119CHAPTER IXPERUVIAN INDIANS
The history of South America teems with accounts of arduous marches made by European explorers through its forests or deserts, across its mountains or along the banks of its rivers. Some of these are more widely celebrated than others because the results were greater; but many minor expeditions—some unsuccessful, others serving no practical end—are as worthy of remembrance because those who undertook them went coolly, and with their eyes open, into all manner of privations or dangers, for the sole purpose of advancing their country’s interests.
Among such secondary enterprises is the journey made by Lieutenant Smyth and Midshipman Lowe from Callao to the Amazon, in 1834, an enterprise which recalls some of the splendidly reckless achievements of the Spaniards in the first half of the sixteenth century, or of our own even bolder adventurers in the second half.
While Captain Fitzroy was still surveying the southerly parts of the American continent, H.M.S.Samarang, under Captain Paget, was making a similar though more rapid cruise right round the peninsula from La Guayra to the Bay of Panama. As the ship120lay at anchor for observations off the Peruvian coast, the question was raised as to the possibility of the Amazon being converted into a water-way between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and Captain Paget, more in jest than seriously, asked who would volunteer to go ashore, cross the Andes, and find the nearest approach to the main stream of the river. To his amazement, John Smyth, a junior lieutenant, at once offered, and so earnestly did he beg to be allowed to go that the Captain was forced to give way at last. Young Smyth had a good knowledge of Spanish, and was known to be courageous and level-headed; but the difficulty was that not a boat’s crew, not a single seaman, in fact, could be spared to accompany him; but Smyth insisted that he required no protection, and only asked leave to take, as companion, his young cousin, a midshipman named Lowe.
Their knapsacks were soon packed, a cutter took them ashore, and the crew gave them a parting cheer as they turned back to the ship. In Callao Smyth hired five mules, and two Jevero Indians to attend him as muleteers and guides. As becomes direct descendants of the Incas, these were fearless, fine-looking men, industrious and kind-hearted, though by no means the sort of folk one would like to offend. They belonged by birth to Ecuador, which is the chief home of their tribe; but they seemed to know every yard of the country from Colombia to Chile, and from the coast to the Brazilian frontier, and, contrary to the usual custom of their tribe, both spoke Spanish quite well. One part of their costume which very much interested the two sailors was a short length of dried121reed which each wore in place of an earring, and fixed to the end of which was the tooth of a slain enemy. But this was the only essentially barbarous decoration they possessed. They were bare-foot and bare-headed, but wore shirts and trousers like ordinary mortals; both, too, were Christians.
At first they assuredly did not flatter whatever vanity the English lads may have possessed, for they would scarcely believe that such youthful-looking persons (Smyth was twenty, and Lowe sixteen) could command the obedience of tried warriors. The question arose through Luis, the younger guide, contrasting the weapons of the two. The middy, after the fashion of the time, wore a dirk, while his cousin, of course, carried a sword. Was it then the custom, asked Luis, for the length of an English warrior’s weapon to depend on his years and fighting experience? With what sort of blade, in that case, did thecommandanteof a ship fight?
Their opinion improved very much, however, as time went on and as they found these two lads enduring, without a murmur, heat and cold and thirst and fatigue which few white men that they had ever seen could have borne. Perhaps it should be added that their experience of white men was limited to the incorrigible lurchers and beach-combers—most of them of Spanish origin—to be seen anywhere along the South American coast. By the end of the second day they had come to feel quite a fatherly affection for them, so much so that they divulged a secret which, just at that time, might be worth more than its weight in gold to the explorers.
122
The lieutenant had noticed that, though neither guide showed any disposition to eat or drink “between meals,” they never seemed wearied, nor did they, when supper-time came round, eat with great appetite; this was the more surprising since they walked the greater part of the way, while Smyth and Lowe rode mule-back. On his making a remark about this, Filipe, the elder Indian, opened the satchel in which he carried his various belongings, and displayed a good stock of leaves and a small tin of quick-lime, saying:
“You have just eaten your supper, Señor Lieutenante, and cannot judge; to-morrow I will give you some of these to try for yourself.”
During the next morning, after a wearisome climb, Filipe fulfilled his promise; he rolled a few particles of lime in two or three of the leaves, and, pressing the whole into globular form, handed it to Smyth.
“Chew that,” he said. “It iscoca, and will sustain you for nearly an hour.”
Smyth had previously noticed both men stuffing something into their mouths periodically, but, being so used to seeing the sailors chew tobacco, he had never given it a second thought. He chewed lustily at the little ball for five minutes, but succeeded in extracting neither taste nor nourishment from it.
“I think I should prefer salt pork,” he said. “What little taste your coca has is beastly; and I am as hungry as I was before.”
“Patience; you have not chewed it long enough.”
He tried again, and presently the Indian said with a smile:
“Well, Señor?”
123
“I don’t know how it is, but I’m losing my hunger.Youtry it, Frank.—Give my friend one.”
The Jevero shook his head doubtfully.
“It must be a little one, then. It is not good for him. You smoke cigars, and you give some to us; but you do not give him one. Withcocait is the same.”
Smyth continued to chew, and was no longer conscious either of hunger or fatigue—for half an hour or more, when both these mortal ills began to return; and of course with double acuteness. He remarked on this to the Indians.
