"
When I arrived at Remate de Males I had another attack of malaria,
which almost severed the slender thread by which my life hung; my
physical resistance was gone. But I managed to develop my plates
before breaking down completely, and after having disposed of my
small quantity of gold dust, for which I realised some three hundred
and forty dollars, I was taken down to the mouth of the Javary River,
where I had landed almost a year previous, now a physical and, I might
almost say, mental wreck. I stayed in the house of Coronel Monteiro,
the frontier official at Esperanca, for five long days, fighting with
death, until one afternoon I saw the white hull of the R.M.S. _Napo_
appear at a bend of the Amazon, only five hundred yards away.
Closer she came--this rescuing instrument of Providence. She was none
too soon, for I had now reached the last notch of human endurance. She
dropped anchor; a small gasoline launch was lowered into the water;
three white-coated officers stepped into it--they came ashore--they
climbed the stairs. The captain, a stout, kind-looking Englishman,
approached my hammock and found therein a very sick white man. I was
carried aboard and placed in the hands of the ship's physician.
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