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When I came to an incline, even a gentle slope, I got down on all fours and crawled, my face caked with mud, my clothes torn and weighing me down. I was weak and afraid of losing consciousness. All I had was water. Water had become the enemy. Other than water nothing had passed my lips. The girl was my only consolation.

We walked on together for a few hours, but Jaguar Beach was nowhere to be seen. I tried to locate it by looking for the four islands that had been strung across the river. I remembered them as being very close to the beach, but I saw only one solitary island in the river. I feared that the current had swept the islands away but found that hard to believe. The islands had been large and well forested. They couldn't have vanished without a trace.

I trudged on and on through the mud and finally came upon a fruit tree. It was tall, a species of palm. At its top were large clusters of dates. A family of monkeys were up there having a noisy feast. A few pieces of fruit were strewn on the ground. They were squashed into the mud and rotting. My body quivered, twitched with craving, an age-old primordial instinct. I was hungry like a wild beast. I pounced upon the dates in the mud. I didn't care if they were rotten. The worms did not disgust me. I put the fruit into my mouth, rolled it around with my tongue, cleaned it off with my saliva, spat it out into the palm of my hand, and then spat out the residue of mud in