True-False: Teeth Grow In Mouths

 Chapter 11 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

Iquitos

Iquitos was a town that sprang up a la western boom towns and flourished as long as commercial possibilities lasted. Up de Graff says when he was there the population was about 3,000. Later it grew to around 20,000. But by the time of writing his book, copyright 1925, Iquitos was again the home of only a handful of natives. A little sociology there, of which I'm neither qualified nor intellectually grounded enough to fully explain. And I've explained some arcane things, like the fauna of various backwater creeks I fell in as a kid, that I wisely summed up as "weeds."

He and Jack Rouse paddled into Iquitos on December 28, 1898. That detail will be on the test, people, Know It! They were "be-whiskered tramps" walking down the street, except they had a lot of rubber for sale and so they weren't hard up. Remember I said something about them picking up rubber here and there? I thought it was basically enough rubber to fill a suitcase, but according to page 28 it was two tons of rubber! With that kind of money they could get cleaned up and find accommodations at a hotel, the Hotel Roma. A room with actual beds! It wasn't a bank of sand, mud, and trees, but it was still nice.

They soon moved from there, only eating at the hotel, and went to "bunk" with a Dr. King, an American. He was an enthusiastic individual and must've been a colorful guy, because Up de Graff's take on him was: "The doctor made Vesuvius look like an iceberg." That's going to be a guy you can glean some interesting information from! Dr. King had tried various money-making enterprises in Iquitos, such as selling patent-medicine. Then he discovered that dental work was more in demand. So he made his own diplomas and certificates and started pulling teeth!

Sometimes Up de Graff puts "Doctor" in quotes, sometimes not. There was one patient who'd been on the point of death for days. He was worn out by fever and the attentions of "Doctors," including Dr. King, and died. His death certificate was a work in creativity, the cause of death being "a congestion of the elementary canal between the gall-bladder and the lungs, causing the cold bile to rise and cake round the heart." A tragic situation, yes, but you gotta admit, no more tooth ache!

Jack and Up de Graff at this point were waiting to book passage back to New York. When they met another American there to explore (Edward Morse), then another guy (Charles Pope), known to the natives as "Ambusha" because he ground his teeth when he slept; "Ambusha" refers to a bird that sings at night. As time went on, Up de Graff and Jack changed their minds about leaving, and now the mission was on to find Inca gold! By the way, Ambusha barely made the expedition, being notoriously known for having an oily manner, shiftiness, obviously a liar, and a student of anarchism and toxicology.

Test: When did Up de Graff and Jack paddle into Iquitos?

Vampire Bats Gotta Eat

Chapter 5 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

The Napo

Up de Graff got a companion in Jack Rouse, who just showed up at the door. He was about 45, rugged, not broadly built but giving the impression he was strong. And he didn't stand on ceremony. Up de Graff called him Mr. Rouse and he put in, "Cut out the titles." They shared a decent meal of rice and beans, very welcome to Mr. R--, er, Jack. But who could blame his appetite, he'd had nothing to eat for two months but bananas. Reminding me, I have a problem with bananas: Fruit flies! I wouldn't make a great companion on their journey when even fruit flies bother me...

Jack's story was he'd run away when he was 14. Most of his family was killed by Indians. He’d drifted to the Klondike for gold. Then he was a messenger and driver on a stage-line. Somehow he made his way to South America, probably under shady circumstances, and there he was. He said curtly, "Uncle Sam is looking for me," which is all kinds of nasty! Still, a perfect resume for a job equally as nasty in what lay before them. 

Their journey would commence in the morning, so they hoped to spend a comfortable night on the floor of the shelter. As they lay talking, Up de Graff noticed something periodically flying in one end of the shelter, crossing over them, and disappearing at the other end. In fact, they flew so low they could feel their wings on their faces. Thinking it was owls, they let it go. (Who does that?) When Up de Graff woke at dawn, though, he felt dizzy and weak. Then he saw "a great ugly clot of blood" hanging from the back of Jack's head. He thought it must've been the Indians. Then he noticed blood on his own blanket. He called the Indians in to explain it, but they laughed it off, saying the "night-birds" had been feeding. Vampire bats!

Larger than an ordinary bat, its wingspan is between 10 and 12 inches. And of course it lives on the blood of live animals and people. It has two pair of very sharp eye-teeth, and there's a lot of other information here I'm never going to need, and certainly if I ever do it'll never happen twice. It's a constant thing, though, for those unfortunate enough to be there, to the point that if you're under an awning, say, the Vampires will make a hole the size of their head in the material and proceed to suck you dry! Not at all good for your awning.

