STM32 IoT Projects for Beginners: A Hands-On
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Embedded Systems, Build IoT Devices with STM32
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STM32 IOT PROJECTS FOR
BEGINNERS
A Hands-On Guide to Connecting Sensors,
Programming Embedded Systems, Build IoT
Devices with STM32
By
Aharen-san
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BME280 WITH STM32 I2C TEMP PRESSURE HUMIDITY
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
CORONA DISPLAY METER USING STM32 ESP8266 OLED LCD16X2
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
DAC IN STM32 SINE WAVE HAL CUBEIDE
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
DATA LOGGER USING STM32 ESP8266 THINGSPEAK
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
DF PLAYER MINI AND STM32
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
GPS MODULE AND STM32 NEO 6M GET COORDINATES DATE TIME
SPEED
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
HCSR04 AND STM32 USING INPUT CAPTURE PULSE WIDTH CUBEIDE
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
INCREMENTAL ENCODER AND SERVO ANGLE CONTROL IN STM32 PWM
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
INPUT CAPTURE USING DMA MEASURE HIGH FREQUENCIES AND LOW
WIDTH
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
JOYSTICK MODULE WITH STM32 ADC MULTI CHANNEL HAL
NEXTION GUAGE AND PROGRESS BAR STM32
NUMBERS FLOATS QR CODE HOTSPOTS IN NEXTION DISPLAY STM32
PRINTF DEBUGGING USING SEMIHOSTING IN STM32 SW4STM LIVE
VARIABLE CHANGE
QSPI IN STM32 BOOT FROM EXT MEMORY XIP N25Q
QSPI IN STM32 WRITE AND READ N25Q
RIVERDI STM32 DISPLAY HOW TO CONTROL LED USING BUTTONS ON
THE DISPLAY
RIVERDI STM32 DISPLAY HOW TO SEND DATA FROM UART TO UI
ROTARY ANGLE SENSOR AND STM32 ADC
SD CARD USING SDIO IN STM32 UART RING BUFFER 4-BIT MODE
CUBEMX
SD CARD USING SPI IN STM32 CUBE-IDE FILE HANDLING UART
SDRAM IN STM32 MT48LC4
SLEEP MODE IN STM32F103 CUBEIDE LOW POWER MODE CURRENT
CONSUMPTION
SSD1306 OLED AND STM32 128X64 SW4STM CUBEMX
ST7735 TFT DISPLAY AND STM32 HAL
STANDBY MODE IN STM32 LOW POWER MODES CUBEIDE
STEPPER MOTOR AND STM32 ANGLE RPM AND DIRECTION CONTROL
CUBEIDE
STOP MODE IN STM32 CUBEIDE LOW POWER MODE
STORE DATA INTO SD CARD FREERTOS STM32 ADC DHT
UART RING BUFFER USING HEAD AND TAIL IN STM32 CUBEIDE
USE STM32 AS A KEYBOARD F103C8 USB DEVICE HID
USING PRINTF DEBUGGING SWV TRACE IN CUBEIDE ITM SWV
BME280 WITH STM32 I2C
TEMP PRESSURE
HUMIDITY
We will see how to interface BM e 280 sensor with STM 32. This
sensor can measure the temperature, pressure and relative humidity.
I have written a library for it, which I will upload on the GitHub and
you can get it from there. As we progress along the project, I will also
explain the code and how you can write one yourself using the
datasheet. The library covers a lot of things, but there are still few
things which you need to manually implement. So watch the project
carefully as you might need to make changes in the library based on
what requirements you have from the sensor. This is the datasheet
for the device. Here I have highlighted few important things that I will
cover in today's project. I will leave the link to this data sheet in the
description.
Let's start with cube ID and create a new project I am using STM 32
F 103 controller give some name to the project and click finish first
of all I am enabling the external crystal for the clock. The blue pill
have eight megahertz crystal on board and I want the system to run
at maximum 72 megahertz clock. Enable the serial wire debug. The
sensor can use both the eye to C and SPI for communication. You
can use either of those but I am going to go with the eye to see
enable the eye to see interface and leave everything to default. We
have the two pins for data and clock. Before going any further in the
project. Let's see the sensor and the connection with blue pill. Here
is the BM e 280. And as you can see it has the pinout for both SPI
and eye to see. Here I am connecting it with the blue pill. It's
powered with 3.3 volts and there are two pull up resistors each 4700
ohms connected between the clock and data pins and the 3.3 volts.
Poor resistors must be used while using the eye to see
communication. Also one very important thing I have grounded the
SDO pin. Keep this in mind as it will be used in the addressing of the
device. Now connect the PV six to the clock pin and PV seven to the
SDI pin that is data pin.
That completes the connection. Let's generate the project now. First
thing we will do is copy the library files into our project. So copy the
C file into the source directory and header file into the include
directory. Let's take a look at the source file. Here first we have to
define the eye to see we are using as I set up the i two c one so I am
leaving it unchanged. The next thing is the 64 bit support. If your
configuration supports 64 bit integers, then leave this as one or else
to use the 32 bit integers uncomment the 32 bit support and
comment out 64 bit the next is the address of the device. As
mentioned in the datasheet the seven bits of the address are these.
Here x depends on the SDO pin. And if you remember I grounded
the pin and therefore the X is zero in my case the slave address will
consist of these seven address bits along with the read or write bit.
So the address will be 11101100 which makes up zero Crossy see.
These variables will store the corresponding values and they are
externally defined here. So you should define them in the main file.
The rest of the code should be unchanged for default configuration
Let me explain how this works.
The sensor can work with three different modes. in sleep mode, no
measurements are performed, but the registers are accessible and
therefore, you can wake the sensor and perform the measurement.
Then comes the forced mode. Here the sensor performs a single
measurement and goes into the sleep mode. For the next
measurement, you need to wake the sensor again, I have added a
function for this you need to call this wakeup function before doing
the measurement. This is useful in situations like weather
monitoring, where the data does not need to be read very frequently.
