Green Hell

by Julian Duguid

'Mr. Duguid's account of his journey through the Bolivian Chaco is the work of a man who has that rare combination of gifts - a capacity for adventure, and a sensitiveness and imagination that are equal to the occasion when he comes to write. Mr. Duguid's prose admirably renders the brute, physical aspect of the scene so that it seems present in all its overpowering gaudiness to the senses, as one reads.' New StatesmanKeywords: New Statesman Rare Combination Physical Aspect Chaco Renders Brute Prose Senses Imagination Journey

Genres: Nonfiction

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1935

Reviews

[Atilano Suarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

O Inferno Verde – 1939, Livraria Tavares Martins, Porto.
Escrita de viagens muito viva, embora datada e repleta de conceitos que no séc. XXI são politicamente incorretos.
As descrições são muito coloridas, e os protagonistas são identificáveis como pessoas reais:
Por exemplo, Urrio, é Mamerto Urriolagoitia (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamerto...), um fidalgo boliviano que exerce atividade em Londres e vem a ser Presidente da República da Bolívia.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilariously dated at times, but a very engaging narrative full of clipped, artful prose and more boys' own adventure than one could shake their scout stick at.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

For how long ago it was written, the prose still speaks. Love a good adventure story. Taught me a bit about Bolivian history and international sentiments, too

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Englishman's travel account of venturing into the South American wilderness for a year on horseback. It is the 1920s, but he imagines that he sees much what the Spaniards would have seen when they went there in the 16th century. He calls his travel companions Urrio, Bee-Mason, and Tiger-Man, the latter being an expert on jaguars which are locally called "tigers."

Three days north from Rosario we encountered the gigantic and terrible personality that we came to call Green Hell. It is a truly colossal block of forest, so vast that the mind refuses to grasp the full immensity of its range. Shaped like a human body, it stands foursquare on the top of Argentina. Its trunk is Brazil and Paraguay and Eastern Bolivia, its far-flung shoulders dip into two oceans at Ecuador and Pernambuco, and its scraggy neck twists at Panama into the Republics of Central America. At its widest it stretches without break the distance between Labrador and Liverpool, or Southampton and Suez. It has the Amazon, the Orinoco and the Paraguay for its main arteries, and some six hundred different breeds of Indians flit like fleas through the green covering of its skin.

Naturally it is not of equal density. In the southern portion it is often wooded parkland shot with belts of thicker trees. Cattle roam the plains near the Rio Paraguay, but the forest is never far distant, and ranchers have to take care lest their charges run wild. In the north it is horrible, a dense, fever-stricken thicket, shimmering in the heat with a perpetual glassy haze dancing through the topmost branches. It is evil, swampy, miasmic, like a warm, festering wound. An Englishman may obtain some slight insight into the discomfort of penetration if he lock himself into a hot-house, water the flowers, close all windows, and allow a blazing sun to shine through the glass while he rides on a stationary bicycle. Even then he will not be bothered by insects. (p. 26)

He shares his partial enlightenment on the subject of interracial marriage:

As I rode up a gigantic negro with curly hair and shining teeth rose and saluted me. There was a white woman by his side and I thought that he was probably her servant. The man spoke nothing but Portuguese, but the lady was an Austrian and spoke French, so I was able to gather some information as to their manner of life. It seemed that they had been married for ten years and had settled in this forest some year or so back and had cleared a large patch on which they were growing mandiocre, a long-rooted vegetable that looks like a parsnip and tastes like a potato. Let me say at once that in civilization the sight of a black man and a white woman in close companionship moves me to a nausea that is almost physical. But somehow in this far place it was different. To begin with they were friends; it was evident from the quiet smiling way in which she looked at him when she spoke; it was more than evident from the tenderness of his expression when she asked him for a glass of water. Their attitude to each other was the tried and intimate fellowship of two people who laugh at the same jokes and have learnt to sympathize with each other's failings. Moreover, they had wrenched a joint living in the very teeth of Green Hell and were perfectly happy enjoying the fruits together. (pp. 87-88)

On imperialism:

It is an open question whether a powerful, progressive state is justified in stripping savages of their lands for the sake of an outlet for its own enterprise. On the whole, I suppose that it is. Tigers have mauled cattle since they first grew teeth, and minorities are only sacred when three or four powers desire them. It is a law of nature affirmed and sealed by the hand of Green Hell herself. (p. 174)

Stylistically, he is a very capable writer, and I am surprised that this is the only title under his name on Goodreads.

Page numbers are from the London printing by George Newnes Ltd / Butler & Tanner Ltd in 1935, a few months after the first edition by Wide World Library.