“Ah!” said Luis; “now you know how we can tell the time without a watch, how we know the number of miles we have walked without counting our steps. When you feel to want new coca-leaves, thirty-five minutes have gone by; add the ten minutes during which you found no effect from them, and you observe that three-quarters of an hour has expired. In that time we walk, at the present rate, five miles.” He might have added that, if abused, the coca habit is as pernicious and as degrading as opium-taking.
“It will be five miles no longer now,” said Filipe, interrupting. “Quick; blind the mules, Luis!”
They immediately began to bustle about like seamen in a gale of wind, and, in a few minutes, each of the five mules had a cloth tied over his eyes. There was soon no need to ask why. The slope they had been ascending had become a level strip—literally a strip. To the left of them the sailors saw a sheer wall of rock, rising perhaps a hundred feet, while to the right, not more than eight feet from it, was the edge124of a precipice. Used as they both were to overcoming inclinations to giddiness or fear, they shuddered involuntarily as they cast their eyes over the brink and found that they could see no bottom to the abyss. Yet the Jeveros put themselves on the mules’ outer side, one leading a string of three, the other two, and walking heedlessly within a couple of feet of the precipice.
To add to the gruesomeness of the neighbourhood, a weird, wailing cry began to rise from the high ledge above their heads, at the sound of which the Jeveros crossed themselves and mumbled a prayer.
“What is it?” asked the midshipman, not without a little touch of awe.
“Alma perdida!” said Luis, reverently lowering his voice. The words meant “a lost soul,” but the boy was unaware of that, and Smyth did not think a mountain-ledge, such as this, quite the right place to choose for enlightening him. Used to Spanish and now to Indian superstition, he guessed—and rightly—that the cry was that of some bird, probably peculiar to the Andes; and he questioned Filipe, who was walking at his mule’s head.
“Yes; it is a bird. It passes its time in bewailing the dead, and the sins which they have committed.”
“It will have a chance of bewailing its own death,” said the lieutenant peevishly, “as soon as I can get a shot at it,” at which the guides betrayed as much horror as Smyth himself would have shown had they proposed using an albatross as a target.
“What are we going to do if we meet another string of mules along here?” he asked.
125
“One party must lie down and let the other pass over it,” said Filipe indifferently.
By night-time the severe nerve strain of such a passage was ended, for this ledge at last became a rock-walled mountain-path sloping at quite an easy incline. They were no sooner well along this road the following morning than the guides looked to the loading of the guns, for they said that in the neighbourhood they might expect to meet with black Indians, who were notorious cannibals, and whom it would be their duty to kill. But it happened that none thought it worth while to put in an appearance; the “cannibals” were probably imaginary, though, of course, there are blacks—negroes, not Indians—settled in various parts of the Andes, the descendants of the African slaves introduced by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century to carry packages of gold or silver which the Indians could not or would not carry.
At last the most wonderful mountain-range in the world was crossed. The mules were left at a village, and the two Jeveros had an opportunity of showing that they were as expert on the water as on the mountains. For now they were in Amazonian Peru, and the Huallaga River had to be descended and examined before the sailors’ task was accomplished. In this more easterly forest district of Peru there are, at this day, nearly four hundred thousand Indians, and at that time there were half a million; many of them very degraded, many more warlike and intelligent heathens, and others who led quite peaceable lives as farmers, planters, fishers, or exporters of turtle-oil.
Only once were the sailors in serious danger at the126hands of any of these tribes, and that was due not to themselves or to the natives, but to the Jevero guides, both of whom had an ineradicable contempt for all Indian families but their own.
This happened soon after the return journey up the Huallaga had begun. Smyth had expected such an occurrence for some time, for he had more than once been forced to remonstrate with his men for their quarrelsome or jeering attitude towards Indians whom they met and talked with, and who would have been perfectly willing to be friendly and obliging. They came up with a large canoe containing eight Indians who were lying in wait for a manatee. Smyth bade the Jeveros draw up, and entered into conversation with the hunters, who answered civilly, though not without some distrust. Luis and Filipe joined in unasked, and, when it was too late, the lieutenant perceived that they were “chaffing” the strangers. These became more and more angry, and at last refused to answer Smyth, who thereupon, for peace’ sake, told his canoemen to paddle on. They obeyed, but not without a parting jeer which the Englishmen did not understand, but which so incensed the Indian in the bows of the other canoe that he hurled the harpoon which he was holding straight at Luis.
Luis gave a peculiar twist with his paddle, the canoe shot sideways, and the weapon passed harmlessly by him. Filipe picked up the short-barrelled gun that lay at his feet, but, quick to meet all emergencies, Smyth drew a pistol and pointed it at him.
“If you don’t drop it before I count three, I shall fire.”
A Fierce RetortThe Indian in the bows of the other canoe became so incensed at the “chaffing” of the strangers that he hurled the harpoon he was holding straight at Luis.
A Fierce RetortThe Indian in the bows of the other canoe became so incensed at the “chaffing” of the strangers that he hurled the harpoon he was holding straight at Luis.
127
In English, he added quickly to the midshipman, “Cover Luis, if he tries any games.”
Filipe dropped the gun with a shame-faced little laugh, and Luis showed no disposition either to take revenge for the harpoon, or to back up his friend against their employer.
