CHAPTER 37
(New)

In August of 1822, a letter arrived. 

My Dearest brother, Edgar,

I hope this letter finds you well. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for myself. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “tomorrow you may find me a grave man”. Oh but I jest, little brother! I blame the laudanum. 

You see, Brud, I am writing to you from a hospital bed on Craney Island with a terrible case of the Yellow Fever that I picked up whilst on my travels across the South Pacific. When I joined the Navy, I had hoped for a great adventure, and to pick up a tattoo, or an earring, perhaps even my manhood in exotic places like the West Indies or the Azores. All I seem to have gained is an intimate knowledge of scurvy, and this dreaded yellow fever. 

Oh it isn’t so bad, really. My nurse is quite pretty actually, unless of course that’s the fever talking, but I do have a lovely view outside of my window where I can watch the lighthouse all day and all night long. Thinking better of it, perhaps that’s what’s been keeping me up each night. I’m bound to go berzerk. Damn the lighthouse.  

Eddy, In anticipation of your question, ‘no, you may not come visit me’, despite Craney Island only being a short ride from Richmond, I am not the only man here with with the fever. In fact, Most of my shipmates have become my hospital mates as well. 

Sometimes I regret joining the crew of the USS Macedonian altogether. Our grandfather made life at sea sound so exciting. Truth be told its hell. If the ocean, or some other terrible thing doesn’t kill you first, the boredom just might. 

These days, Captain Downes doesn’t have me do much more than count inventory from official government privateering. You should see some of this cache. It’s got to be worth a fortune. You’d think we might get a bonus once in awhile as I suspect the good Captain is secretly taking one for himself?

Perhaps I should’t complain. The last time I went ashore on an adventure, I left with seven men and returned with four. More on that in the enclosed letter. I have learned many a myth and lore from the Southern Hemisphere much of which, dear brother, is right up your gothic, gruesome, gore-infested horror alley! 

As I mustn’t leave with with all doom and gloom, I am after all, not you, I will share some good news! It appears that we have a new baby cousin in Baltimore! Her name is Virginia and I understand she is quite sweet. God willing, we will all have a chance to meet her before she grows up. Again, with the humor.


Yours affectionately, 


Henry L. Poe 

POST SCRIPT: Please destroy this letter, immediately. I cannot afford any other reason to dock my pay as captain Downes has been on a spree lately. Be well, little brother. 


Eddy turned to the next page. 

—-

July 11, 1822

Aboard the USS Macedonian, off the coast of Venezuela. 

After many months at sea, we have finally returned from out adventures in the South Seas, where we encountered a land of fertility, treasure, beauty and danger. Along the way, our crew has claimed to see mermaids, sea monsters and even the Flying Dutchman. Indeed rounding Cape Horn was worrisome even for the toughest of us, but the real problems did not begin until we entered the Port of Callao in Peru in May. There, my mates and I were given leave to enjoy ourselves in the local pubs, but with the order to crimp a new crew member or two. Oh yes, that terrible deed of or kidnapping or “Shang hai’ing” an unwitting sailor is still in practice, although politicians back home would say otherwise. However, we are not in America at present, and so the laws do not apply. One of our new recruits is a native from the Tuni tribe, and another a spaniard by the name of Barbarez who were both present during the most harrowing of our adventures. 

My mates and I witnessed many a peculiar thing in the Callao marketplace, which I have come to believe was a foreshadowing of our misfortune. There were shrunken human heads for sale, one of which looked remarkably like our uncle George, next to a woman who was busy making a potion by placing a blue frog in a stone mortar and smashed it with a crude pestle. As we walked these streets, a shaman pointed at us and shouted, “karaíba, karaíba” as we passed. We were told this meant ‘white man’ or ‘foreigner’. Unfortunately, we learned later, Karaiba also means ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit of a dead person’. 

We left Peru and made south for Tierra del Fuego on our return home. We had successfully rounded the horn, and so were celebrating that perilous feat with a whiskey and a cigar when all of a sudden we spotted a ship on the horizon. At least we thought it was a ship.

As the fog shifted, we all saw it, or imagined we saw, a vessel standing under a press of sail, in red all aglow, looking as if she were floating on the water. We ran to the rails to get a better look, but the fog shifted again, covering her. When it lifted once more, there was no sign of a ship in our vicinity. So worried were we that we had spotted The Dutchman, and knowing what befalls many a sailor who do, we quickly hoisted the sails and left Terre del Fuego.  