Basically, it will measure all three parameters and then go back to
sleep mode. The next is the normal mode.
Here the sensor does the measurement and goes into the standby.
The data rate depends on the measurement time and standby time,
the current consumption will obviously be higher, but it allows you to
continuously monitor the data. In this tutorial, I will be using the
normal mode. There are few important things to note about the
measurements, the humidity measurement have a fixed resolution of
16 bits. The resolution for the temperature and pressure depends on
the fact that if you are using the IR filter or not, if using the filter, then
the resolution will be 20 bits. Otherwise, it depends on the
oversampling setting as shown here. IR filter can be used to avoid
the fluctuations in the pressure and temperature measurements. I
will be using the IR filter in this tutorial. And this library does not
support the measurements without filter, at least for now. Then we
have some examples for the settings which we will see later. Let's
check the source file again. Here the first function is the trim read.
This reads the trimming values that are stored in the non volatile
memory of the sensor. Every sensor comes pre programmed with
these values, and they don't change with reset or anything. We need
to read these values and then use them in the calculations ahead as
shown in the datasheet we must read the values from these
registers. And I am going to name them same as its named here.
Also note that some of these are unsigned and others are signed
values. So that's why I have defined them separately. Then we start
reading from zero by 88 address and we burst read 25 registers.
This means we read up to zero XA one which is Digg h one. Again,
we have to read from E one to E seven. This is done here we are
reading seven bytes from E one. And finally we will arrange the data
just how it's arranged in the data sheet. Then comes the
configuration which we will see later. Next is the reading of raw data.
It's mentioned in the datasheet that we must first read the data in
order to avoid the possible mix ups between the measurements. We
will read the registers F seven to f e. This is done here. We are
reading from this register. It is defined in the header file and its
addresses F seven and we will read eight bytes from here which will
include the registers up to F E. As I mentioned in the beginning, this
library is using the filter and this is why the pressure and temperature
are 20 bits in resolution. We will calculate the row values for all three
parameters using the registers we just read.
After this, we have the compensation formulas on page 25 of the
datasheet. These formulas uses the row values for temperature,
pressure and humidity and gives us the refined results. We need to
use them exactly in the same way. So this is what that is, I just
copied them from the datasheet and put them here. Notice that the
pressure uses the 64 bit integer here. But in case your machine
doesn't support it, there is a 32 bit alternative also, I have included
that in the library. So all you need to do is define the support as I
mentioned in the beginning. All right, now we will take a look at the
registers. The first register is the ID register, it's a read only register,
and it returns the ID of the device, which should be zero by 60. I
have included it in the code. Before reading the raw values, the code
checks for the ID. If the ID is zero by 60, only, then it goes for the
measurement. The next register is reset. If we write zero XP six to
this register, the device will soft reset. The next register is for the
humidity control. Here we need to select the oversampling for the
humidity. If you want to skip the humidity calculation, just set the
oversampling to zero. This configuration is controlled by the BM e
280 config function. Here are the parameters or the oversampling
settings for all three parameters. Then we have the mode, the
standby time and finally the filter configuration. First of all, we will
read the trimming parameters as it only needs to be done once and
then I am performing the soft reset then write the oversampling data
for the humidity these oversampling parameters are defined in the
header file and you can use them instead of writing a hexadecimal
value. After writing the data, we will read the same register to make
sure the changes were done in the register. The next register is
control measure register. It controls the oversampling of temperature
and pressure along with the mode of the sensor. Here I am shifting
the temperature data by five the pressure data by two and the first
two bits are for the mode.
The next register is the config register. It controls the standby time
for the normal mode along with the filter coefficients for the IR filter.
You can also use three wire SPI and enable it from here below the
tables for both standby time and filter coefficients. I have defined
them in the header file also. And at last, we have the data registers
where we read the data from the pressure, temperature and humidity
has mentioned here. This is how the 20 bit data is arranged in these
registers. This is enough explaining I hope let's write the code now
that I have defined these configurations as per my setup, I am using i
two c one and also my system supports 64 bit variables. Let's copy
this in the main file, we will include the BM e 280 header file, and
now define the variables to store the data. Inside the main function
we will call the BM e 280 config function. There are some examples
provided in the datasheet. For example, for weather monitoring, we
can use the Force mode with one sample per minute the pressure,
temperature and humidity oversampling all should be set to one.
Similarly there are other examples but in this tutorial, I will use the
indoor navigation. Here I will use the normal mode With standby time
of 0.5 milliseconds, the pressure oversampling is 16. And that for
temperature is two and one for humidity. So let's set the temperature
over sampling to to pressure to 16 and humidity to one the mode
should be set to normal mode, the standby time is set to 0.5. And at
last the filter coefficient is 16. With this configuration, the output data
rate is 25 Hertz. inside the while loop, we will call the BM e 280
Measure function. This will handle all the measurement and store the
values in the variables that we defined earlier. All right, everything is
done. Now build the code and debug it. Let's run it you can see the
values of temperature in degree Celsius pressure in Pascal's and
relative humidity as a percentage, I am going to put my finger on the
sensor see the value of the temperature rising. I kept the sensor in
the refrigerator for a while and see the temperature and humidity
values. The temperature is rising and humidity is decreasing. They
both are slowly tending towards the room condition. This is it for this
project.
EXAMPLE DUMMY CODE
I can provide you with an example code snippet
for interfacing the BME280 sensor with an
STM32 microcontroller using the I2C interface.