“Give way, as hard as you can; both of you,” said the lieutenant, watching, with no little concern, the harpoons which were being held in readiness to throw at his canoe. Perhaps one bullet from his gun might have put the whole boat’s crew to flight, but he had the love of fair play and reluctance to kill which has distinguished the majority of British explorers, whether renowned or obscure. He put his pride in his pocket and frankly ran away.
Strangely enough, neither of the Jeveros ever showed any animosity towards him for thus siding with the enemy. When, at length, the parting time came, both pressed keepsakes on the young officers, and then surprised them by holding them by the hands and crying over them like a pair of women.
128CHAPTER XTHE CARIBS OF GUATEMALA
In 1839, curious as to the rumours of general anarchy prevailing throughout most of the Central American countries, the United States Government sent a young Foreign Office official—Mr. John Lloyd Stephens—to find out the truth of the matter. At first glance there seems nothing specially alarming or hazardous about such a mission, nor would there be nowadays; but, at the date of which we are speaking, there were no means of rapid communication between the towns, and many of the roads, rivers, and forest or mountain tracks were in the hands of strong parties of Carib and Mosquito Indians, Zambos, and Mestizos (white and Indian half-bloods), who would have no more respect for an agent of the American Government than for the colonists of their own country, against whom many of them were uniting their forces.
Under the circumstances, Mr. Stephens thought it wisest to land at Belize, and learn from the English officials there the best plan to pursue. British Honduras at that time was not strictly a Crown Colony, but was governed by the executive in Jamaica. The commanding officer of the garrison, Colonel McDonald,129received him with great geniality, and entertained him for a couple of days. But he could promise him no material help, he said, when once he was off British soil; he had no authority even to lend him a boat or launch, and dared not take upon himself to send an armed escort beyond the frontier.
“There is a Guatemala steamer starting up the Belize river to-morrow night,” he said. “I will send down and book you a passage. After you land you must not rely on us”—the Colonel laughed—“in our official capacity, that is to say. Of course, some of the staff are often up country after game, and if we should happen to find you in a tight corner on somebody else’s ground, we couldn’t, as private individuals, leave you in the lurch. You’ve got a nasty job; Guatemala and Honduras are both more or less in rebellion; so’s Mexico for that matter; and the Indians are plundering Government and revolutionaries alike. We’ve had a little trouble of our own with the Caribs; you’ll probably meet some of our firing-parties, any of whom will guarantee you protection as long as you’re our side of the boundary.”
The next evening, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Catherwood, went on board the little steamer—a boat which an American or English owner would send round the world with a ship’s company of six, but which, here, was manned by no less than twenty Mestizos, an English engineer, and a Spanish skipper. The only other passenger was a young Irish Franciscan, who proved very jovial company, and who professed to regard the Indian risings as a mere idle scare. He, too, was going into the first native territory130through which the travellers must pass, and offered himself as their guide thus far.
They could not have had a better, for his “cloth” was of more use to them than a small escort might have been. Soon after leaving the steamer they came to the first of the Carib camps. The Irishman baptised all the babies in the place, good-humouredly “chaffed” the warriors over their unwisdom in taking part in white men’s squabbles, procured a supply of provisions for himself and his companions, and all three set off across the boundary into the more dangerous territory.
They should by right have reached a Spanish village that night, where they would have been able to obtain horses; but a storm came on, and there was nothing for it but to wait on the plain till it was over. A question arose as to shelter and fuel, and this was solved by their seeing a sheep-fold in the distance. They came up to it and found it untenanted; there was a hut big enough for three persons to sit in, but too small for even one to lie in. For a fire, they broke down some of the rails of the fold, from which they cut kindling wood, and soon had a cosy blaze which defied the rain; they ate their supper and slept on the floor of the hut, huddled together.
In the morning they were awakened by a loud chattering of men, and Stephens, who was nearest the door, found himself being dragged forcibly into the open, while he was rubbing his eyes and trying to remember where he was. Catherwood sprang out after him, pistol in hand, only to be overpowered and relieved of it by a crowd of Caribs.
131
But, at sight of the friar, the Indians hesitated and became less noisy. He spoke to them in their own language, and demanded to know the cause of this violence.
“These men have broken up and burnt our sheep-fold,” exclaimed one of the Caribs.
“Well, well; leave go and I’ll explain. Give that gentleman his pistol back; he doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“Tell them we’ll pay for our night’s lodging,” added Stephens.
An explanation was offered and accepted, as were five dollars (about the value of the whole enclosure in a country where wood was plentiful) from the Americans; and the mollified Caribs led the way to their camp, gave the strangers a good breakfast, and put them on their road for the Spanish village. There they found everything quiet and orderly, though reports were rife as to terrible doings farther west; the Irishman obtained two good horses for his friends and bade them good-bye, as their ways divided here.
“We’re on our own resources now, and no mistake,” said Stephens when, coming to the end of the plain, they found themselves in the hilly district which grows higher and higher till it becomes the Central Guatemala Range, 13,000 feet high. “Let’s have a look at the chart.”
Colonel McDonald had warned them of the mountains, and had given them a plan showing one or two deep river valleys, here and in Salvador, by following which they could reach the Pacific coast without any climbing that a horse could not manage. Upon this132an Indian village was marked at a distance of about six miles from where they now were; and they might expect to reach it easily by nightfall, after allowing themselves ample time for making notes of the country by the way. They were tolerably sure of a civil reception and a night’s lodging, for their thoughtful Irish friend had given them a letter of introduction to the resident Spanish padre of the place.
