Arthur O. Friel, The Thirty Gang — Chapter 6 (1923)
“ VI WHEN a Maquiritare tells you, señores, that a journey is hard, you may believe that it is hard. Those sons of the jungled mountains and rocky rivers give little thought to a trip that would make a white man consider twice. True, they are not in the habit of carrying heavy burdens, and any well-hardened man can traverse bad ground when he has no weight on his back. ”
Arthur O. Friel, The Thirty Gang — Chapter 6 (1923)
“ Through raudal after raudal we toiled until at last the canoes could go no farther. Then we took to our legs. Every one of us bore a burden, except the children too young to carry anything but themselves. The men were loaded with my belongings and their own; the women and girls with baskets of food or with babies. Progress was slow. But it was steady, and every sunset found us higher among the hills and nearer to the Ventuari. ”
Arthur O. Friel, The Thirty Gang — Chapter 6 (1923)
“ We struggled through a maze of cliff-blocks and slanted to the northwest, following the line of the high pass between Queneveba and Queneveta. We sweat by day and froze by night, unprotected from the cold of the lofty hills. We ate all our food, and lived on what we could kill—and we killed anything that moved: birds, beasts, snakes, toads. ”