This code assumes you have already set up the
necessary hardware connections for the I2C
communication. Here's a basic example using
the STM32 HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer)
library:
C
#include "stm32f4xx_hal.h"
#include "bme280.h" // BME280 library header
I2C_HandleTypeDef hi2c1; // I2C handle
BME280_HandleTypedef hbme280; // BME280
handle
void SystemClock_Config(void);
static void MX_GPIO_Init(void);
static void MX_I2C1_Init(void);
int main(void)
{
HAL_Init();
SystemClock_Config();
MX_GPIO_Init();
MX_I2C1_Init();
// Initialize BME280 sensor
hbme280.i2c_handle = &hi2c1;
BME280_Init(&hbme280);
while (1)
{
float temperature, pressure, humidity;
// Read sensor data
BME280_ReadTemperature(&hbme280,
&temperature);
BME280_ReadPressure(&hbme280,
&pressure);
BME280_ReadHumidity(&hbme280,
&humidity);
// Process and use sensor data as needed
HAL_Delay(1000); // Delay for 1 second
}
}
void SystemClock_Config(void)
{
// Configure the system clock here
}
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
little prayer of devout trust that he did not mention
later, he stood, gripping the spokes.
The boat had lost way, and swung sideways across the
rushing water. Tom saw what was coming. Instantly he
snatched loose a life preserver! Not to leap and save his
life. To save all of them!
He bent low, hanging over the bow, dropping the
preserver so that it met the rock, was between it and
the boat as she touched.
She shuddered, and there was a crunch, but no smash.
Madly yelling for full speed astern, Bill pawed his wheel
over; the boat hesitated, her back-lashed propeller
striving against the stream; slowly she receded from the
rocks. Tom released his clutch on the preserver rope;
from aft came the grind and shiver of sickening contact;
the engine grated to a stop with a jar and a cough. The
boat shuddered, ran forward again in the current.
“The propeller hit!” shouted Cliff, from the after deck,
staring overside at a wicked fang, seeming to lick its
glistening lips at him.
“It’s probably bent beyond help!” called Andy, from the 65
engine. “The gears in the shift box are stripped. When
the propeller caught it tore the gear teeth off—lucky it
didn’t crack the crankshaft!”
“But we have no power,” ruefully Bill called.
There was no use for it, had they possessed it. With the
strong outsweep of the water, and with a low, sandy
spit jutting before them, there was nothing to be done
but wait.
Gently, almost at the inlet, the Porto Bello lifted her
nose on a swell, and poked it experimentally into the
sand.
She liked the soft bed, burrowed forward on the next
low swell, and then settled down, like a baby in its
cradle.
“We may thank goodness for being here,” cried Tom.
“It’s not so bad!”
“Not so bad—to be stranded?” demurred Cliff.
“Better here than—out there!” Tom waved his arm
toward the roaring surf of the outer reef.
“Yes,” Nicky agreed, then, ruefully, he added, “but we’re
stranded!”
“Unless it’s quicksand, we’re all right,” Tom declared.
“When it’s low tide we can examine the propeller.”
“But how can we get off?” urged Nicky.
“Let’s take one thing at a time—and take it as it comes!” 66
said Tom. And Mr. Gray, somewhat shaken, but very
calm, as well as Bill, agreed with Tom.
67
CHAPTER VII
TURTLES AND TROUBLE
Notwithstanding the youthful efforts to be optimistic,
the Porto Bello’s position was bad. She lay with her
stern in deeper, swift water. Sharks and the rapid flow of
the tide made it impossible to get under her stern to
examine the propeller. They had spare parts, and would
be able to repair the stripped gearing, or, at least, to
render the clutch and shifts possible to use by
substituting new gears. But the damage to the propeller
must be estimated.
“My idea,” said Tom, with proper diffidence, when the
entire party discussed the situation while they ate the
dinner Bill prepared, “my idea would be to get a rope
over to those snags of rock, put pulleys fore and aft on
the top of the cabin, reave a rope through them, run it
to the capstan, forward, then carry it out to the snags,
fasten it, and then, steadily take up on it with the
winch. The pull would work on the whole boat that way,
and if we moved most of our stuff aft and lightened the
bow, she might drag off.”
“How would we get a line to those snags—across that 68
deep water?” objected Henry. “I, for one, won’t risk
those sharks! They say they don’t trouble the Indians,
or Negroes, but white men are different.”
“Probably Indians will come out in canoes,” Tom said
hopefully.
This prediction proved true, but not until the next
morning; then a canoe containing two stolid Mosquito
Indians came out. They wore ragged trousers and shirts
worn outside the trousers, hanging down, and their dark
faces were almost as expressionless as those of the
North American Indians.
They paddled down the water near the stern, and
coming into a small bight of water where the current
was less violent, they sat still for almost an hour, staring
fixedly and without answering a number of hails sent
them by various ones.
Finally, however, they did respond. They spoke little, but
seemed to comprehend a little English and a trifle more
of Spanish. Henry Morgan, who was morose and angry
about something, bellowed orders at them. Tom, who
knew what made Henry sour, since Tom had already
dropped several fat bottles into a swift eddy astern,
remonstrated at his angry commands.
“They don’t like to be yelled at,” Tom said. 69
“You be still!” snapped Henry. “I guess I know how to
handle these Indians. You’ve got to bellow and roar at
them to get them started. They’re lazy and they’re
rough and they’d never move if you don’t get them
waked up.”
“They may be all that,” agreed Tom, “but they’re
human, too!”
Henry walked away.
Nevertheless, Tom’s way proved the better one, for
when Bill held up a flashing bit of ornamental glass, like
the crystal pendant from a glass chandelier, they spoke.
In time they were induced to catch a rope and carry it
out and, in the canoe, fix it fast to a projecting tooth of
rock located in the proper direction to help pull the boat
out of her sand bed, into which she was burrowing her
nose more deeply with every roll.
“We’ll use the rocks that tried to injure us, and make
them help us!” Cliff cried, and with a good will they took
up slack on the rope until it was taut and throbbing with
its tension.
After a long day of effort and patience they saw their 70
craft float free, and, for another bribe, several more
Indians were procured, in canoes, to tow them to a
convenient beach where their rope was taken well
inland to a coco-palm, secured there, and the boat was
unloaded the next day, the stuff piled on the hot sand
under an improvised shelter of canvas stretched over
four upright pieces of timber found by the chums in a
search of the beach.