They made very few notes, for they had no fancy for a second night over a fire of palings; another storm was threatening, and they spurred for the village without further delay, arriving at the same time as the rain. It was just at the end of theinvierno, or wet season, which consists, in Central America, of lengthy thunderstorms at very irregular intervals. The priest happened to be absent, but letters of recommendation were superfluous here; the travellers had landed on a tribe of Caribs as different from the others as yeoman-farmers are from gypsies. The others had been one part shepherds and nine parts brigands; these were the agricultural Guatemalans, descendants of the most highly civilised of the ancient Indians, whom—by reason of their very civilisation—Cortez could easily subdue in war, while the other tribes rendered his march through the country anything but safe or triumphant. Their inoffensive disposition made the Spaniards treat them rather as protégés than as victims.
The only difficulty that presented itself was that few of the inhabitants spoke any language but their own, for the tribe had, for four centuries, resisted all attempts to force a new language or new laws upon them;133even their Christianity was but a hundred years old. They entertained the visitors well, but could give them no information as to the state of the country; they were not interested in the doings of the outer world; they cultivated their cochineal insects, grew their coffee, tended their cattle, and minded their own business. They gave the Americans an unoccupied hut, brought them a generous supply of meat, wine, and cakes, and left them to amuse themselves for the night, with instructions to ring if they wanted anything; the ringing, by the way, to be performed by beating a drum which they hung outside the hut door.
Just before it was light, Stephens waked to hear a low cry from his friend. He sat up and struck a light. Catherwood was lying with his knees drawn up, hands clenched, and eyes staring, and, in reply to the other’s questionings, answered only in an incoherent babble. Stephens crossed over to him and saw that his teeth were chattering and his face almost scarlet; there was no doubt as to his condition; he was in a burning fever. Nothing could have been more unlucky. He had brought the young fellow with him purely on his own account, and unauthorised by his department. He was not in Government service, but merely a personal friend whom Stephens’ private means enabled him to keep in constant employment as amanuensis; therefore, to lose several days, or weeks, nursing him, at such a time, would be to bring himself into serious disgrace with the ministry. Yet how could he leave him in an Indian camp, to the tender mercies of some mad witch-doctor, who would charm and physic him to death with the most generous intentions?
134
He paced up and down for a while, and, at daylight, went out into the open, forced by his own ignorance of medicine, and his anxiety for his friend’s safety, to stoop to ask advice of a people whom his American upbringing had taught him to despise. And it was just possible that the Spanish padre might have returned by now, and he would be sure to possess some knowledge of drugs and minor surgery. In the village street he met the chief, one of the few natives who spoke Spanish.
“I will call the physician of the tribe,” he said, when Stephens, learning to his dismay that the priest was not expected till night-time, had communicated his difficulty.
The native doctor was a little old man who had no small opinion of his own importance, and was as contemptuously ignorant of Spanish as the Yankee was of Huaxtecan and Cariban. He passed his hand over the patient’s brow, breathed on him, muttered incantations, and then walked round the hut about a dozen times, solemnly talking to himself, till Stephens could scarcely resist the temptation to give him a lift into the street with his foot. After a time thepiache, doctor, conjurer, or whatever he called himself, took out two powders from his girdle, poured water on them, sipped the drink, breathed and mumbled over it, opened the sufferer’s mouth, and poured it down his throat before the spectator could make up his mind whether to interfere or no. Then the old image strutted out of the hut, as proud as Punch.
This was all very well, but Stephens’ mind was ill at ease. He followed the man of medicine into the135street, and found the chief waiting modestly but expectantly outside.
“Ask him what he has given my friend,” he said, curtly. The chief bowed, but shook his head.
“These are mysteries into which I may not inquire. The physician’s secrets are sacred. You may rest assured that the young white man will soon be well.”
Of course, Stephens did anything but rest assured of this. He turned into the hut again, and lo! Catherwood was sleeping as peacefully as a child, with no sign of indisposition except the flush on his face. The chief peeped in apologetically.
“He says that the sick señor will be well enough to travel by midday,” he whispered. It was now four o’clock; Stephens ate some breakfast fretfully, looked at the patient, walked about the village, and sought to kill time as best he could. Every time he re-entered the hut, Catherwood’s temperature was less high; and, about the middle of the day, he awoke of his own accord, ravenous for some breakfast. The old medicine-man had known his business; had administered two, out of the thousand and two, healing drugs which the American forests and valleys produce—probably quinine and some preparation of poppy—and had nipped in the bud what was doubtless an attack of malarial fever.
Catherwood paid his doctor’s bill by the gift of a four-bladed pen-knife, his friend forced a similar present on the chief, and early in the afternoon they rode away about their business. The next few weeks were passed in hurried journeys from town to town, in false alarms, in being potted at by revolutionaries, and136humbugged by officials; and by the time they had crossed once more to the Bay of Honduras and the Guatemala coast, they had found out all that there was to learn.
About a mile from the British boundary they encountered their most exciting adventure. Outside a Carib village were a dozen Indians and Mestizos, all armed with guns, and in heated argument with five young men, who were obviously British officers in mufti; these also had guns, and two of them carried well-filled game-bags.
