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Chapter Eleven

“They are all, the meanest things that be.
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.”

Cowper.

We had just finished lunch by the lake-side at Bala, my friend Ben Roberts and I, and were thinking of trying the fishing once more, for the clouds had banked up from the west and obscured the sun’s glare, a little breeze had rippled the water, and everything looked promising, when the Captain burst out laughing.

“Shiver my timbers! as sailors say on the stage, Nie,” cried he, “if there isn’t that same old stag-beetle making his way up your jacket again, intent on revenge.”

“Plague take it!” I exclaimed, shaking the brute off again; “I have flicked him away once; I shall have to kill him now.”

“No you won’t,” said Ben Roberts; “the world happens to be wide enough for the lot of us. Let him live. I’m a kind of Brahmin, Nie; I never take life unless there is dire necessity.

“We in England,” continued Captain Roberts, “have little to complain about in the matter of insects; our summer flies annoy us a little, the mountain midges tickle, and the gnats bite, and hornets sting. But think of what some of the natives of other countries suffer. I remember as if it were this moment a plague of locusts that fell upon a beautiful and fertile patch of country on the seaboard of South Africa. It extended only for some two hundred miles, but the destruction was complete.

“The scenes of grief and misery I witnessed in some of the villages I rode through, I shall remember till my dying day.

“‘All, all gone!’ cried one poor Caffre woman who could talk English, ‘no food for husband, self, or children, and we can’t eat the stones.’

“These poor wretches were positively reduced to eating the locusts themselves.”

“I shouldn’t like to be reduced to eating insects,” said I; “fancy eating a stag-beetle fried in oil.”

“And yet I doubt,” replied the Captain, “if it is a bit worse than eating shrimps or swallowing living oysters. You’ve seen monkeys eating cockroaches?”

“Yes, swallowing them down as fast as they possibly could, and when they couldn’t eat any more, stuffing their cheeks for a future feast.”

“On the old Sans Pareil we had fifteen apes and monkeys, besides the old cat and a pet bear. Ah! Nie, what fun we did use to have, to be sure!”

“Didn’t they fight?”

“No, they all knew their places, and settled down amiably enough. The very large ones were not so nimble, and some of them were very solemn fellows indeed; the smaller gentry used to gather round these for advice, we used to think, and apparently listened with great attention to everything told them, but in the end they always finished up by pulling their professors by their tails. If at any time they did happen to find that old cat’s tail sticking out of the cage, oh! woe betide it! they bent on to it half a dozen or more, and it was for all the world like a caricature of our sailors paying in the end of a rope. Meanwhile the howls of the cat would be audible in the moon, I should think. Then up would rush our old cook with the broom, and there would be a sudden dispersal. But they were never long out of mischief. The little bear came in for a fair share of attention. You see, he wasn’t so nimble as the monkeys; they would gather round him, roll him on deck, and scratch him all over. The little Bruin rather liked this, but when three or four of the biggest held his head and three or four others began to stuff cockroaches down his throat, he thought it was taking advantage of good nature; he clawed them then and sometimes squeezed them till they squeaked with pain or fright. They used to bathe Bruin, though. The men brought the bath up, then the monkeys teased the bear until he got on his hind-legs and began clawing the air; this was their chance. They would make a sudden rush on the poor little fellow, he would step back, trip, and go souse into the bath. Then the chattering and jumping and grinning of the monkeys, and the laughing and cheering of the men, made a fine row, I can tell you. We had two monkeys that didn’t brook much nonsense from the others – an orang, and a long-nosed monkey – we got her in Sumatra – who looked a very curious old customer. The best of it was that the sailors taught the long-nosed one to snuff, and the orang to drink a glass of rum.

“As soon as the old orang heard the hammering on the rum-cask to knock out the bung, he began to laugh, and he beamed all over when his basin of grog was brought. The other old monkey taking a pinch was a sight to see. She stack to the box at last, and when any of her friends came to see her would present it to them with a ‘hae! hae! hae!’ that spoke volumes.”

“Any other funny pets on the Sans Pareil?”

“Oh, yes, lots. We had an adjutant. Ah! Nie, we did use to laugh at that bird, too. Five feet tall he was, and a more conceited old fop of a fellow I never did see. He had a pouch that hung down in front. Well, he used to eat everything, from a cockroach to half a leg of mutton; and when he couldn’t hold any more he used to stuff his pouch.

“‘Comes in handy, you see,’ he seemed to say, alluding to this pouch of his. ‘But, dear me!’ he would continue, ‘ain’t I a pretty bird? Look at my pretty little head; there ain’t much hair on it; but never mind, look at my bill. There is a bill for you! Just see me eat a fish, or a frog, or a snake! And now, look at my legs. Pretty pair, ain’t they? See me walk!’

