Adventures in the Tropics
73
fices of the Compagnie Francaise de Telegraphie sans Fil and Bert explained to Señor Benoit, the manager, that we were a couple of wireless operators from the United States. The manager acted as though he was dazed and Bert handed him our credentials to set him right.
In a moment, though, he recovered and I wish you could have seen the way he greeted us! You’d have thought he’d found two long lost brothers for he hugged us in turn and almost wept on our necks. I thought the heat and the smell of the rubber had made him nutty whereas it was only his great good luck. Believe me, he knew exactly what it was all about.
He had come on from France six months before to put up a chain of wireless stations beginning at Para and on up the river for 2500 miles to Equitos, at intervals of about 500 miles. Before the wireless men got to Jurutty they had been taken down with the fever and were even then on their way to Para, and so the job was open and ready for us to tackle. He agreed to pay us a million reis, including all our expenses and a million reis for every month we remained as operators in his company’s service. It didn’t take half-an-eye to see that if we