Chapter 4: Lost!

HALTING my horse at a bend of the road, I called back to my faithful trooper, hopefully trudging along on foot behind our two pack-animals: “Antao I’m sure we are off the track!”
“Not at all,” he replied, “this is the road all right.”
“But,” said I, “it is now well over two hours since they said at that house, away back that it was but two miles to the village of Jurupensem, and we have traveled five at least.”
“We are all right,” repeated my companion confidently; “look at tire horse tracks!”
“But,” I objected, glancing anxiously at my wrist compass, “our direction is quite wrong. We have been traveling northwest for the last fourteen days, and now, for an hour and more, I have noticed our path points clue north. We are riding into some unknown wilderness. However, perhaps the direction will improve when we reach the top of the hill.” It did not improve, and no village or habitation seemed even probable from the aspect of things, but Antao was obdurate.
“Supposing we are on the right road, where is Jurupensem?” I insisted. This argument finally carried the day, and after Antao had given several long, loud blasts with his horn, which echoed without response away over the hills and forests around us, we turned our jaded animals and rode back the six miles to the last decrepit farmhouse we had passed.
On arrival the place was empty and very desolate looking, but we unharnessed our animals and waited for the occupants, who soon after emerged from the dense forest across the road. One was a middle-aged, coffee-colored woman of amiable aspect; the other a tall, aged, white-bearded negro. They had been fishing, but only a single ferocious piranha had rewarded their efforts. They stared at us in surprise, naturally tor we had passed their house nearly four hours before.
“We are off the track,” I explained, asking, “Where is Jurupensem?”
“This is Jurupensem,” replied the woman. “This!” I exclaimed, glaring at the hovel of a house. “But where is the old village?”
“You will find it a little way in there,” pointing to the dark forest from which they had just emerged.
Following the thin track, we penetrated the jungle, and about a hundred, yards from the road, buried in semi-darkness and solitude, we made out all that was left of the once flourishing military post and penal convict station of Jurupensem. There, roofless and cent, stood what was left of the Catholic Church. To its right stood the wooden framework of the house of the commanding officer, a two-story building, once the pride of the place, but whose skeleton can now scarcely be distinguished from the tall thick trees which fold it in a close embrace — all that is left of the scene of active life, romance, and tragedy of but thirty years ago! Alas, too typical of the ruin and decay fast overtaking the remoter regions of Brazil to pay the price of the somewhat superficial glory of the magnificent capital on the coast! Vast, fertile, and beautiful regions reclaimed from the wildernesses of Brazil by the hardy pioneers of former days and fostered by the Government of those times, sought to spend their resources for the general good of the whole country, and especially in opening up the interior, they are rapidly returning to their primitive condition, unknown and unlamented. I have encountered many such places in my travels.
Already it was getting dark, so there was nothing for it but to water and feed our animals and turn them loose for the night. The woman agreed to cook us a pot of rice while we prepared our night quarters. It was decidedly trying to have lost twelve miles, and to have to continue the next day over the same road; such a waste of energy and time, just when we required to make good progress in order to spend Sunday on the banks of the Araguaya! “It is evident the Lord means us to spend the night here,” said Antao; and we left it at that.
We shared the old negro’s side of the shanty―Antao in his hammock, and I on the ground, with the edge of the ground sheet turned up as a protection against the venomous ground carrapatos. We were extremely tired, and, not seeing any more of the woman, were soon wrapped in fitful slumber. The poor old negro evidently had not enough clothing to keep himself warm, for several times during the night I woke to find his great, gaunt figure silently bending over a flickering fire of corn-cobs, a few feet from my head, trying to keep himself warm. He must have passed the best part of the night in this position, and every night will be the same. In this place, Jurupensem, he has passed the greater part of his miserable existence, from youth to old age, and although now a free man he cannot break away from this abandoned spot.
By daybreak we used his fire to make ourselves some tea, which the old fellow shared, without biscuits; and then he told us his story, using the quaint vernacular of the old slave days.
Whilst a slave he had been unjustly accused of murder. Tic real criminal escaped, and he had to suffer the penalty―to be a galley slave for life. In this place he had to spend his martyrdom of brutal treatment and privation for — he does not know how many years — except that, when he was finally released by the Republican Government, he was already an old man without friends or means. He must have been over a hundred years old; and he wanted “to die and end it all,” he said.
Here was an opportunity. I replied that God had preserved him for a purpose, and for that same purpose we had lost our way yesterday. Then I told him of One who had been also unjustly and cruelly tried and done to death by wicked hands, thereby satisfying the sentence of the law, even as the old negro had done, and that thereby both he and I would be set free, pardoned, and assured of eternal life. His sad case proved a great help in explaining the Gospel, and I used it to the full. What a delight it was to preach under such circumstances, and to be able to assure this lost, desolate, poverty-stricken old negro of God’s love and salvation, and of the mansion prepared for even him, and the joy and glory awaiting him, as he trusted himself to the Lord Jesus and allowed Him to take him as he was! The old negro said that he would.
Then a neighbor dropped in and the woman appeared, and we had an impressive little meeting, which I cannot but believe will prove of eternal worth.
Soon after we rode on our way, nor have we since regretted the variations of the compass nor those lost twelve miles.