Rio del Rio is an ancient Spanish possession that Ferdinand Bardamu reaches while crossing the jungle in a delirious, failing condition. The colony appears through an encounter with a solitary Spanish sergeant: an improvised shack, a two-month invasion of red ants, and a painstakingly prepared passport make this outpost both a portrait of colonial isolation and a brief hinge in Bardamu’s onward journey.

Setting and Arrival

Bardamu and the people carrying him in a litter of sacks sewn together reach a stony promontory near the meeting of two rivers, with a cataract roaring nearby. Fever and diarrhea have blurred his grasp of events; by the fourth day he has stopped trying to separate reality from the absurd images of delirium. In retrospect, however, he insists that the white-bearded man he meets there was real.

The man is a Spanish sergeant who, like Alcide, has been left with a shack in the colony. Rio del Rio is identified as an ancient possession of the Crown of Castile, but its remoteness is registered less through administration than through the sergeant’s lonely circumstances and the punishing conditions of his dwelling. The station lies on a route that ultimately leads to San Tapeta, the colony’s coastal capital.

The Sergeant’s Shack

The sergeant’s shack is nearly consumed by red ants. During their annual migration they have been passing through it for almost two months, taking up so much room that it is difficult to move without being bitten. His daily life has narrowed to enduring the insects and eating tomatoes: he says he has lived on them for three years and has consumed more than three thousand cans. Rather than continue preparing them in different ways, he has taken to sucking the contents through two small holes in each lid.

The arrival of Bardamu’s cassoulet briefly alters this meagre routine. The sergeant is delighted by the food, but the ants promptly gather around the unfamiliar cans; an opened tin cannot safely be left unattended lest the insects summon the rest of their colony. The encounter makes the outpost’s privations concrete without turning them into an exceptional crisis: even a gift of food becomes another object that must be guarded against the environment.

Colonial Isolation and Habit

The sergeant’s life is marked by habits that expose both his isolation and his prejudices. Though he is a Spanish colonial, he is described as unusually hostile to Africans. He refuses to use banana leaves in the toilet and instead keeps a supply of the Boletín de Asturias, cut into small pieces for the purpose. He does not read the newspaper. His surroundings and routines offer a bleakly comic measure of how little separates the trappings of European life from improvisation and deprivation at the outpost.

Bardamu recognizes a resemblance between the sergeant and Alcide, including their presence in isolated colonial shacks, but distinguishes this man by his powerful voice. When he berates the local people, his shouting is described as a tempest; Alcide cannot match its volume. The comparison links Rio del Rio to the broader pattern of scattered colonial postings while keeping the scene grounded in this particular man’s eccentric routine.

Passage Toward San Tapeta

Bardamu asks the sergeant whether he knows a local medicine that might relieve the fever and delirium. The sergeant rejects the request, and the account proceeds without any cure being supplied. Their brief contact instead produces a practical exchange: grateful for the cassoulet, the sergeant makes Bardamu a passport on grainy paper, stamps it with the arms of Castile, and spends at least ten minutes perfecting its elaborate signature.

The track ends at the sergeant’s station, so Bardamu must continue straight ahead for three days and three nights. He remembers little of the journey, but says that the road to San Tapeta is unmistakable and can be followed by smell. On arrival he is handed over to a priest described as profoundly confused; for a short time, the priest’s condition gives Bardamu a sense of comparative self-confidence. The passport and the onward route carry him out of the isolated encounter, but they do not end his exposure to the colony’s bewildering conditions.