“You intend to keep us here? It will be the worse for you if you try it,” the eldest of the white men was saying in Spanish.
“Unless you give us what we ask,” replied a Mestizo insolently. “You have no right to be over the border.”
The Americans pulled up their horses, and Stephens drew a pistol.
“All right,” he said. “We’re going to be in this.”
“Then pray begin by putting that pistol out of the way, there’s a good fellow,” said Major Walrond, the young man who had spoken to the half-caste. “We shall be very glad if you’ll back us up. We want to get out of it without firing on them if we can.”
“What’s the row?”
“These Mestizos belong to the rebels, and are recruiting among the Indians; promising them all sorts of plunder, no doubt, and they rather think of practising on us for a start; want us to empty our pockets and game-bags, and give up our guns and ammunition. Look out, you fellows.”
Seeing a reinforcement for the white men, yet not137one that need be feared so far as they could see, the ruffians were becoming impatient, and one or two had cocked their guns.
“Ride ’em down; use your whips, but for goodness’ sake don’t fire a shot while we’re on this side of the boundary,” said the senior officer hurriedly. “Bravo, Spencer; over with him”; for a subaltern had seized the rifle of one of the half-breeds and was wrenching it out of his hands. “Thank you, Mr. Stephens.”
The last remark was occasioned by the American’s felling with his pistol-stock an Indian who was taking aim at the Major. Then the white men began to hit out, shoulder to shoulder. The Indians were quickly overpowered, for they were more than half afraid of the guns they held, and, on these being wrested from them, fled to the nearest ravine. But the Mestizos were more of a handful. There had been five of them to begin with; the subaltern had disarmed one, and he had fled; Major Walrond had just knocked another down with his fist, and he lay unconscious; but the other three, artful enough to reflect that even if their opponents decided to fire on them, their guns were only charged with bird-shot, harmless at any appreciable distance, were running away with the evident intention of using their own ball-cartridges from some point of vantage.
Stephens’ matter-of-fact Yankee way of looking at things now became a valuable asset.
“We’reno British subjects,” he said hurriedly, “and you’ll not be to blame if we fire on these chaps”; and, pistol in hand, he spurred after one fugitive while138Catherwood pursued a second. The third fired at Catherwood, the bullet carrying away his hat, but one of the subalterns was on him before he could load again, wrenched the rifle out of his hands, and gave him a complimentary tap on the head with the butt thereof. The other two, seeing that the horsemen at least would have no scruple about using firearms, stopped when called upon to do so, and sullenly gave up their guns.
But that mile back to British territory seemed a most amazingly long one. The Carib fugitives had alarmed the neighbourhood, and knots of Indians were gathering, armed with bows and arrows, which they seemed desirous of using on the white men, for the two or three venomous lies circulated all in a moment by the Mestizos had soon swelled to two or three dozen; and to the Caribs, the opportune arrival of the two men on horseback was part of a deep-laid plot against their liberties.
“Shall we ride in and disperse them?” suggested Catherwood.
“Better not; it’ll only make matters worse,” said one of the Englishmen gloomily. “They’ll let go with their bows if you do. I think we look fools enough as it is, sneaking along like this; better not make it any worse.”
“No; we can’t afford to have Guatemala declaring war against Great Britain,” laughed Walrond. “If they attempt to shoot we must let them have it; but it mustn’t be said that we fired first.”
It was a queer procession; every man felt that he was cutting a hang-dog figure; he was not afraid of139an arrow, but he was mortally afraid of looking ridiculous. All knew, too, that if serious trouble arose, the commanding officer would forbid their crossing the frontier any more, and there was no shooting to be had on their own side of it that could compare with that here.
“All right, my chickens,” muttered Walrond at last; “if you follow us just fifty yards farther, we may be able to deal with you.”
The fifty yards were covered; the white men were on their own ground again, but still the Indians—proudly indifferent to frontiers other than those recognised by their own tribe—followed at a distance of about forty paces, debating their tactics in low tones, and by no means unwilling to make a rush for the Englishmen and rob them of their guns.
“Now let’s tickle them a little,” said Major Walrond; and he turned sharply and sent a charge of small shot among the Indians. “Down, quick; ’ware arrows.”
The two horsemen jumped out of their stirrups and fell on the grass, and the little shower of arrows passed harmlessly over the heads of all. The other four officers fired in quick succession. This was too much for the Caribs, many of whom were peppered right painfully; and, with no further pretence at shooting, they turned and fled towards their village, leaving the white men masters of the field.
140CHAPTER XIA PRINCE’S ADVENTURES IN BRAZIL
Prince Adalbert of Prussia, a nephew of Friedrich Wilhelm III, is less remembered as a traveller than as a frequent visitor to this country, and one who sought to build up a German navy that should, in time, be an exact copy of our own. Yet, in his younger days, before he took seriously to sailoring, he led a restless, wandering life, and, in the course of about eighteen years, contrived to see almost every country in the world.
In 1842, when he was a little over thirty, he landed at Parahiba, in Northern Brazil, with a small suite of Prussian officers, determined to make a cross-country journey to the Andes and back. Needless to say, such a march promised no small amount of excitement and danger; for European settlements were few and far between, and the greater part of the inhabited regions were in the hands of Caribs and Guaranis, who, even where they were not savage and bloodthirsty, were usually so jealous of the intrusion of white men that they would offer every hindrance to their progress through the country.
