TAPLEE, IN THE JUNGLEAlmost losing his life, he treks across the Malay Peninsula from the Andaman Sea to what was then called the Gulf of Siam.
As the dugout moved upriver, as the river narrowed, the sky became lost under dense canopies of mangrove. Richard swatted at mosquitoes and flies. Crocodiles slipped silently into the water as the boat approached. Parrots screeched somewhere in the jungle and the men heard monkeys chatter. Fish leaped out of the water to gulp a mosquito. Deer timidly approached the bank to drink, eyes out for crocodiles. Elephants drank from the other bank. Cranes and herons reeled into flight upon seeing the boat. Orangutans peered through underbrush at the men. The men could smell rafflesia, a parasitic flower that smells like rotting meat.
That same year, in 1922 in the familiar world, people sat outside Parisian cafés discussing James Joyce’s new book, Ulysses. In Vatican Square the faithful gathered under the third floor window of the papal apartments to pay homage to Pius XI, the new Pope. Reporters stood around Warren G. Harding as the President listened to the first radio in the White House. History was still in the making.
A boa constrictor hung from a tree. Scorpions scampered across the forest floor, passing an anteater. Upon seeing the men in the sampan, a Sumatran rhino crashed away through the undergrowth. Chattering Gibbons clambered up trees to look at them. On the jungle floor a cobra, hood swollen, reared to strike its venom into an unsuspecting young Gibbon.