Under another shelter, to which they brought heavy
mosquito netting and with it made a tight enclosure,
they spent the night. It was no pleasant slumber that
came to them, for the Central American mosquitos are
not only vicious and persistent, but they are large and
their bite, on any but the toughest skin, produces red
welts and a sort of itching that is as maddening as it is
persistent and painful.
The next day, while Bill and Henry bargained with the
Indians for canoes and guides to take them up the Rio
Patuca to a tribe further inland where the old Indian,
Toosa, lived, and while Cliff and Mr. Gray aided Andy in
work of examining the gear and shafting, Nicky joined
Tom on the beach.
“Some of the Indians are going turtle hunting,” he said.
“Let’s us go along. They’ll take us. I let one young
Indian play with my watch, and he promised to take us
if I let him wear the watch during the trip.”
They accordingly joined the Indians. The method of 71
hunting was interesting: they went along the beach
and, watching until they saw a turtle sunning itself, or,
possibly, laying its eggs, they managed to get between
it and the water.
Sometimes they were not adroit enough. A turtle will
instinctively try for its native element, and once in it, no
expert can capture it. On land, however, once headed
off, it may be turned on its back, and thus secured.
After several wasted tries they managed to get a big
fellow, weighing several hundred pounds, headed off
and surrounded.
It was both a job and a tussle to get the huge and
clumsy shell reversed; and then the boys were amazed
at the cleverness of the Indians’ method of getting the
creature back to their village, or near to it. To drag such
a weight would be very hard. To make it “do its own
driving” as Tom said, was the easier way. The Indians
fastened ropes to each of its flippers, and then turned it
over.
With slackened ropes, the creature instantly drove for
the water. But once it plunged into its favorite retreat,
the ropes were manipulated in such a way that the
animal was actually made to swim and, in addition, was
pulled, along the shore line, with comparatively little
effort. Once opposite the camp, the turtle was dragged
onto the beach and despatched, to be cut into choice
portions. For their efforts during the hunt, Tom and
Nicky were given some large chunks of the meat which
made a wonderful addition to eggs they had discovered,
and their regular fare.
Days passed with little happening. Outside of the 72
tedious work of dismantling the gear assembly, and
taking out the propeller shaft and bearings to be certain
that all was sound, and hammering at the propeller to
get its bent flanges back to proper pitch, there was only
eating, fighting mosquitos and other annoying insects,
and trying to be patient.
In spite of, or, maybe, because of Henry’s shouts and
orders, the Indians made no move to take the party
upstream.
It was only when the combined arguments of Mr. Gray,
Bill, Tom and his chums made Henry desist, that finally,
after about ten days, the Indians signified that on the
morrow two canoes would start.
“Bill, and Henry will go, of course,” said Mr. Gray. “Tom,
I feel, has a right to be with them because of his
intense interest in any news concerning his sister.”
“But Nicky is all bitten up with—or by—mosquitos,” said
Cliff, “and he can’t risk getting away from the ointment
jars—and I must help with the readjustment of the
engine and stay with Andy and Dad.”
It was arranged in that way. The next morning two 73
canoes came to the beach and Bill and Tom climbed into
the larger, while Henry took his place in the smaller one.
With many farewell waves, and promises to get back as
quickly as the information could be discovered, they
were rowed—or paddled—away.
In turning the sand-spit into the inlet’s swift current, the
canoe containing Henry, still morose and soured, went
fairly near the jagged rock formation on which the
propeller had been damaged. Through the clear water,
as a swirl of mud settled, he caught sight of something,
and with a sharp word, ordered the four Indians
paddling to swing in closer. He got very close to the
rock, leaned over the side, then jumped into the water
up to his waist.
“What’s the matter with him?” demanded Bill in
amazement.
“Gosh!” whispered Tom, “I wish I’d broken the darn
things. I did try to shy the bottles of his ‘tonic’ so they’d
smash, but they missed.”
And Henry had discovered them. More, he recovered
them!
“So that’s where they went!” he cried furiously red,
holding the fat bottles aloft and shaking them toward
the other boat. “Which one of that boatful did that—
threw my stuff away?”
No one answered.
Suddenly he turned on Tom, about twenty feet away, in 74
the larger canoe. “I’ll bet you—” he snarled, “you was
the one. ’Cause why? ’Cause you was hollerin’ about it!”
Tom’s face turned red. Henry saw it and, in his sudden
rage, he drew back his arm and flung one of the flasks
—or almost did!
With Henry’s arm at the point of coming forward, Bill, a
marksman of no mean ability, caught up the rifle with
which he had armed himself, and almost at the instant
that it appeared above the gunwale, there came the spit
of its bullet and the shivering of glass as the bottle
broke in Henry’s hand. So close was the shot, so perfect
the aim, that only the neck of the bottle remained.
Henry dropped it, staring in rage and disappointment at
the roiling spot where his good “tonic” was blending
swiftly with the Caribbean water.
“Drop that other one!” snapped Bill.
Henry did so—but into the canoe; and, so furious and
beyond reason was he that his hand groped for and
brought out his own rifle.
“You drop that rifle,” snapped Bill. “You crazy coot!
Don’t you know I mean business!”
“Yes,” growled Henry. “You’ve got the drop on me—just
now!”
The way he replaced the rifle and climbed into the 75
tilting canoe, as well as the tone in which his husky
words were spoken, indicated that this was only one
time, that there would be more.
“Let’s turn back,” suggested Tom, dubiously.
“No! Forget his crazy stunt!” urged Bill. “Any day that I
can’t handle a loon like him, I’ll eat scorpions’ tails!”
“But he gets so angry!” said Tom. “And he’s got a bottle
——”
“Getting angry is better for us—as long as we keep
cool!” Bill grinned, his rifle lazily resting on the canoe’s
edge. “A cool man can out-guess, out-plan, out-shoot a
fellow in a temper, any day! As for that bottle—watch it
splinter the first time it starts for his lips.”
Bill motioned to the Indians, who had hardly moved,
and who had certainly not spoken or changed
expression. “Go on!” he said. Tom thought that just a
hint of admiration showed in the faces of the five
paddling their own craft.
