I came down with heat exhaustion (this was not the miracle). The porters propped me up against a big boulder and gave me one of their hideous umbrellas with which to shade myself. I sat there in the heat and woefully wished that I had one of those nice, consoling chocolate biscuits (if only I could get my hands on that thieving vulture!). Then I got to examining the ugly umbrella itself: such a curious object, that handle—almost like a skeleton—
Suddenly, I stood up and let out a whoop.
These were no ordinary umbrellas. Their handles were indeed made from bone, not wood—and on the whole, the umbrellas very clearly resembled the creatures etched into the cave walls.
“Oh, my darlings—you have done it!” I cried out to the porters, who were very confused by my strange behavior. No doubt they thought that the sun had addled my poor little brain. Far from it—I’d never felt so invigorated!
But where had they found these objects?
The waterfall, they said, and showed me: there, wedged along the edges of the falls, were dozens of petrified “fish umbrellas.” A little rock-climbing endeavor by the more agile porters revealed that these carcasses went hundreds of feet up, and likely lined the falls all the way to the top.
I have heard of modern fish that can swim up relatively short waterfalls, but these falls shot up nearly into the heavens. Those queer fish would have to be incredibly powerful to swim even a third of the way up. I almost drove myself mad as I examined the carcasses and tried to solve this puzzle. And then it struck me: the key to the mystery lay in the umbrella shape of these creatures. After all, very rarely does Nature assign a characteristic to an animal just for fun—oh, no: there is always a function.
These flying fish were born in the pools at the bottom of the falls (the fossils at the bottom are far smaller and less developed than the ones higher up). Once big enough, a fish shot out of the water like a bullet and began its brave ascent up the waterfall, like today’s waterfall-climbing fish—only the shoulder muscles of the ancient species were at least a dozen times more powerful. What little bullies they must have been! Additionally, their remains tell me that these fish sported not just fins, but also powerful webbed wings on four sides of their bodies, which helped propel them up the gushing stream. And then, when a fish became absolutely exhausted, it would release a huge, billowing parachute from around its neck, which would allow it to hover midair, until the fish recovered enough strength to continue its journey.
It slays me just to think of it! Each fish spent its whole life trying to “climb” the falls. When it got halfway up, the poor dear was already middle-aged. And when at last it reached the top, it caught just a single glimpse of that magnificent view from the summit—and then it died. The top of the falls is littered with fossils of Umbrella Fish.
The question remains: How did this wondrous species go extinct?
Upon considering the evidence surrounding the fossils, I have developed a theory. Many fossils are clustered around those of the Umbrella Fish: bird remains, faintly resembling the vile vulture that stole my chocolate biscuits. (Once again—blast him! What a nice reward a bit of chocolate would be right now.) Most importantly, these bird fossils sport carnivore teeth.3 As predator birds evolved in the area, the exhausted, hovering Umbrella Fish must have made easy prey and a fine, meaty meal.
The last of them appear to have been devoured approximately 300 million years ago.
As you can imagine, I was feeling a bit melancholy about the bittersweet fate of the Amazonian Umbrella Fish. Suddenly old Mother Wiggins elbowed her way into my mind.
“What are you wiping away tears for?” she demanded. “That’s life, Wendell: all hard work and no reward at the end.”
“No, Mother,” I said. “You have quite missed the point. Yes, each of us struggles up the falls to achieve something, and if we do reach the top, how short a time we get to enjoy it! But those fish must have seen marvelous things along the way, and they never gave up. Perhaps the goal wasn’t just to reach the top; it was also to enjoy the magnificent journey. We should remember that.”
“What an idealist,” grumped Mother Wiggins. “Where did I go awry?”
And then she vanished from my mind.
1. These falls today are called Salto Angel in Spanish, or Angel Falls in English, named after the American aviator Jimmie Angel, the first person to fly a plane over the falls. This happened in 1933; until then, these falls were largely unknown to the outside world. While other explorers are said to have seen the falls in previous centuries, Dr. Wiggins was truly ahead of his time in making this “discovery,” and then in excavating the ancient life in the immediate area.
2. Dr. Wiggins was right: they are the highest falls in the world, rising to more than twice the height of New York City’s Empire State Building.
3. A carnivore is a creature that eats meat.
August 1850
Mount Roraima, Venezuela
In Which I Discover … Rockhide Miners of Roraima
(Populi Silicis ab Roraima)
I might not have discovered this magnificent, strange “mountain,” but from here onward, my name will forever be attached to it. After all, I believe that I have just unlocked the deepest secret of Mount Roraima, whose origin has baffled the world for hundreds of years.4
Back in England, I had studied reports about this curious place, and once I finished my exploration of the Umbrella Fish, the porters led the way here. Danger haunted our trek: a giant anaconda fell from a tree right on top of one of the porters, crushing the poor man to smithereens. It really was too gruesome. The only upside: the other porters hacked the snake to bits and it became our evening meal (quite tasty, actually).
Soon, however, we came to a clearing and beheld the glorious Roraima plateau, towering some ten thousand feet above us: a most peculiar and stunning sight. In fact, it reminded me of a table, not a mountain. Its top was flat, not peaked, and its sides were even straight up and down.
