[bfisher]

I found reading this book a mixed experience:

His writing is at its best when he is talking about the natural worldi:
“she appeared transformed and instinct with intense resentment—a beautiful human wasp, and every word a sting”
“there was no companionship, and we were fellow travellers only like birds flying independently in the same direction, not so widely separated but that they can occasionally hear and see each other”
Likewise, in his description of the making of native beer: “the result of much patient mastication and silent fermentation—the delicate flower of a plant that has been a long time growing”

I was left with the sensation that there is a great deal of irony in this novel. For example:
“he had lived there in former years, and, what was of great advantage, the inhabitants were ignorant of his worst crimes, or, to put it in his own subtle way, of the crimes committed by the men he had acted with”

“ It is hard for me to speak a good word for the Guayana savages; but I must now say this of them, that they not only did me no harm when I was at their mercy during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in their villages, and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my way when I could make no return. You must not, however, run away with the idea that there is any sweetness in their disposition, any humane or benevolent instincts such as are found among the civilized nations: far from it. I regard them now, and, fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have said, I was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low kind of intelligence vastly greater than that of the brute”

The first part is a paraphrase of Matthew 22:35 (“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in...”), so his protagonist is describing the savages as exemplars of Christian behavior, yet he regards them as “beasts of prey”. Later, when his protagonist is talking to Runi’s “grandfather”,
“For example, there is Runi and his people; why should they remain living so near us as to be a constant danger when a pestilence of small-pox or some other fever might easily be sent to kill them off?”
“And have you ever suggested such a thing to your grandchild?”
“He looked surprised and grieved at the question. "Yes, many times, senor," he said. "I should have been a poor Christian had I not mentioned it. But when I speak of it she gives me a look and is gone”

Hudson seems to me to be asking if there is any real difference between the civilized and the savage. He clearly doesn’t see the indians as Noble Savages, but implies that the civilized are no better morally, and possibly worst.

If there is any theme in the novel, it seems to be how destructive both Indians and Europeans are to the natural world. Hudson clearly was not impressed by the impact of Europeans on the ecology of the tropical world (nor of the exploitation of tropical ecologies by indigenous people ):
“it was mine, truly and absolutely—as much mine as any portion of earth's surface could belong to any man—mine with all its products: the precious woods and fruits and fragrant gums that would never be trafficked away; its wild animals that man would never persecute”

“I spent my time, glad that no human being, savage or civilized, was with me. It was better to be alone to listen to the monkeys that chattered without offending; to watch them occupied with the unserious business of their lives. With that luxuriant tropical nature, its green clouds and illusive aerial spaces, full of mystery, they harmonized well in language, appearance, and motions—mountebank angels, living their fantastic lives far above earth in a half-way heaven of their own.”