The initial difficulty was the not uncommon one of141obtaining guides. Guides by the score—Indian, half-blood, Spanish and Italian—were ready enough to show the way to Caxias, two hundred and fifty miles distant; but the Prince happened to have an excellent chart of the country as far as even three hundred miles beyond that (to the other side of the Para River). But beyond the river no one had been or had any intention of going, for fear of the Indians, who were popularly supposed to number cannibalism among their other little eccentricities. Passably good horses, however, were not hard to come by, and the little cavalcade crossed the first five or six hundred miles of plain and forest without mishap, and without seeing any other Indians than those who were mildly and agriculturally disposed.
But now they came to what looked like an untouched and absolutely impenetrable forest, where neither man nor horses could move unless a path was first cut; and to render this gloomy neighbourhood a little more uninviting, there appeared to be no dearth of jaguars, wild cats, and boa-constrictors. Several of the officers separated and, for a whole day, rode in every direction, exploring every possible curve and opening that might be the beginning of a road; losing themselves and each other a score of times. But at sundown, when all met at a prearranged spot, Count Oriolla—the last to arrive—triumphantly announced that he had found a winding path that showed signs of rare but comparatively recent use. He had traced this for a good ten miles, and it still promised to remain open and to lead “somewhere.”
To a band of men who were young, strong, well142armed, and romantically inclined, the prospect offered by this mysterious path was a delightful one, and by daybreak everyone was waiting and anxious to continue the journey. Count Oriolla led the way through various palm clumps and then alongside a wall of forest where every tree seemed to be linked inextricably to its neighbour by creepers and lianas; and, after some five miles of this, to a little wedge-like opening which continued in a sharp backward turn, and which no one but himself had noticed on the preceding day. For just a few yards this was so narrow that the horses could only move in single file, but it very quickly widened to the breadth of an ordinary country lane. Close examination by the scientist of the party showed that it was a path chiefly of Nature’s making; probably a dried-up watercourse which had been used by men and cattle at sufficiently frequent intervals to prevent the saplings, suckers, and undergrowth from becoming a serious obstruction.
Travelling very much at their ease, the Prince and his companions followed this road for about fifteen miles before stopping for the midday meal and siesta. In consequence of the great heat they usually all rested from twelve till four; but to-day Count Oriolla and Captain Bromberg preferred to walk on for a mile or two as soon as they had lunched, in order to see what possibilities the neighbourhood offered in the way of game, fruit, and water. A few hundred yards from the camp they came to a veritable cherry orchard on a small scale; a grove of tall trees laden with small black fruit and having leaves and bark precisely the same as those of the European cherry. The fruit was143the “jabuticabas,” or Brazilian cherry; the two young men tasted some “windfalls,” and these were so promising that the Count urged his more active companion to climb one of the trunks and shake down a good supply.
For a sailor this was no difficulty; and Captain Bromberg was soon in the fork of a tree, rocking the branches vigorously, while the Count stowed the falling fruit in a small game-bag. Presently the Captain happened to peer down from his perch, and then, to his bewilderment, he saw that a third person had appeared on the scene. The Count was still on his knees, diligently filling the bag; while, unperceived by him, a tall Indian, armed with a spear, bow, and quiver, stood near him as motionless as a statue.
Bromberg at once swung himself down and dropped beside his friend, so suddenly that the Count sprang up in alarm, though the Indian betrayed no shadow of surprise. The Count, turning his head and finding himself face to face with a Carib, started back with a cry of astonishment and fumbled in his pocket for the pistol which he usually carried there; but the stranger’s demeanour was so mild and amiable, that he at once felt ashamed of himself.
“Why don’t you speak to him in Spanish?” said Bromberg; “no doubt he would understand.”
The Count, himself half Spanish, spoke civilly to the Carib, who at once answered in that tongue, at the same time turning his spear-point to the ground in token of peace. He pointed to the end of the grove of fruit trees.
“That is where I live, gentlemen”; and for the144first time they noticed a thin column of smoke rising from a hut or tent a couple of hundred yards away.
“Is there an Indian village here then?” asked the Count.
“Nearly a mile farther on; I and my parents keep an inn outside it.”
The outlook seemed promising, and the Count at once asked as to the likelihood of their finding suitable guides.
“You want to go by way of Santaren? Yes; any of us will guide you as far as there, or even to the Madeira River. But we should not choose to go any farther, for we are ill friends with the Guaranis just now; nor would you do well to venture far up the Amazon; between Indians, reptiles, andtigres, your lives would never be safe.”
The two officers laughed; and the Count, giving their new acquaintance a drop of brandy from his flask in token of good will, easily persuaded him to return with them to the spot where they had left their companions.
The Prince at once asked to be conducted to the village. This consisted of a very picturesque street of palm-thatched huts, whose owners looked cleaner, more robust, and more thriving than any Indians Prince Adalbert had seen. A deputation, consisting of two chiefs and a native Catholic priest, came to bid the new-comers welcome, and begged them to accept the hospitality of the village for as long as it might suit them. They confirmed what the other Indian had said: the way was safe enough and agreeable enough145as far as the confluence of the Amazon and Madeira, but no farther.
