Sometimes our road ran through terrible forests where the great trees shut out the light of day, and a path must be hacked through the undergrowth.  Sometimes it was haunted by tigers or tree lions such as I have spoken of, against which we must watch continuously, especially at night, keeping the brutes off by means of fires.  Sometimes we were forced to wade great rivers, or worse still, to walk over them on swaying bridges made of cables of twisted reeds that until I grew accustomed to them caused my head to swim, though never did I permit myself to show fear before the natives.  Again, once we came to swampy lands that were full of snakes which terrified me much, especially after I had seen some natives whom they bit, die within a few minutes.

Other snakes there were also, as thick as a man’s body, and four or five paces in length, which lived in trees and killed their food by coiling round it and pressing it to death.  These snakes, it was said, would take men in this fashion, though I never saw one of them do so.  At any rate, they were terrible to look on, and reminded me of their forefather through whose mouth Satan talked with Mother Eve in the Garden of Eden, and thus brought us all to woe.

Once, too, on the bank of a great river, I saw such a snake that at the sight of it my knees knocked together.  By St. Hubert, the beast was sixty feet or more in length; its head was of the bigness of a barrel, and its skin was of all the colours of the rainbow.  Moreover, it seemed to hold me with its eyes, for till it slipped away into the river I could not move a foot.

Month after month we travelled thus, covering a matter of perhaps five miles a day, since sometimes the country was open and we crossed it with speed.  Yet although our dangers were so many, strangely enough, during all this time, even in that heat neither of us fell sick, as I think because of the herb which Kari carried in his bag, that I found was named Coca, whereof we obtained more as we went and ate from time to time.  Nor did we ever really suffer from starvation, since when we were hungry we took more of this herb which supported us until we could find food.  These mercies I set down to the good offices of St. Hubert watching from Heaven over me, his poor namesake and godson, though perhaps the skill and courage of Kari which provided against everything had something to do with them.

At length, in the ninth month of our travelling, as Kari reckoned it by means of knots which he tied on pieces of native string, for I had long lost count of time, we came to the borders of a great desert that the natives said stretched southwards for a hundred leagues and more and was without water.  Moreover, to the east of this desert rose a chain of mountains bordered by precipices up which no man could climb.  Here, therefore, it seemed as though our journey must end, since Kari had no knowledge of how he crossed or went round this desert in his madness of bygone years, if indeed he ever travelled that road at all, a matter of which I was not certain.