Since I had eaten nothing but snake stew for the past few days, in my mind Mount Roraima transformed itself into one of those delectable little custards that stand alone on your plate. I would have stood there all day, gaping and licking my chops, if a porter hadn’t thrown a dish of water over me and woken me from my reverie. Out came the shovels, dust brushes, picks, ropes, and other excavation equipment: it was time to get to work.
My reasons for studying the area:
1. I wondered if we couldn’t find a clue or two about how Roraima had been formed. Typical mountain ranges are often created during continental drifts, in which continents press up against each other, “rippling” the land into deep wrinkles and peaks. Well, this mountain stood by itself on the plain amidst no “rippling” range—so clearly some other phenomenon created it.
2. Surely such a strange landmass would have provided a home to some strange species as well.
After much rooting around and chipping away, we uncovered a cave in the mountain’s base. At first we meant to use the cavern simply for storage, but the most fetid smell sent us running back outside. Only when a porter (who works on a pig farm and is apparently used to such smells) discovered a very compelling, ancient passageway stemming from the cave did we venture back inside. The stench coming from that winding tunnel was even worse, like rotting flesh! My daydreams of custard quickly disappeared.
We wrapped oilcloth around the ends of branches, set them on fire, and bravely forged down the passage with our new torches. The passageway led to another, and then another. The smell grew stronger and stronger as we went; why, that ancient air was practically as thick as pea soup! Just when I was sure that we had gone so far that we would never be able to find our way out, something made a rather ghastly crunch beneath my foot. I held the torch above the spot.
Bones.
We had wandered into a vast graveyard, and a very old one at that. Tens of millions of years old, in fact. Quite a gruesome place, too: unlike in a regular graveyard, where people are buried in the ground, the creatu
res in this graveyard were scattered about on top of the dirt. And the bodies had been so well preserved by that ancient, boggish air that they looked merely asleep, not dead.
At first glance, these beings resembled humans: they had stood on two legs and had two arms, opposable thumbs, and faces with vaguely humanoid features. Yet this was where the similarities ended. These squat creatures also had much in common with ants, moles, and other underground dwellers: great feelers protruded from their heads and limbs to help them make their way through the lightless passages they created. A thick, rock-like hide covered their bodies; huge, lidless eyes looked out from the top halves of their faces, ready to catch any fragile beam of light.
Their mission: to dig, dig, and dig some more. How do I know this? As we searched the debris of the graveyard, we found piles of primitive picks and axes and other digging equipment. And when I went back and examined all of those tunnel walls, I found that the surfaces had been hacked away in clumsy chunks; it was clear that the passageways had been created with those specific axes.
But the question remained: Why in heavens had those Rockhide Miners of Roraima dug out such a labyrinth? Set end to end, those tunnels probably spanned fifty kilometers, if not more!5
It has taken a great deal of exploration to solve the mystery, but this is what my team and I discovered: the Rockhide Miner mummies found throughout the caves and tunnels on the left side of Mount Roraima are male. But then, when we journeyed all the way around the huge plateau and entered the caves on the right side, the mummies we found there were female! Curiously, the tunnels created by the men and those created by the women fall just short of meeting in the middle. I have concluded that they were digging to find each other.
Why were the Miner men and women separated in the first place? I cannot say for certain, but I have a theory. Perhaps the Mount Roraima men had gone out on some grand underground hunting excursion, and the tunnel leading back to their home had caved in while they were gone. Suddenly, kilometers of collapsed rock stood between the Rockhide ladies and gentlemen. As they hacked and whacked and axed their way back in the direction from which they had come, they created so many tunnels that the land above them kept collapsing inward.
All of that digging must have been a wearying business, especially with those great chunks of earth avalanching down upon them as they hacked away, night and day. The petrified muscles of the Miners indicate that they eventually died of fatigue—without ever finding each other again. What they left behind: the last bit of the Roraima plain standing in a barren plateau. The land around it had collapsed into the tunnels, giving Roraima the appearance of a great, square mountain. Why, that “mountain” might just be the world’s biggest gravestone.
And here is the heartbreak: the remains of the Rockhide men and women really are not very far apart. A few more weeks of digging, and perhaps they would have found each other again!
Just now, as I was making my final notes, Mother Wiggins “found” me, way down in the depths of Mount Roraima! I could hardly believe it.
“Ha!” she said. Her apparition clutched a rolling pin, and flour covered her apron. “It is just like I always told you: no good will come from girls and boys chasing after each other.”
“Oh, please stop pestering me, Mother,” I pleaded. “You’ll embarrass me in front of the porters.”
“It always ends in trouble,” she declared, smacking the rolling pin into one of her floury palms, and then she vanished.
Not surprisingly, I have a rather different view of the situation. To me, the Rockhide Miners’ story shows that for millions of years, men have tried to move mountains for love—and have paid the price.