We dropped anchor in Montevideo, but I didn’t not go ashore. I hope to do that one day as the city looks quite Bavarian in nature. A few nights later, we found ourselves off the coast of Venezuela where the Amazon spills into the Atlantic. Being the banking ship that we were, Our commander ordered seven of us to take the cutter on an exploratory mission of the interior of the Amazon in search of any sign of El Dorado, the city of gold. Our Tuni native guide took us to the mouth of the Araguari River where the great tidal bore known as the poraroca was taking place. We waited in our cutter, seven men we, at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean, and would return to this spot a quintet. At first the poracora swell seemed like nothing, but in an instant the massive wave appeared, made for us like a stampeded of bulls. I had never seen such a thing before nor since! It came at us with such force that even we as trained sailors were nary prepared for the crash against our hull as it swept us deep into the river with an unGodly force.

Up up up the river it pushed us for a good five minutes until that we could no longer see the ocean. That’s when one of our own, Johan Brodock, fell overboard and into the river. I had barely reached my hand out to help, grazing his fingertips when the water suddenly became agitated and a great school of fish approached. 

Pirahna! Pirahna, our native guide began to shout, but by then they had reached Johan who let out a blood curdling scream as the water ran red. A man stood, ready with an oar, to fight for Johan, but it nearly tipped our boat. He crouched back down to steady the rocking cutter, as we all looked on in horror as our Johan was pulled under. Then he up again- fighting for his life, his face shredded and torn to such a degree, I feared his eye wide with fear, might fall from his skull. In an instant he was gone and we saw no more of him. After that, we dared not try to turn around for fear we too might capsize and meet the same fate.

We carried on in silence as the tide forced us further in the jungle, further into hell. Quite by accident, we stumbled upon unfriendly natives, some with lip plates the size of pub mats and the markings of warriors, who began to shoot spears and blowing darts from the river banks! We ducked to miss them, and only one man, John Jones, was hit. He quickly removed the dart. Only then did our guide tell us this tribe was known to his people as cannibals who ate their enemies. He encouraged us to find another arm of the river to return and we were only so willing to oblige. 

Finally, when the river was so low we could step onto the banks we moored the cutter and set up camp. 

The jungle was naturally dark under the heavy canopy of trees, but when the sun went down it became so pitch black that we built a fire more for light than anything. But ours was not the only light in the jungle. 

Anther man, Douglas,  spotted a glowing orb far off in the  jungle. A Wills-o’-the-wisp he called it. 

As it turned out, the poison that had earlier pierced John Jones was starting to take its toll. He began to hallucinate, claiming he saw a woman holding the lantern in the jungle. I used my jackknife to try and bleed out any remaining poison from Jonesie’s arm, but it seemed it was already in his system. So we went to bed and tootk turns watching over him. Douglas awoke me in the night when he spotted Jones walking into he forest alone. I got up as quickly as I could, but the jungle was too dense. In the end our party found no ancient temples, no lost city of gold, nor Jones’s body.

To the ship 

We had had enough, and insisted our Tupian guide return us post haste. True to his word, he took us to an adjoining stream so we we were able to avoid the angry tribe from before. But yet, little brother, we were unaware that perhaps the greatest danger of all lie ahead. 

Our guide took us down an alternate route of the river that served as a watering hole for fauna such as ocelots, capybaras, tapirs and okapi. 

The water along this stretch of the river was calm, and bucolic. Tucans and monkeys sang as we felt the sun on our faces for the first time in two days. Our guide assured us there were no piranhas in this part of the river, and so with the sun now blazing down upon us, we decided to swim. 

The water was cool and inviting. There was no trace of man-eating fish, cannibal tribes or the strong poraroca tidal bore at all. Rather, the water was like glass, a much needed reprieve from the horrors we had witnessed just the day before. There we floated, amongst fallen logs, as a gentle current lulled us in the direction of our awaiting ship. As we floated along, we thought nothing of the logs floating along with us. But as they floated closer, we realized they weren’t timber at all.

Barbarez, the Spaniard among us,  began shouting “cocodrilo!” “cocodrilo!” No one  understood him until the eyes of the black caiman alligator appeared.Each man hurried to save his own neck- I to the shore, Douglas and the others to the cutter. Our Tupian guide ran up a tree. Arthur, the youngest among us was halfway into he cutter when the thing attacked. He grabbed the boy’s foot and dragged him into he river. A fight was put up by Arthus, but not for long. We all stood watching, screaming, yelling. Douglas pulled out a pistol and shot the creature. He fired again and again. The monster’s belly was riddled with pellets. Arthur dragged his bloody body to the shore where I ran to him. I tried to save the boy, but he was losing blood so quickly. He died in my arms. 

We placed Arthur back into the cutter and silently rode the rest of the way back to the USS Macedonian. Arthur was given a proper burial at sea, but Captain Downes refused his mother his pay as Arthur didn’t compete the mission. 

I haven’t told anyone else this story, Eddy, nor will I ever have the strength to let these words cross my lips. However, if I don’t express what happened, I think I’ll go mad, hence this note.

Thank you for allowing me to express myself, dear, sweet brother, Edgar.  Please come visit in Baltimore when you are able.