Anyway, terrible as all that is, the got up, did their business, and were off by 2:00 p.m. on the Napo River. With a stiff current they made good progress. They found a place to sleep, but when they awoke they found they'd been tapped again by the bats. Doh! Which was apparently a problem over the years. 

After a few days they reached the mouth of the Suno River and found a Columbian trader, Mejias, who outfitted them with some important goods, guns, etc. He then turned them on to some inside dope on a little river, an unexplored job (you didn't hear it from me), called the Yasuni. Savages there? Yeah, yeah, lots of savages. But, you know, I've heard they might be descendants of the Incas, that's Inca as in GOLD. So they went up the trail to Loreto to find Indians to help on an expedition. But it would take three weeks for the Indians to prepare their marching kit.

Turning Toward Adventure

Chapter 3 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

Exodus

Our chapter opens with F.W. Up de Graff still working at Salinas for the Cordovez family. There had been a revolution and its head was Alfaro, who became President. Some of the folks were completely opposed to Alfaro, but once the jig was up they changed their clothes and marched in support of him. Gotta stay on the good side of power... In terms of democracy, though, this might mean there's only half as many people as we think we see!

When the revolution kicked into gear, Up de Graff happened to be there (in Guaranda) on business and took in some of the action. Then headed back to the Cordovez estate. A few days later a party of 20 officers show up to arrest him. But he'd had some warning, so he showed up at the front door with a gun. They wisely handed him the warrant and left.

Skip this, skip that, he finally left the Cordovez place for good, no longer entirely welcome, and was staying in a "hotel" (his quotes) in Riobamba, which was a worse dwelling-place than he had on the estate. He wondered, What shall I do, what shall I do? Then took a horse-drawn stagecoach to Quito, where he ended up meeting with President Alfaro and getting a passport for other travel in South America.

At the end of this chapter he shares a letter he wrote to his mom, telling her that "tomorrow" (Jan. 10, 1897) he'd be leaving on foot on an expedition toward the Napo forest, about 600 miles away, with some Indians employed to carry his equipment. He expected to camp on the Napo River, build some canoes, and start on a 4000 mile trip. I like this part: "I take absolutely no money with me," except what he'd need years later to get back to New York. The rest of his cash he invested in machetes, and beads and trinkets for trading with the Indians.

He finishes the letter with basically, 'Don't write back,' because there'd be no way he'd get the letter. And that was it, he was off!

That'd take a lot of bravery. One, I'd hate to be involved with a bunch of (probably) crooked cutthroat politicians in the midst of a revolution. I'd barely survive peacetime there. It's always better to fly a little more under the radar, which hadn't yet been invented. Still, Up de Graff lives a fairly humble life in his journeys henceforth, off to see the headhunters and escaping the powers that be (Alfaro, Cordovez, revolutionaries) who might've also had his head.

I'm trying to process his thinking process. Which must come down to this, get out there, go for all the gusto, if you live or if you die, it'd be worth it for the sheer adventure. And, importantly, for the riches of gold he expected to find. I'd probably be much more skeptical about the gold. Even if you found all of it you'd ever want, the idea that you'd get out of there with it is farfetched. The place is crawling with cutthroats. You really think you're going to be boarding the boat later, declaring your only possessions, a hat, machete, and three tons of gold? Don't think so!

But the adventure of it would be great, gold or no gold.

Headhunting South America

 

Chapter 1 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

The Beginning of the Trail

Fritz W. Up de Graff in the U.S. (1890s) had a frat brother from South America, D. Enrique Domingo Cordovez, called the Count. They talked about the backwardness of his country Ecuador, which fired in Up de Graff a determination to go help make some modern improvements. Maybe street lights, shoes on horses, and eventually cars and the internet. Lots of big dreams.

But he and his team first had to deal with other exploration and discovery, finding their way around forests where in just a few minutes you could be lost forever in a swamp or bog. It’s no small undertaking to avoid the undertaker there unless you were swallowed whole by an alligator or burned at the stake in one of the worst pagan rituals. The darkness lit only by wild flames, discouraging war cries, the sharpness of handmade spears, and a total absence of law enforcement added to the generally bleak outlook.

Still, other explorers of the past had done their thing and lived to tell, like Stanley from “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” fame, in Africa. Up de Graff’s youthful, untamed spirit vibrated in sympathy with the Count, probably the same feeling young men get today when it’s Porn Week on streaming TV. How will it work out? Will there be a happy ending worthy of the name? Will he find vast treasures of gold, caves of gold, trenches glistening with unbridled, untamed, unparalleled quantities of gold, shimmering, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen waxen GOLD?