“And you saved his life on the boat, when that wave
washed him down,” grunted Bill.
“And I’d do it again!” said Tom.
Little he guessed how prophetic his words would prove
to be!
76
CHAPTER VIII
AN UNPLEASANT TRIP
That trip up the Rio Patuca was one of the worst
experiences Tom had ever been through, and Bill agreed
with him when he said so.
Starting through a narrow inlet, taking advantage of the
inflow of the tide, the canoes came into a lagoon; the
water was shallow but clear; the banks were lined with
the most dense and varied vegetation imaginable; Tom
could recognize at a distance, only the cocoanut palms,
and the mangroves, with their huge, spreading roots.
The canoes proceeded up the lagoon to a native village,
marked by a cluster of coco-palms which seemed to be
floating in the water. The whole village turned out to
watch the landing of the white men and their young
companion and Tom saw that they were as curious
about him as he was about them. The young men were
clean-limbed and had very fine faces; the girls were
almost beautiful, though the older women showed how
labor and daily toil aged and furrowed their faces and
bent their bodies.
After a stay overnight the canoes set out again, and day 77
after day the routine of paddling, fighting mosquitos,
landing for lunch, going forward, finding a place to
camp, putting up mosquito bars and trying to prevent
them from being filled by the pests before it was too
late, was all there was to report.
“They certainly named this country well,” Tom told Bill
as they dived under their mosquito netting on the
second day of the trip.
The mosquitos were much larger than the Northern
species, and were of such a tough, rubbery body that in
order to destroy them it was necessary to strike ones-
self with great force—“More punishment than relief!”
Tom observed, ruefully, as he fought the pests.
“They have to be killed,” replied Bill, “and we’ll have to
get our net up earlier at night, because they get worse
as we go on, Henry says.”
“Yes,” Tom admitted. “He told me that if anybody stayed
out from the protection of his net for an hour at night,
he’d be bitten to death!” Bill agreed that it was quite
probable.
As they went on, finally reaching and turning into the 78
muddy mouth of the river itself through a narrow
channel, Tom and Bill came to the conclusion that their
trip had more difficulties in store than the pestilence of
the country’s terrible mosquitos. Henry Morgan kept
away from them, morose and sullen; when he caught
Henry’s eyes bent on him, or on Bill, Tom saw that they
were brooding and angry. Henry had long since
disposed of his final bottle of “tonic,” and he seemed to
be holding and feeding his grudge against Bill and Tom
for destroying the other bottle.
He was very hard on his Indians. He yelled at them,
drove them, said foul things to them and about them.
Tom and Bill, on the contrary, were decent in their
attitudes; and, although the Indians were stolid and
silent, seldom speaking, almost never smiling, they
showed, in little services, that were human and
responsive under their stolid exteriors. They often put
up Tom’s mosquito bar for him, gave him and his closer
companion the best they had, but always without the
least flicker of expression.
Henry had to demand help, had to drive and threaten to 79
get anything done; Tom had only to wish for an
adjustment of his sleeping couch, of boughs, in a rude
camp—and it was done! Perhaps it was because, during
the long, humid, tensely hot days, he took the trouble
to see that the heavy bough with which he fought
mosquitos was used to drive them away from the
paddlers as well; also, because he and Bill shared their
food when the Indians had little. There seemed to be no
open appreciation, but gratitude was evident in many
ways, although Henry, seeing them wave their branches
to flick the mosquitos from the Indians’ backs, derided
them and sneered, saying an Indian had no feelings.
Camping on mud banks, uncomfortable and mean,
paddling through muddy waters, past vast jungles and
wide, low savannas of lush grass, past wide cane-
brakes, they pursued slow but steady, if tedious
progress. Tom began to wish the trip were done. Rain,
fog and wet, dreary days were far more frequent than
dry ones; and this, added to the mud beneath their
camps, the small food supply and the mean temper of
Morgan, made things more than unpleasant.
In time they reached a small village; the huts were of
palmetto stakes, driven into the ground close together,
in the shape of an oblong enclosure with rounded ends
and a space for a door; roofs were of a thatch of woven
reeds or brush. The few Indians were silent, stolid
people, but not unkind or cruel in their attitude. At this
village, Bill and Henry were informed, they would be left
until men came down the river to take them on.
“Do they know we’re here—and in a hurry?” ventured
Tom.
The canoeman looked blank and said little. 80
“They know,” Morgan responded in surly, husky tones.
“Indians know when people come.”
“How do they know?” Tom persisted. “Do they send
messengers?”
“They know!” snapped Henry and turned away.
Tom made no comment on the rude behavior, but
busied himself making friends with a small boy,
evidently a child belonging to some one of importance.
The youngster, about eight, liked the white boy, some
years older, and when his shyness was overcome, he
spent hours watching Tom as the white youth
demonstrated how a small, bright red magnet he carried
would draw and cling to several nails he also had.
The boy, Porfirio, in response, showed Tom many trails
across the swamp savannas surrounding the village, and
helped him to search for beautiful tropical birds’ eggs,
curious stones, and other specimens. Always he begged
to be shown the magnet and its power; it fascinated
him and, the day that Tom let him, fearfully and timidly,
take it and play with it for a while, he looked toward
Tom as one might have looked at a master, and from
then on, followed him like a dog.
By that time Tom had picked up enough of the village 81
dialect to learn that Porfirio’s father had been slain by
one of the jaguars—or, as the natives termed the
ferocious cats, tigers, caught on a lonely trail without a
weapon, and horribly mangled. Tom felt sorry for the
desolate child and did his best to amuse him.
After several wasted weeks, a great canoe arrived from
upriver, in which, besides the paddlers, was an old man,
bent and wizened and terribly dwarfed; yet he was
stronger than any other man—or any two men—among
the Indians, and seemed to be greatly respected. He
was Toosa, the man they had come so far to see!
Henry at once began to question him, but Toosa paid no
heed to him at all. He had come, primarily, to take the
child, Porfirio, a great-grandson, to his own village
further up the turbid stream.