On learning that the white men would pass that night in the village, everyone was resolved to make the stay an entertaining one. The visitors were shown the parish church, school, stores, etc., and eventually led to the older chief’s house for an elaborate meal of fish, turtle-eggs, mushrooms, venison, partridges, and stewed monkey, with fruit jellies, cakes, and native beer. The hut was neatly furnished with cane-seated benches or lounges; and—not always to the guests’ greater comfort—a puma, various snakes, a couple of monkeys, and three parrots, all very tame, wandered about the place at will.
Soon after supper, while Prince Adalbert smoked with the chiefs and the padre, he unconsciously committed a very serious breach of local etiquette. Attracted by the great size and artistic workmanship of two bows that stood against the wall close by him, he leant forward and took up one to examine it more closely. Immediately a heart-rending scream rose from the only woman present—the cacique’s widowed mother—who, springing forward, snatched the weapon from the stranger’s hand and replaced it with great care and reverence.
The courtier-instinct of the Prussian officers was naturally scandalised, the cacique remained perfectly still, though he looked very uncomfortable, and said something in dialect to his mother that appeared to be a gentle reproach; while the Indian padre, whose education had brought him more in touch with white men and their notions of hospitality, hastened politely146to explain and apologise. The bows, he said, were the last weapons used by the woman’s late husband, and it was the custom of the tribe to regard such things as extremely sacred; no one but the deceased’s widow or eldest son might so much as touch them or stand within a pace of them. The Prince was, of course, too much a man of the world to feel any annoyance, and quickly put his entertainers at their ease again by expressing keen interest in the customs peculiar to the Caribs; and this led to the cacique’s inviting him to witness a dance which was being arranged in his honour. He led the way to the public square orplaza, which was now illuminated by a symmetrical arrangement of torches and a huge bonfire. As soon as all were seated under a canopy, the cacique struck a gong, and, from every corner of the square, the young men of the tribe appeared, each armed with a blunted spear and a round wooden shield; and, at a second beat of the gong, all these began an awkward, waddling march round and round the fire. This had gone on for some minutes when, with a roar that was a splendid imitation of a bull’s bellowing, a man sprang up from the ground and, with head down, pretended to run at full charge through the procession. The march stopped instantly, every man turned his spear on the disturber, and then followed a really admirable pantomime of a bull-fight, which ended in the vanquishing and pretended death of the “bull.”
In the morning the Prussians sought to press various gifts on the hospitable Indians; but they were only received under protest and on condition of the visitors accepting others in return; moreover, the147cacique appointed five mounted men to act as guides as far as the river; and these, he said, were on no account to accept any payment beyond their daily rations.
A march of something like four hundred miles now lay before the travellers, and this was accomplished, by easy stages, within about a fortnight. When once the river was in sight the Indians did not, as the Prince had expected, promptly desert; nevertheless, they reground their knives and the points of their spears and arrows as though they anticipated an attack at any moment. But no other Indians were sighted for a while; the ford of the Madeira marked on the chart was found, and the explorers crossed the river in comfort and bade good-bye to the honest fellows who had guided them so far and so faithfully.
Now came a temporary break in the forest land; and for several miles the road was a mere sand-strip, like a towpath, running between the Amazon and some low, marshy ground. No one was sorry to escape from this district to the higher and more wooded lands again, for not only do such marshes breed all kinds of fever, but they are the chosen lurking-places of crocodiles, water-serpents, and other abominations.
On the third afternoon of the new march, Count Oriolla noticed, as they entered upon more forest land, that dark-skinned figures continually flitted among the trees, as though someone were spying on or keeping up with the horsemen. He reported this, and the Prince gave orders for all to draw more together and to have their weapons ready to hand. At every step, too, the track betrayed more and more signs of recent use by148horses and cattle; and, from the top of the next hill, a haze like the smoke from dozens of houses was visible.
“What are those?” asked the Prince as he pointed to some dark objects moving on the surface of the water a long way ahead.
“Canoes,Hoheit; and Indians in them,” promptly answered the naval captain, more accustomed than the rest to long-distance gazing.
“Well, well; let us ride on. They probably intend us no harm.”
Just then a valet, who was riding a little to the rear, hurried forward.
“Your Highness may perceive that we are being followed,” he said; and pointed behind him to a group of thirty Indians of some other tribe than the Caribs, who were moving along on foot at a steady double; and among the trees closer at hand several more could be seen.
“Better to ignore them for the present,” said the Prince. “Evidently the village is not far away; time enough to stop when we come to it.”
“This looks like an ambuscade,” muttered Oriolla to the man riding next him. They had come almost to the end of the little patch of forest, and, beyond the last belt of trees, the heads and forefeet of several horses drawn up in line could be seen. The words were hardly out of his mouth when, howling at the top of their voices, two dozen men shot out from the cover indicated and rode at full speed towards the new-comers.
“Pistols out; but let no one fire unless I give the149word,” shouted the Prince. “Ha! Here come the others from behind.”
The second lot of Indians had increased their pace, and the Prussians saw themselves about to be hemmed between two little forces of yelling savages. Within a few yards, both parties of redskins halted and either brandished their axes or fitted arrows to their bows.
“What do you want?” shouted the Prince in Spanish.
“You are our prisoners; you must come with us to our camp,” said a young Indian, advancing his horse a foot or two. “Give up your arms.”
