told me readily enough that I could go to work for his regiment. Furthermore, he called me Capitán at once—meaning, of course, Captain. There was surprisingly little red tape about it. None, in fact. I was called Capitán from the very first. I could have been called Colonel, or possibly even General, had I thought of it, but I was only twenty-three and did not aspire to more at the time. I never did receive a commission, of course, and never showed my credentials—for I had none. But I did the work.

It must be remembered that at the time I arrived in Colombia a very serious revolution was in progress. Nor was it a comic opera revolution. It was a compound of ghastliness and horror and untrustworthiness. For four years it raged, and in that time 250,000 people perished. Towns were razed. Women were ravished. Every crime on the calendar was a matter of almost daily record. Yellow fever killed thousands. Starvation or near starvation affected whole districts. Business declined. Morals seemed almost to have been utterly forgotten. It was hell.

Just where the current notion of South American revolutions originated I cannot imagine. Why it is that so many people imagine that the opposing armies just squib off their muskets and then call the battles over is too much for me. Of course, there is probably no worse shot than the average revolutionary South American. But they have other means of killing their enemies—or those whom they conceive to be their enemies—than with their guns. Practically every man in Colombia, for instance, carries a machete. These heavy, sword-like knives have blades from eighteen inches to two feet in length. They are heavy and sharp, and, except for the fact that they are usually single edged, they are not greatly different from the short sword that was used so effectively by the Roman Legions in their conquest of the world.

Now imagine two contending forces of ignorant peons, one group in Federal uniforms, and the other without uniforms and not especially overburdened with other belongings. There is likely to be little discipline on either side, and partly because of the lack of discipline, as well as because of their excitable natures, they take pot shots at each other without due thought of the sights of their guns, and with as little thought to military tactics. The firing proves ineffective. Neither side is badly damaged. The pop of the guns and the whistle of the bullets, however, excite them still more, and very often they fall back on simpler weapons than the guns with which they are not expert.

Now it is impossible for two excited armies to come to grips with their machetes without creating more havoc than they accomplished with their guns. One needs little imagination indeed to be able to visualize far more than enough of the horrors of such fighting.

Added to this, such a revolution gives anyone who cares for it, the opportunity to pay off old grudges. It is so easy to change sides and then to lie in ambush. It isn’t war, but it is as murderous as war.

However, I did not at first come into contact with this phase of the revolution.

Baranquilla was a sort of concentration point for the Federal army. Voluntarios—that is, volunteers—were brought in to the city in large numbers, and were housed in a number of barracks that had been taken over—probably without due process of law—for the purpose. Some of these barracks had been private houses. One had been a convent, and here the soldiers lived.

Soldiers—or even volunteers—in the true sense they certainly were not. There was some sort of universal military service system, but it was never observed. No one possessed of five dollars ever enlisted as a private, and no one without the five dollars ever enlisted as anything else. The recruiting system resembled the old press-gang system used long ago by the British. Peons from farms, from mines, and from the city streets were recruited by means of rawhide thongs with which they were bound. Taken to the barracks, they had their hair cut, were deloused with kerosene, were given baths and shoved into uniforms which never fitted. Despite their involuntary entry into the armed forces of their native land they were invariably called voluntarios, and in the violent harangues given daily by the generals—usually in one or another of the numerous bars of the city—they were usually called patriots as well.

The course of training through which these patriots went was of the simplest. Their commanding officers seemed to believe that the uniforms somehow automatically made their voluntarios into soldiers.

In addition to numerous soldiers, Baranquilla was alive with spies. Just what they found to spy upon is still beyond me, but there they were—most of them foreigners—Americans, Britons, Germans. It was impossible to escape them. They would buttonhole one on the street and whisper inside information into one’s ear. They were all against the government, and all of them had the very latest information on marvelous Liberal—that is, revolutionary—victories. If one remonstrated with these persons, saying that, after all, the internal affairs of Colombia were the business of Colombians and that meddling outsiders might, conceivably, get themselves into hot water, they would metaphorically wave the Star Spangled Banner, the Union Jack, or what not, and, in loud but private whispers, dare the government to start something.

Shortly after my arrival in Baranquilla I was invited to a banquet given by some of these asses. Almost everyone present wore a red flower in his button hole—red being the revolutionary color—and I gathered that a good time was anticipated by all.

Gathered around a table in a second rate hotel, they were, after having inbibed large quantities of red wine, et cetera, preparing to loose avalanches of oratory against the autocratic government. A young German-American—an educated man who should have known better—was on his feet and had just pronounced the words Down with the tyrant, when a lone and mild mannered little policeman poked his nose in at the door. The banqueters, with such startling unanimity as to suggest almost that it had been rehearsed, tore their red emblems from their buttonholes and threw them under the table, while the orator, with remarkable presence of mind, suddenly changed his expression and his discourse. He cast his eyes benignly at the ceiling, folded his hands, said, in a soft voice, Let us pray, and launched forth into the Lord’s Prayer. And the banqueters, assuming a demeanor of sanctity—which must have been a very trying job for most of them—repeated it.

The policeman sniffed, muttering something about crazy gringoes, and departed, but already he had broken up the party.

I often wondered, when first I came to Baranquilla, why it was that there were so many altruistic foreigners there. Their one aim, according to their own statements, was the alleviation of the condition of the poor and downtrodden members of the Liberal Party, who suffered from the ruthless tyranny of the Conservative Government. These altruists were, of course, the spies, and as no one paid them for their support of the Liberals I could not understand why they so consistently supported that side, told their endless lies of Liberal victories, and otherwise served ceaselessly as propagandists for the revolutionaries.

I might have remained still longer in ignorance of their motives had I not been invited, one Sunday, to attend a cockfight. This sport, which was the only Sabbath Day amusement, was attended by the so-called high life and by the scum of the city—pickpockets, pimps, and drunkards. They met on common ground—the common love of blood.

When I entered, the ring was surrounded by such gentry, and the owners of the birds were standing in opposite corners of the little pen, each with his fighting cock under his arm, and each was lavishing endearments, in baby talk, on his red-eyed fighter. At a signal, the cocks were thrown into the center of the ring, where they eyed each other warily, and strutted around, waiting for an opening, scratching the sand, and crowing. Suddenly they joined, pecking and spurring furiously, always searching, apparently, for the throat and the eyes. One cock staggered. One of his eyes was out—hanging by a tendon—his beak bathed in blood. His opponent stood off, reared his head up triumphantly, and crowed.

The master of the wounded bird—a business man of some prominence in the city—asked for time. He lifted his wounded fighter from the ground, put the whole of the bird’s head into his mouth, washed it, spit out the eye, and placed his contender again on the ground.

Instantly the fight began again, but shortly a heavy steel spur that had been fastened on over the bird’s natural one, pierced the neck of the wounded fighter. The defeated cock fell, the victor mounted the dead body and crowed lustily, and the fight was over.

Large sums are often bet on these fights, and the owner of the victor always receives congratulations, applause, and embraces, in addition, of course, to his winnings. The owner of the defeated bird wept openly, called his vanquished champion poor little one, and took him home, so I was assured, for dinner