-Seneca After the last match had been struck, I cursed myself for having given them away. A dilemma arose between keeping the fire alive and finding enough time to feed it with something to eat. The second rain in a week had doused a previous fire, which I had managed to keep alive for two days before the relentless downpour. Now the mission of keeping the fire breathing grew urgent, as I had not been able to start one by rubbing sticks together or using flat river rocks as flint. Over the last days, I had fed on green snakes, whose heads I bashed with stones. Impaling their bodies with two sticks, they roasted well over the orange coals of a fire. The oil in their skins would drip and make the smoky flames crackle. I found frogs and managed to catch enough of them for a meal. Hoping none were poisonous, I ate one and judged its effect on me. Only after enough hours passed did I eat the others. I saw squirrels, field mice, rats, tree monkeys and wild hares, but didn’t have the experience to catch any.
