By Christian Morisot

I must admit that I exaggerated the story somewhat, and it is, I humbly confess, more my fondness for a good tale than pure mythomania, make no mistake.

Nevertheless, even today, I believe this text is true, and all those who have experienced the "green hell" should be able to attest to the reality of what I've said.
It's true that this excerpt from a letter to a friend makes me dream of French Guiana, which remains a land of exceptional adventure in the active life of a legionnaire.
Enjoy your reading.

My dear Claude,
I have never been happier than in the woods. The woods are the jungle there. I experienced feverish hours there that rival the most beautiful love affairs, the kind I've never known. You're a civilized man, aren't you! You are unaware of the joys of the forest, the weeks spent in a dugout canoe on the rivers and streams, motionless, bent under a leaden sky, watching out of the corner of your eye the wake of the ripples sculpted by the speed of the boat.

Faithful companions on the journey, the legionnaires, sabers in hand, pass through vines and bamboo following the lead tracker; the swamp teeming with insects where you sink up to your waist, the rich stench of the wood after the rain where petrichor and geosmin thrive; the leap of the canoe over the steaming rapids; the raucous melody of the engines in the evening.

You do not know the night in the jungle, the silence teeming with obscure threats; the soft rustling of vampires and the haunting cry of the cane toad. At dawn, the awakening is guaranteed by the anguished cries of howler monkeys, an unexpected and uncontrollable state of being in an unreal world enveloped in an unconscious intoxication in the face of impending danger, which transforms into an immense feeling of solitude; that of man facing nature and his destiny.

Life! It is in the jungle that you feel its breath on the back of your neck, not in your hysterical and withered Europe.

The jungle is a charnel house, a strong breath that reeks of carrion; men, beasts, and plants nourish its humus, and all this corruption ferments beneath the thick canopy of leaves. How many times, and with what voluptuousness, have I inhaled it, this stifling warmth of the forest where all the scents of creation mingled!

Two terrible aromas dominated: the scent of seed and the scent of death... On every branch, in every clump of grass hidden in the bamboo thicket, under the trees' murky shade, I sniffed them out like a dog on a trail. When you cross the threshold of the jungle, you touch with your palm the warm mystery of existence.

Gleaming fruits hang from the branches but are poisonous. Flowers velvety like sloes and desirable like vulvas throb in the shadows! They can kill you. Flies iridescent like jewels rot you with ulcers, others lay their eggs in your flesh. The roots of nourishing plants bring death. Tireless death haunts this inexhaustible fertility...!
But what joy to have known these privileged moments.