“We came all the way up here—you recognize me, don’t
you?” Henry cried, and when the old man nodded, went
on, “we came all the way to find out where——”
Toosa made a gesture, stopping Henry. He had just 82
landed and his young great-grandson ran to greet him.
Toosa merely touched his shoulder with a finger and
turned back toward the boats after a brief word with
one of the natives. But Henry caught his thin, though
muscular and wiry arm. Tom, watching, saw a display of
a curious power that the old man possessed. He did not
move his body or shake Henry off; he simply turned his
head and fixed his steady, bright eyes on the impatient
white man. Henry, about to speak, seemed to be struck
by some invisible message of power, for he closed his
lips, holding the grip he had for a moment; then his
hand loosened and dropped, and he stood still. Toosa,
turning back toward the boats, resumed his way, the
small boy trotting at his side.
“We don’t want to let him get away, though, at that,”
demurred Tom, but Bill merely gave him a warning
glance, and slowly strolled along behind the dwarfed,
bent old figure. Henry, after a moment, took up the
march, and Tom kept close to Bill, curious and uncertain
what was to happen.
“He’s a powerful chief, even if he isn’t the magician that
the Indians think he is,” Bill observed quietly to Tom.
“He won’t talk to us until he has settled himself in his
own village.”
“But how will we get there?” Tom wondered.
He soon found out. As soon as he had settled himself in 83
his great, roughly shaped canoe, made from the trunk
of a huge tree, Toosa turned to the three whites on the
bank, and beckoned.
“You take us?” asked Bill in slow English. “Good!”
“I take!”
“Did you expect us?” asked Tom, mystified at the
Indian’s calm arrangements for them.
“How did you know?——”
“I know!” answered the old man briefly, and said no
more. As they took their designated positions the chief
took a paddle several times heavier and broader than
the rest, made a signal, and the canoe began to glide
away from the Indians, watching on the bank.
That huge paddle served well during the trip up the
river, and the amazing strength with which the wiry old
man used it was a marvel to Tom. There were rapids,
and dangerous ones they proved to be. The swift water
almost carried the canoe back, but with a strong sweep
of that great driver, the Indian caused it to tremble;
with a second heave, while the other Indians strove
with their smaller paddles, he sent the boat forward,
and then guided and drove it between the rocks, over
the rough waters, past dangerous whirlpools. Once, only
a swift swing of his paddle turned them aside before
they were dashed to death in a whirling smother of
foaming waters. Again, by exertions that seemed akin to
those of a giant, he took the craft forward when one of
the lighter paddles broke and the crew was in confusion
and terror.
And when, close to nightfall, they landed, he stepped 84
from the canoe as serene and unwearied as if he had
been one of the three white passengers. Tom heard
from Bill that the oldest Indians in that country claimed
that Toosa lived there and was just as they saw him
today, when the Indians themselves had been children.
Quartered in a hut, fed and well cared for, at least two
of the white travelers obeyed Toosa’s brief order, which
Bill understood to be a command that they must not set
foot outside the hut. The reason for it seemed plain. It
was a precaution against danger. During Toosa’s
absence many of the villagers had become demons
through drinking the fermented cane-juice which was
brewed in a huge trough in the village and from which
much had been taken.
The Indians were not only noisy and, in some cases,
quarrelsome; they were beyond control.
In spite of their remonstrances Henry Morgan elbowed
his way past Tom and Bill, his rifle under his arm.
“He’s going out to mix with them and join in their 85
orgies!” cried Bill. “I hope——”
“He knows them. He’s been here often, he says,” Tom
reminded him, “he isn’t in any danger.” Bill shook his
head. He was not convinced.
“It’s not him I’m worrying about, or what they’ll do to
him,” he said moodily, “it’s what he may tell them about
us—remember, he’s nursing a grudge against us, Tom.”
“Yes,” agreed Tom. “That—and cane-juice—make a bad
pair!”
86
CHAPTER IX
MAGIC AND MADNESS
In the midst of a tropical paradise under the vivid moon,
and with the looming grandeur of brooding mountains
over it, Tom and Bill saw such an orgy of lust and
degradation as made them shudder.
Around the rude receptacle which held the fermented
cane-juice, the Indians gathered. The younger men and
the older youths played a weird, tuneless melody on
reed pipes while the others indulged their taste for the
strong liquid. Henry Morgan joined these and seemed to
be a member of long standing, by the greetings he got.
Out into the moonlit square of the village, a space
where the earth was trodden by countless feet until it
was almost as hard as stone, came a bent, but striking
figure. Although age had almost drawn his nose and
chin together, although his body was in no way erect or
striking, Tom saw nothing grotesque in that stalking
form; rather, it spoke of power and of virility.
Toosa was a figure of force in his rage! 87
He approached the trough and for a while, as though
ashamed, or frightened, the men were very still.
“Can he stop them, do you suppose?” Tom whispered,
to Bill, as the two crouched by the door of the large hut
that had been assigned to them.
“He has a lot of influence over them,” replied his
companion.
They watched, silent and amazed as Toosa stalked
straight over to the group of Indians. The reeds ceased
to whine and whistle. The younger men and the boys
appeared to fade into the encircling brush.
Toosa simply stood there, his distorted body drawn as
erect as was possible, arms folded, his face stern in the
moonlight.
Toosa spoke no word.
There was a long moment of absolute silence. Toosa
looked at his tribesmen and they, shamed, looked down
at the ground.
Only Henry Morgan, his ruddy face inflamed, his eyes 88
more bleary than ever, stared boldly back at the dark-
skinned nemesis. Toosa did not even glance toward the
white man; his regard was fixed upon his own kind.
Several of them shifted their positions nervously and
one, sidling off with head averted, disappearing into the
brush.
That seemed to be the signal. Still Toosa said nothing—
he merely looked his anger and disgust. But the men
began to move, restlessly and then hurriedly rising and
starting in various directions, none going near Toosa
except one careless individual. With a swift, unexpected
sweep of his ape-like arm, Toosa touched that man—
and he sprawled in a choking, gasping heap.
