Wild Life under the Equator

I was in the forest, under a large tree, very ill. I had been sick with a fever for some weeks, and all the medicine I had taken seemed to do me no good. Little by little my strength gave way. The days and the nights seemed so long! I am sure that if you had seen me you would have pitied me. There I was in that great forest, which was full of wild men and still wilder beasts. How helpless, how sad, how lonely I felt!

The hand of death was close upon me. Looking at myself in the looking-glass, the sunken and pallid cheeks told how much I had suffered. My eyes grew dim, and I began to realize that soon my days were to be ended, and that I was to die in that desert place, far away from home and friends, and that the wild beasts of the woods would come and devour me.