Limekiller!

The first sign of human settlement was a barking dog. Then a thatched hut. And an Indian-dark Ladino boy who stared dully at us, not returning any of the greetings waved from our boat. totally different from the bright, alert, cheerful Mayan children of San Antonio. Then downstream came a very long motor-dory (remember, again, dory here always means dug-out) — perhaps a pin — containing eight people of all sizes: six Caribs and two Mestizos; the long boat towing a smaller one alongside. Hails w-ere exchanged. Next from the bank a bulky Carib lady with a multicolored broadbrim straw hat atop her red kerchief lowered her machete and waved. The tree line became broken, here was a corn- patch, here were bananas, and then came a house and groves.

“There is Bul’s place. He wants to sell. Do you want to buy?” “How much for how much?”

“Ten acres cleared and planted. He ask $300.”

“What does it cost to clear land here?”

Our commodore reflected. “For high bush. $20 an acre. For low bush. a little bit less.”

It seemed, then, to me, that “Bul” was in effect selling land for $10 an acre. Later I learned that things were not at all that simple. I gazed at the tangled shores, and asked about iguana — after all, the purpose of our voyage. “What shall I bring you back?” I’d asked. “Bring me back an iguana,” she’d said. And so here we all were. Before, I had seen the dragons in the trees; now I was to see them considerably closer up.

“No fear, there are plenty of iguana here. The next place belongs to the Spanish people who are good hunters of them. You will see.”

One of the boatmen looked at me. “You like bamboo chicken in the country you belong to?”

“Sir?”

“Bamboo chicken. Iguana and garobo. They not have them? Too bad. Taste veh-ry good. Just like chicken.” He smacked his lips.

“Not to eat. I don’t want them to eat. alive, alive-O,” I insisted.

He nodded. “We put them in box, put in leaves, she live six weeks. You feast she in your country.” After some vigorous, if confused interchange, it was established that (a) the iguanas could live six weeks just on the “leaves” put into their box; it was not meant that they would drop dead after only six weeks; and (b) it was not my intention to export them as victualry, ceremonial or otherwise. “He want keep for pet,” the boatmen said. And they gazed at each other and at me and at the river and the shores, with a blandness and toleration for foreign foibles which was mighty fine to see.

And so at length and at last to our first stop, the “Spanish people”, who were cunning and canny at hunting the dragon- minor. Now I perceived the utility of a muddy bank: they cut the motor and let the boat go, slide up, soft and easy, easy as can be. Higher up stood a newmade dory, upside down on blocks: easy, then, to understand why in some other country (I forget just where) dugouts are called “skins”: this one, of tawny-ruddy Santa Maria wood, looked indeed as though it had been fashioned from a skin of fine pale leather. This was the Martinez plantation; these, however, were Mestizo Martinezes, and hence no kin to the Carib Martinezes of Stann Creek. Also present were the Sanchez family people — they and those we passed in the big dory had been visiting here — and each family agreed to contribute one hunter for our little expedition.

Tomas Martinez was perhaps nineteen, taller than his hunt- partner (though not tall by northern standards) and broader, too, with a very fine Mestizo face, and a very light Mestizo coloring. Santiago Sanchez was perhaps sixteen and small and slender; his tilted nose, full lips, and darker skin perhaps hinted pleasantly of a Creole or Carib grandparent.

The house, thatched roof and pole sides, was actually two houses in some intricately connected fashion. Handsome black and white ducks abounded, of a sort I had never seen before (“What are these birds called? Have they a special name?” “Yes — they are called ‘ducks’ — d-u-c-k-s.”) and at the top of the steps a board blockade (in San Antonio it was a board blockade) served to keep the livestock out and the toddlers in. The forest pressed very nigh the little houses. Inside it was narrow and on the dark side, walls as usual covered with magazine and newspaper pages; I wondered what the settlers made of such pictures, here on the remote and incredibly quiet backwaters of the world.