“Look! Look at Henry!” whispered Tom, gripping Bill’s
shoulder hard in his excitement.
“Just what I was afraid of,” Bill whispered back. “I hope
he doesn’t think about us—I can guess that he’s going
to defy Toosa! If he can get the Indians back he may
turn their attention on us—then——”
He did not say any more, but his hand tightened on the
stock of his rifle and with the other he loosened one of
his two pistols, worn in belt holsters, and glanced at
Tom in the dim light. Tom was too intent on the scene in
the square to observe Bill’s half intent to give him a
weapon which, did need arise, Tom’s training during the
trip would enable him to use effectively.
Henry, his muscles responding poorly to his befuddled 89
will, staggered upright and, wavering a little, faced
Toosa.
“Get out of here!” he roared. “What do you mean, you
red dog, by interfering with a white man’s pleasure!”
“What did he say?” Tom asked as Toosa made a curt
response.
“Something to the effect that the white man’s ‘pleasure’
was the Indians’ ruin!” Bill told him.
“It is, too,” agreed Tom. “I’m with Toosa, all the way.”
Henry was not with Toosa, but very much against him!
He stood, shakily but with fury growing in his face, a
white man of the lowest sort, in maudlin rage defying a
red man of the higher type of intelligence. It passed
through Tom’s mind that by comparison, the red man
was the finer specimen, dwarf or not.
“I’ll teach—teach you—to—” gulped Henry, and he bent
down for his rifle, lying on the ground.
Bill’s muscles tensed, and he was about to leap forward,
his own weapon ready; but Tom held his arm, and
whispered, “Wait!”
“But—” began Bill, but what transpired caused him to
hesitate.
Toosa, standing without movement or change of 90
expression, watched as Henry fumbled with his gun,
and getting himself erect by an effort, tried to level the
rifle at Toosa.
“Even in his condition, he might hit him!” urged Bill,
trying to disengage his arm from Tom’s restraining
clutch.
“He’s a magician,” Tom replied. “Don’t let’s interfere!”
Bill stared at his young companion in amazement; then
his eyes turned to observe the expected result. Henry,
the rifle leveled, stood on his uncertain feet, trying to
“draw a bead” with the wavering sights.
Toosa, arms folded, did not move. His eyes were fixed
on Henry.
In the brush, Indians were watching intently. Would
their magician and healer, their guide and guardian,
falter? Could the white man with the devil-stick that
spat fire and death—could he——?
Suddenly Henry advanced a step, lowering his rifle.
“I’ll—I—give you—chance!” he sputtered. “I give—you
chance! ‘C-’cause why? ‘C-’cause you got to tell me
where is Mort Beecher an’—an’—the Golden Sun!”
Toosa did not move, nor did he open his lips. He simply
stood, eyes coldly, glowingly fixed on the furious,
maudlin white man.
“You tell, I not shoot—I call men and put you out of way 91
till we finish,” Henry called in his husky voice. “Then we
fix the two who come with me—eh, boys?” He swung,
staggering a little, to try and get response from the
brush. Not an Indian showed himself or moved.
“Why doesn’t Toosa run—Toosa! Toosa—run while he’s
not watching!” shrilled Bill breaking from the hut.
Toosa made one gesture, a slight gesture. Bill saw it
and stopped, while Tom advanced to Bill’s side, though
both retired into the hut’s shadow as Henry, with a
muttered word that was not good to hear, swung on his
heel, caught his balance and glowered toward the hut.
Then he pulled the trigger; there was a flash, but while
Bill flung Tom back into the hut, neither was struck, nor
did they hear where the bullet went.
Henry instantly swung back to face Toosa who had not
moved.
“Come!” he shouted. “Tell me. Where is Mort Beecher!
Where is that Golden Sun mine he told me about! You
know! You can tell! Tell now, if you want—want see sun
—sun rise in morning!”
Toosa, arms folded, waited, wordless.
“Oh, all right!” Henry growled, his voice shaking. He 92
took another huge gulp from a calabash of liquid fire,
choked, gasped and then re-sighted his rifle.
“Tell!” he called.
Tom held tightly to Bill’s arm.
There came the flash and roar of the rifle.
Toosa did not move!
Again and again, until its magazine was spent. Henry
fired.
Toosa brushed some fiery sparks from the old coat he
wore, and laughed, a horrible sound of triumph and
rage.
“White man not hurt Toosa!” he cried.
Choking and sputtering in his fury Henry raised and
reversed his rifle, clubbed it and rushed.
At the same instant Tom, like a streak of lightning,
raced across the space; but he arrived too late; Toosa,
with his long arms, caught the rifle and with a wrench
tore it from Henry’s grip. He flung it aside but Henry,
lost to all sense of decency or judgment, flung his
weight against Toosa.
Toosa, braced as he was, gave back a step under the
impact. Bill was almost beside Tom as the latter drew
back, unable to interfere as Toosa’s foot caught on a
projecting root at the side of the level space; down he
went with a thud, and instantly Henry, on top, reached
for his throat.
Toosa fought like a tiger, his own ape-like arms giving 93
him the advantage of reach in the grapple for
throatholds. But the fall had stunned Toosa a little and
he did not grip with his customary strength.
Tom, with a quick insight, saw that Henry had an
advantage.
Whether it was right or wrong to take part against a
white man and to fight for an Indian would not at any
time have bothered Tom. He knew that color did not
matter; that it was the spirit and quality of a man that
counted and not the skin he wore. So, unhesitatingly, he
caught Henry’s legs and flung them, with all his
strength, toward the side, thus unbalancing Henry, and
causing him to roll, and to fling out an arm, instinctively,
to catch himself.
In that instant Toosa recovered his power, scrambled up
and stood watching Henry, sputtering and clamping his
teeth in his rage. Toosa gave a sharp call. The Indians,
no longer wondering if their leader was supreme,
rushed forward and quickly secured Henry. He was
bound and taken to another hut. Toosa turned to Tom,
and with about the only smile Tom ever saw on his face,
Toosa spoke:
“You save life!” he grunted. “You good. I help!”
