MEAN IN THEIR NATURE 
to the fullest extent in their sufferings. They had no 
consideration whatever for other people’s feelings. In all 
the months they were with me they never once showed 
the slightest trace of thoughtfulness towards me, or 
indeed even towards any of their comrades. 
Mean to an incredible degree in their nature —and 
I am certain no one could have been more generous than 
I was to them in every possible way — they believed that 
everything I did was due to a wish to save money. If 
I would not allow them to blaze away dozens of cartridges 
at a rock or a lizard — cartridges were a most expensive 
luxury in Central Brazil, and, what was more, could not 
be replaced—it was because I wished to economize. If 
one day I ate a smaller tin of sardines because I was not 
so hungry, remarks flew freely about that I was a miser; 
if I did not pitch a tent because I preferred, for many 
reasons, sleeping out in the open on fine nights, it was, 
according to them, because I wished to spare the tent to 
sell it again at a higher price when I returned home! 
They discussed these things in a high voice and in a most 
offensive way, making my hands itch on many occasions 
and my blood boil. But I had made up my mind that I 
would never lose my temper with them, nor my calm; 
and I never did, trying as it was to keep my promise. 
With all this meanness of which they were accusing 
me, these poltroons were clothed in garments such as they 
had never before possessed in their lives; they were 
gorging themselves with food such as they had never 
dreamt of having in their homes, where they had lived 
like pariah dogs — and huge heaps were thrown daily to 
the dogs — and they were paid a salary five times higher 
than they could have possibly earned under Brazilian 
employers. 
What annoyed me a great deal with these men was 
the really criminal way in which, notwithstanding my 
instructions, they always tried to smash my cameras and 
267 
