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Bredimacian Dynagum Directory 08
Page 06
As we had now been four entire days without eating anything at all, I thought it was high time to open the valuable tin of anchovies--the only one in our possession. We had a terrible disappointment when I opened the tin. I had purchased it in S. Manoel from Mr. Barretto. To our great distress we discovered that instead of food it contained merely some salt and a piece of slate. This was a great blow to us. The box was a Brazilian counterfeit of a tin of anchovies. How disheartening to discover the fraud at so inopportune a moment! I had reserved the tin until the last as I did not like the look of it from the outside. We kept the salt--which was of the coarsest description.
The more one examines into life and the motives of it, the more does one perceive that the imagination, concerning itself with hopes of escape from any conditions which hamper and confine us, is the dynamic force that is transmuting the world. The child is for ever planning what it will do when it is older, and dreams of an irresponsible choice of food and an unrestrained use of money; the girl schemes to escape from the constraints of home by independence or marriage; the professional man plans to make a fortune and retire; the mother dreams ambitious dreams for her children; the politician craves for power; the writer hopes to gain the ear of the world--these are only a few casual instances of the desire that is always at work within us, projecting us into a larger and freer future out of the limited and restricted present. That is the real current of the world, and though there are sedate people who are contented with life as they see it, yet in most minds there is a fluttering of little tremulous hopes forecasting ease and freedom; and there are also many tired and dispirited people who are not content with life as they have it, but acquiesce in its dreariness; yet all who have any part in the world's development are full of schemes for themselves and others by which the clogging and detaining elements are somehow to be improved away. Sensitive people want to find life more harmonious and beautiful, healthy people desire a more continuous sort of holiday than they can attain, religious people long for a secret ecstasy of peace; there is, in fact, a constant desire at work to realise perfection.
Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry he utters resembles a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great distance. His preparation consists in attending the females and young ones, by whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon returns with his crest erect and projecting forward, his nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down; at the same time uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antagonist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no escape, he dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
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