“That’s all right,” Tom said. “You great magic man, I 94
only help.”
“Yes,” Toosa answered.
“Now, we sleep,” he said. Not one of the Indians went
near the rude trough again. They trooped away, all
except two he appointed to guard Henry in his small
hut. Toosa picked up the rifle and walked off.
“He surely is a great magician,” Bill commented, as he
and Tom lay on their rudely made bedding of woven
vines and soft branches. “Henry, bad as he was,
couldn’t have missed him with all those shells!”
“Well,” said Tom, nestling into a comfortable spot, “I
don’t want to take any credit away from Toosa’s magic—
but I helped it along a bit.”
“How?” demanded Bill, lifting to one elbow and staring
into the blackness of the hut.
“I thought he might get boisterous—that Henry!” ‘Tom
answered. “So I took the chance, while you and he
dozed in the hut after supper, and dug the bullets out of
his magazine full of cartridges.”
“Tom,” said Bill, soberly, “I never thought of that. You’re
a pardner. Shake!”
Tom did.
95
CHAPTER X
HENRY TURNS SAVAGE
Late that night a tropical storm whirled down on the
village from the mountains. Lightning that seemed more
vivid than daylight flashed continuously; thunder that
deafened shook and roared; trees thudded to the
whipping lash of the lightning. Rain in literal sheets
made a wall of water when Tom peered out from the
door of their hut.
When the dull dawn came the rain had not subsided;
thunder still growled and boomed. The river, rising
swiftly, was a very torrent, its water racing toward the
rapids below, whose roar could be heard like a growling
undertone to the thrum of falling water.
A white rubber-trader, with his canoe full of paddlers,
was glad to be able to nose in and ground his craft on
the sandy beach and drag it to safety before the river
rose any more dangerously.
Toosa knew him and took him at once to his own hut for
a talk.
Henry was released from guard, but did not come near 96
his companions; in fact, he stayed close to his hut, more
safely guarded from violent action by the downpour
than by any watchers.
About noon the rain slackened and the white trader,
Buckley, a quiet and yet a pleasant man, bronzed and
sturdy, came over and visited with the white pair. Tom
found him eager to hear about the situation that had
come about on the previous night.
“You needn’t have extracted those bullets, Toosa has
told me,” he said with a smile. “Toosa is sure that he
could have turned the bullets aside. He is very sure of
his magic powers. But I like the old fellow and I am
rather glad our young friend had so much foresight.”
He told them that, even without the rain, it would be 97
unlikely that they could start down the river for some
time. Yellow fever, that terror of the tropics, had broken
out near the coast, and inland, and a “deadline” had
been established near the costal villages by the
Honduran government. That deadline was a real thing,
not merely a place where officers stopped people and
examined their health. When fever broke out, the trader
explained, a line was drawn across the roads, and a
patrol established on the rivers. If anyone passed
through an infected area they would be turned back at
the line, and if they tried to pass bullets would follow
the act. The government meant its quarantine! And to
get to the cruiser they must pass through the infected
area!
“You came here to learn about a man,” the trader told
them.
“Yes, we did,” answered Tom. “Do you know anything—”
He eagerly related the conditions of his sister’s
disappearance. The white man listened gravely and then
shook his head.
“Toosa will be here in a few minutes,” he stated. “He
has asked me some curiously veiled questions. I
wouldn’t be surprised if what I answered has something
to do with the results he will get from his ‘magic’—but
he is a fine old magician, and it helps his standing
among the natives to let him keep them deceived—so I
will let him reveal what his ‘magic calabash’ whispers to
him.” He laughed as Toosa, grave and stately in spite of
his deformed body, came in. Several other Indians were
with him and quite a crowd assembled outside. These
he dispersed, telling them something in their dialect
which Bill guessed was to the effect that his magic was,
this time, for the white ears alone.
Those who accompanied him hung heavy skins over the 98
door, and took up positions outside, shooing away the
straggling women who thirsted for every demonstration
of their chief’s magical powers.
Toosa set on the trampled earth floor a calabash, and
some other articles of his supposed craft; then he
produced a skin bottle or flask and from it poured into
the calabash a dark, rather evil smelling liquid, till the
gourd container was level full.
Tom, watching closely, thought he detected a tiny wink
pass between the solemn old fraud and his trade friend;
however, Tom kept his own counsel and refrained from
trying to catch Bill’s eye.
If they got the information he sought, it did not matter
to him if Toosa liked to impart a touch of mystery to the
telling!
“You good,” Toosa said to Tom. “I help. Tell what you
not know!”
He built up a small fire of tiny twigs and let it burn until
the sticks fell together, flared and then died down to a
small flicker.
Onto that he threw some leaves and bits of dust or
herbs finely powdered, and instantly a dense, whitish,
and very pungent smoke rose.
“Now how do you suppose an Indian in Central America
knows a trick that the African blacks use in their
magic?” Tom said, out of the corner of his mouth, to
Bill.
“They tell us in books that people came here from some 99
old continent, ages ago—wasn’t it Atlantic——”
“Atlantis!” corrected Tom. “Cliff’s father told us about it
—it was a great continent and it sank under the ocean.”
“Well, before it went down, history says, some wise
people knew it was going to happen, and they came
away and settled in safer places,” Bill stated.
“Do you suppose Toosa is one of their descendants?”
Tom whispered. “He surely does seem to know a lot.
And maybe some of the Atlantis people went to Africa,
and that’s how the same customs spread.”
“Maybe,” agreed Bill. “Look, he’s swallowing the smoke.
Don’t see how he stands it—just a sniff makes me sort
of chokey.”
Toosa was drawing in great, sighing lungsful of the
heavy and pungently acrid smoke. Then he settled back
on his haunches, and to the amazement of even the
[1]
trader, he spoke—in English!