4. Mount Roraima was first noted by a European explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1596; he called it a “mountain of crystal” and declared it impossible to climb. Other explorers subsequently visited the plateau but were able to shed no light on its origins. In 1877, a British newspaper asked: “Will no one explore Roraima and bring us back the tidings which it has been waiting these thousands of years to give us?” More than one hundred years later, Dr. Wiggins has done precisely that.
5. Kilometers are a measurement of distance used in Dr. Wiggins’s native England. One kilometer equals approximately six-tenths of a mile.
April 1851
The Amazon Jungle, Brazil
In Which I Acquire a Strange
Pet Named … Gibear
(Chiroptera Vicugna Pacosis)
A new country and a new mission. During my final weeks in Argentina, our team came across the most interesting witch doctor in the middle of the jungle. All of his clothes were made of tiny little bones stitched together, and he threw powders into a campfire, making the flames turn green, blue, and black. With my porters on hand to translate, he told me the tale of a strange prehistoric vine that spoke with a human voice and once lived in the jungles of Brazil. I immediately set off in search of its remains.
Now, even the dimmest of dimwits has heard of the great Amazon River. But not everyone knows how many little offshoots of the River there are: hundreds, perhaps more, most of them uncharted and absolutely riddled with peril. And of course the prehistoric vine supposedly resided along one of those uncharted tributaries. So, off I went, with a new team of local Brazilian porters to guide me through those dangerous waters.
Horrid luck! On the first day, one of our three boats got smashed in some terrifying rapids, and piranhas promptly devoured a porter. And then a second set of rapids demolished the second boat on the second day. A fleet of monkeys ran away with the third boat on the third day—what exactly they will do with it is a question that will puzzle me until the day I die.
We lost most of our provisions in the accidents, so we went scavenging in the jungle for Brazil nuts. This might sound like a skimpy diet, but these nuts are quite sustaining; I knew we could survive on them for quite a while.
Suddenly I heard a piteous Welp! come from inside an enormous coiled vine. My heart skipped a beat: Could I have stumbled across the notorious talking vine already? I heard it again: Welp! Welp! Welp!
I poked the vine with a sharp stick; it coiled up tighter, like a vicious boa constrictor. Just then, I noticed a soft little black ear sticking out from that tangle; the vine had apparently captured a small animal and was squeezing it to death! I quickly pulled out a hatchet from my belt and chopped that evil plant to bits. Inside cowered and gasped a rabbit-sized creature: four stumpy little legs jutted out from its puff of black fur; enormous saucer-round ears stood on the top of its head. What was it?
Well, if I had to categorize this animal strictly by genus, I would say that it was a miniature Chiroptera Vicugna Pacosis. Yes, indeed! A fruit bat/alpaca hybrid. Rather difficult to fathom, but there it was, in front of my very eyes. Nature can be so terribly inventive!
My porters gathered around and drew their knives, excited at the prospect of a miniature Chiroptera Vicugna Pacosis dinner that night. The exhausted creature wobbled up onto its little stumps and gave out a series of short, strange barks that sounded like a wheeze followed by a sneeze:
Giii-bear!
Giii-bear!
Giii-bear!
The porters laughed at this courageous show and put down their knives. I plucked the little animal up by the scruff of his neck and put him into my sun helmet; he curled up in a ball and soon went straight to sleep.
I shall call this brave little soldier Gibear—in honor of the noise that he makes. I will keep him as my pet, and he will always serve as a reminder that even the smallest creatures can have the bravest of hearts.
May 1851
The Amazon Jungle, Brazil
In Which I Discover … the Amazonian Whispering Vine
(Vitus Sussurus)
The porters bow their heads in shame when they recall that they wanted to eat Gibear the other day. After all, the little animal has proven to be the most useful of all of us—although we are still not entirely certain what sort of creature he is. He can practically sle
epwalk his way into a cache of Brazil nuts, while it takes the rest of us hours to find even a modest little bundle. He has also shown us a special plant that contains sweet aloe water.
Our new furry patron saint in tow, we traveled deeper and deeper into the jungle, searching for evidence of the witch doctor’s fabled prehistoric talking vine. Of course, he hadn’t provided any specific information about its onetime location; therefore, much of our time was spent stumping around, looking for clues. We saw plenty of common old predator vines, like the one that tried to swallow up Gibear; we even came across a vine that had ridges of teeth along the edges. But alas, all of these vines were mute. I began to fear that the witch doctor had sent us on a fool’s errand.
Then, a few mornings ago, I woke up feeling quite odd. One usually feels odd waking up on a jungle floor, covered in ants the size of your thumb—but that is common to the point of boring these days. No, something else was causing the odd feeling. The same creepy mood wreathed itself around everyone in the camp: instead of packing the bedrolls and magicking up our breakfast, the porters just sat around and stared at the ground.
“What is ailing everyone this morning?” I demanded. “Do you expect me to make Gibear’s coffee myself? You know that I make ghastly coffee; he simply won’t drink it.” Gibear peeked out of my sun helmet and gave a sharp bark of agreement. He was most surly in the mornings before lapping up a cup of coffee, we had learned.
“Strange dreams came to us last night,” one of the porters told me. “A woman’s voice was inside our heads, singing us a lullaby. We think that this is a bad omen.”
The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins Page 2