Personally, I don’t know what I’d do with gold if I found it. I'm sure no one would really respect my rights when I registered my find: “I claim the gold of South America, having found the main vein at such and such coordinates, in my neighbor's backyard.” 20 minutes later I’d be overrun with guys with pick axes and guns aimed in violent intent at one another and me. It’s the kind of thing -- finding gold -- you should never tell another person, including friends, who’d step over you in a second in their lust and crazed abandon. It'd be better to find cotton candy.

Anyway, Cordovez tamped down some of Up de Graff's hopes, assuring him that there was indeed the possibility of making “a handsome capital,” just fabulous fortunes, which were already ripe to be had with various enterprises in America. But in 1894 to an adventurous spirit, “a handsome capital" was good enough. So off he sailed in 1894 with only $100 in his pocket, hoping for great adventure. He was there for seven years without so much as a day off.

How He Made His Billions

EVEN THE STOP SIGN IS PIXELATED
TO CONCEAL THE LOCATION OF THIS VEIN

It's been several days since the billionaire came to town. And I've made it my business to be "in" with him and find out everything I can about his dealings. Why am I doing that? Because it's been a long time since I've met someone who could very well be my soul mate. And money has nothing to do with it, although, if I were to be perfectly honest, it doesn't hurt.

But enough on that subject -- the vagaries of soul mating, true love, etc. -- because, frankly, it's a sore subject. I haven't written much about it, but, yes, long time readers of the blog know I had a true love ... once ... although I've never shared what precisely happened to drive us apart. I've already said too much. Let's get back to the billionaire, who, c'mon guys and gals, anyone, you have to concede he'd be a fantastic catch!

Anyway, the whole thing very well could be out of my hands entirely. The fact that we've run into each other a half dozen times in a town this size, that he bought my Easter bunnies and all the rest, was enough to tell me something's happening. With the next thing being he visited my house earlier today. I was so embarrassed; I still had bedhead. And I'm mostly bald, which with bedhead is a terrible look. But he didn't seem to be nonplussed.

He found out where I lived and wanted to come by and "make things right," since I'd erupted at Patsy's Steakhouse when he yet again called me "The Easter Bunny guy." It was a long day, that's all. I don't mind being the Easter Bunny guy, if it's right that a once-a-year activity should define you. In this case, since the billionaire didn't really know me and my many qualities, it's completely understandable that that's the label he should hang on me, as a kind of shorthand sobriquet.

I should just come out and say it, we are fast friends now, OK? I'm batting .1000, the first billionaire I've ever known and we're fast friends! I brushed it off, the whole "Easter Bunny guy" thing. He asked about me and my house, what I do, etc. I didn't hold back. I told him the truth of how I'm on disability because of my game toe. He thought that was cool, but then -- I couldn't believe it -- said he wouldn't mind helping me get it fixed. I had to beg off on that point. I'm not only adverse to pain, I also hate poverty.

Plus, I wanted to know more about him. How a guy can be a billionaire. What happens that makes you so filthy rich? Is it true what they say, that once you have your first billion the rest just happen? Good news, he said, that's exactly what happens! But he never stays still, resting on his mountains of cash. He's always looking for more. I think he saw a twinge of discomfort on my face. "That's not to say I obsess over it ... I want to live life to the fullest in small ways too."

Was I charmed? Yes, absolutely, what guy wouldn't be? But, as I said above, I still have this place, this hole in my heart, and I'm not sure at this point that anyone else can fill it. Damn it! And he has to be a billionaire, too! But we're leaving it at that, agreeing to be friends, do things together, yes, and take the rest of it slowly. Already he wants me to go with him on some buying trips around town, and he said he'll show me a good time. "But what about your game toe?" he asked. I told him, "Don't worry about that ... My tootsie-wootsies are feeling no pain!" We laughed, marking the first time in my life I ever saw a billionaire's eyelashes flutter.

"So where did you get your billions?" I asked. "Was it an inheritance, a well-paying part-time job, what?"

He looked around, suspiciously. We lowered our heads to the table and pulled in together. I believe I can publicly reveal his whispered confidential answer: "Rainbows. That business about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ... That's only half of it ... I can get all the gold I want, which, as you may know, is one of the most precious elements on earth..."

"But how?" I asked. As of today, as you might expect, he wouldn't say.