The Prince looked round at his followers. They only numbered thirteen, all told, five of whom had never been under fire in their lives. Then he said resolutely:
“Certainly we will come with you; but we shall not give up our arms; and if any violence is attempted, I warn you that we shall fire on you.”
None of the Indians carried guns, and for that reason the Prince had more faith in the efficacy of his threat.
“Very well,” said the leader of the mounted Indians. “Follow us.”
It was but a short distance to the village or camp ortolderia; and, at the entrance to it, the Guaranis (for to that tribe they belonged) dismounted, and each of the white men found his bridle seized by an Indian.
“Who is your chief? Where is your cacique?” demanded Prince Adalbert impatiently.
His captors pointed to a young man who, accompanied by another much older, had just appeared from the largest of the huts and was coming towards them. The young chief proved to be a very mild-mannered150person. He said half apologetically that the tribe was poor, and that strangers were expected to make some offering on coming among them.
“We were prepared to make presents,” said the Prince good-humouredly, “but we object to being asked for them.”
The older man—evidently the Ahithophel of the tribe—whispered something, whereupon the chief said more spiritedly:
“You have been taken prisoners in our forest. You must ransom yourselves”—Ahithophel whispered again—“by giving up your arms and your baggage.”
Those of the Prussians who understood the cacique’s Spanish cocked their pistols.
“Patience; we must reason with them,” said the Prince in his own language.
He was trying to think of the most potent argument to employ, when a sudden outcry arose on all hands, and more than half the Indians, including the chief and his evil genius, turned towards the river as though in haste to meet someone. The canoes which the travellers had seen from a distance were drawing up to the wooden landing-stage.
“What’s this? What are they all doing?” asked the Prince; as well he might, for his assailants, so clamorous and threatening only a moment before, were falling on their knees one after the other, crossing themselves and shouting jubilantly:
“The padre! The holy padre!”
A pleasant-faced, athletic-looking man, wearing a largesombreroand a priest’s cassock, was standing on the little quay, holding up his hand to bless the kneeling151crowd, and at the same time throwing a quick glance of curiosity towards the prisoners.
“At least he’s a white man,” said the Prince, much relieved, as he signed to Count Oriolla to dismount and go to speak to the new-comer. In a couple of minutes he saw both men hurrying towards him. The priest raised his hat and, in excellent German, introduced himself as a Scots Jesuit whose duty it was to make periodical visits to the camps that had no church, to administer the sacraments to the devout.
“You must look leniently on them,” he said when the position was explained. “They are just grownup children. I will see that a proper apology is made. I suspect I can put my hand on the black sheep.” He pointed at Ahithophel, and, speaking in Spanish, ordered him and the cacique to come forward. Before he had spoken for a couple of minutes, it was clear enough to the strangers that the good missionary knew the class of men with whom he had to deal. Led by the cacique, the Indians were soon sobbing and groaning in chorus; and even the grey-headed counsellor bewailed his indiscretion when, passing from the moral to the politic side of the question, the Scotsman hinted at the possibilities of a German invasion to avenge this insult to royalty; and ended by forbidding anyone in the village, as a penance, to receive any present whatever from the travellers.
The power that just one white man of quick brain and strong will had over all these savages seemed incredible. The Prussians remained in the village three days, and during that time the Indians strained every effort to please and entertain them; not an article of152their property was interfered with, and when, on leaving, the Prince—forgetting the padre’s prohibition—offered trifling presents of knives, jewellery, and silk handkerchiefs, everyone edged away as though these things were poison.
“They have beengoodchildren, Father,” pleaded the Prince, and so earnestly that the Jesuit was obliged to give way; whereupon the Guaranis accepted the gifts with tears of gratitude, and readily offered a supply of guides who would ensure the travellers against molestation by others of their tribe between there and the Andes.
On the last day of their stay it was reported that a tapir had been seen in the forest a mile or two back; and the Scots cleric, himself a keen sportsman, undertook to show the Prussians a native hunt at its best. In this, however, he did not quite succeed, for some of the younger members of the tribe stole a march on the rest, and the visitors only saw the “finish.” The lads had started earlier in the morning, had discovered the tapir and driven him through the forest towards the river; and, as the white men reached the most practicable path, the ungainly beast charged out of it and made straight towards the water. But the cacique was too quick for him. Spurring his horse with the sharp angles of his stirrups, he dashed from the rear of the Prussians and flung his lasso over the animal’s head.
But this was not all. The tapir cared no more for this than a whale does for a single harpoon and line, and rushed straight on for the river, apparently dragging the hunter with him. All in a moment, however, there153came a clatter of hoofs, a cloud of dead leaves, chips, and dust, and four of the beaters dashed out from the forest path with their lassoes poised, and each bawling like a man possessed. Two lassoes whistled past the Prince’s head and seemed to fall at exactly the same moment on that of the tapir; these were followed by a third, which, as the beast had made a half stop, just missed him; then by a fourth, which fell unerringly.
Even then the power of this strange animal was amazing, and for a minute it seemed as though he must draw his captors into the river; but, at a shout from the cacique, the three hunters followed his example, swung their horses round, and spurred them so terrifically that they towed the quarry back, foot by foot, till he fell over on his side with all the breath strangled out of him. Then the cacique, as the first to get his lasso “home,” handed the thong to another hunter, dismounted, and gave the tapir his quietus with his spear.