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Joseph was a man of firm principals that were boring and nerving. He would not have a cigarette before mealtimes;
he would not want to jump out of a boat to tie it with his shoes on if that meant jumping into mud and making his shoes dirty. One day Otakar and Joseph were camping by the river when a canoe is sailing along the stream. The crew spotted them and is turning the boat towards the shore with a skilful manoeuvre. They are two young Argentineans. The men are sailing the river San Francisco for the first time. They are recounting that they have heard about huge discoveries of diamonds at the estuary of the river. They want to reach their destination as early as possible so that there is something left for them. Everything suggests that the night will be clear. They want to continue sailing further. They are inviting Otakar and Joseph to join them. Otakar likes the proposal. He is turning to Joseph to see what he thinks of that. What he thinks of that? He is not going to go. None of them know it there and anyway Joseph does not go anywhere, where he does not know it, especially in the night. That is his principal. End, exclamation mark! Nobody in the world would ever make Joseph to abandon his principals. After half an hour the Argentineans are saying good-bye and continue sailing. Even Otakar and Joseph set off on their journey with the first daybreak. Otakar thinks that the two Argentineans must be good 50km ahead of them. Such a beautiful night, he thinks, they should have sailed with them but where with Joseph and his principals. It has been several hours since they have set off. The stream of the river is always stronger. Even though they are carefully keeping to the left riverside, their light vessel is shooting like an arrow. Suddenly Otakar can hear as if it was thundering in the distance. Over there behind the bend there sure will be something. They are rowing towards the riverside! Quickly! They are getting the stream under control and close before the bend they are holding onto the branches of an uprooted tree. They are finally on firm land and are pulling the canoe on dry land. And now they shall have a look at how things are with the river. They are painstakingly climbing down the rocky cliff and shortly they’ve got a surprising view in front of them. A waterfall. A great deal of water is falling down about 40 metres deep tight behind the bend of the river. They shout out almost simultaneously -The Argentineans! Joseph is pointing silently to some object of a long shape, which is lying about 100 metres under the waterfall. After some long effort they managed to cut with their machetes their path through the bushes and step under the waterfall. The long shape was a canoe broken through several times. They recognised it. They have been searching for a long time in the surroundings but they did not find any traces of the two men. They carried their boat along the path and continued in their journey. In the afternoon they happened to find two more leftovers of the unlucky expedition of the young Argentineans: a broken paddle and a hat. Otakar wanted to fish out the hat, but Joseph held on to his paddle. What is the hat for? Things of those who have drowned belong to the water – that is Joseph’s principal! Otakar was nearly stretching out, to dig Joseph into his ribs with a paddle but at that very moment he realised that it was his principal, which averted them from a dangerous night passage. It was a while before they talked again.
Published: March 28, 2006
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