“Then he would set off to promenade up and down the deck till the ship gave a bit of a lurch, when down he would go, and the monkeys would all gather round to laugh and jibber, and Snooks, as we called him, would deal blows with his bill in all directions, which the monkeys, nimble though they were, had some difficulty in dodging.

“‘Can’t you see,’ he would say, ‘that I didn’t tumble at all – that I merely sat down to arrange my pretty feathers?’ And Snooks would retain his position for about half an hour, preening his wings, and scratching his pouch with the point of his bill, just to make the monkeys believe he really hadn’t fallen, and that his legs were really and truly serviceable sea-legs.

“I’ve lain concealed and watched the adjutants in an Indian marsh for hours; there they would be in scores, and in every conceivable idiotic position.

“Suddenly, perhaps, one would mount upon an old tree-stump, and spread wide his great wings. ‘Hullo, everybody!’ he would seem to cry, ‘look at me. I’m the king o’ the marsh! Hurrah!

“‘My foot’s upon my native heath,
My name, Macgregor;’

“or words to that effect, Nie.”

“You were always fond of birds, and beasts, and fishes, weren’t you, Ben?”

“I was, Nie, lad, and never regretted it but once.”

“How was that?”

“I was down with that awful fever we call Yellow-Jack; and, oh! Nie, it seemed to me that at first all the awful creatures ever I had seen on earth or in the waters came back to haunt my dream; and often and often I awoke screaming with fright. Indeed, the dream had hardly faded when my eyes were opened, for I would see, perhaps, a weird-looking camel or dromedary’s head drawing away from the bed, or a sea-elephant, a bear, an ursine seal, or an old-fashioned-looking puffin.

“In my fever, thirst was terribly severe, and I used to dream I was diving in the blue pellucid water of the Indian Ocean, down – down – down to beds of snow-white coral sands, with submarine flowers of far more than earthly beauty blooming around me; suddenly I should perceive that I was being watched by the terrible and human-like eyes of a monk shark, or – I shudder even now, Nie, to think of it – I should see an awful head – the uranoscope’s – with extended jaws and glaring protruding eyes. Then I would awake in a fright, shivering with cold, yet bathed in perspiration. But, Nie, when I began to get well a change came o’er the spirit of my dreams. The terrible heads, the horrid fishes, and the slimy monsters of the deep appeared no more; in their place came beautiful birds, and scenery far more lovely than ever I had clapped a waking eye upon. So, in one way, Nie, I was rewarded for my love for natural history.”

“What a lovely day!” I remarked, looking around me.

“Yes,” replied Ben; “but do you know what this very spot where we are now standing puts me in mind of – lake and all, I mean?”

“I couldn’t guess, I’m sure,” I replied.

“Well, it is just like the place where I was nearly killed by a panther, and would have been, but for my man Friday.”

“He must have been a useful nigger, then,” I said, “that man Friday.”

“He came in precious handy that day, Nie. You see, it was like this: – Neither he nor I had ever been to South America before; so when we went away shooting together we weren’t much used to the cries of the birds or beasts of the woods. The birds seemed to mimic the beasts, and reptiles often made sounds like birds. We had been away through the forest, and such a forest – ah! Nie, you should have seen the foliage and the creepers. We had had pretty good sport for strangers. We shot and bagged everything, snakes and birds and beasts, for I was making up a bag for the doctor, who was a great man for stuffing and setting up. We had just sat down to rest, when suddenly the most awful cries that ever I heard began to echo through the woods.

“They came from a thicket not very far away, and at one moment were plaintive, at the next, discordant, harsh, dreadful.

“‘Friday,’ I cried, starting up and seizing my gun, ‘there is murder, and nothing less, being done in that thicket. Let’s run down and see.’

“‘It seems so, massa,’ said Friday; ‘it’s truly t’rific.’

“We ran on as we spoke, and soon came to the place, and peered cautiously in.

“It was only a howler monkey after all.”

“And was nothing the matter with him?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. It was merely this monkey’s way of amusing itself.”

“Did you shoot him?”

“I never shot a monkey in my life, and never will, Nie; it appears to me almost as bad as shooting a human being.

“‘We’ll go back to the lake-side now, Friday,’ I said, ‘and have dinner.’

“Alas! I had no dinner that day, Nie, nor for many a long day to come.

“There is no fiercer wild beast in all the forests or jungles than the cougar or puma, and none more treacherous. I have an idea myself that the darker in colour the more courageous and bloodthirsty they are; however that may be, I would any day as soon fight hand-to-hand with a man-eating tiger as I would with some of the monstrous pumas I have seen in South America. And yet I have heard sportsmen despise them, probably because they have never met one face to face as I have done, and as I did on the day in question.

“We were quietly returning, Friday and I, to the place where we had left our provisions and bags, when he suddenly cried, ‘Look, massa! look dere!’ We had disturbed one of the largest boa-constrictors I had ever seen, and it was moving off, strange to say, instead of boldly attacking us, but hissing and blowing with rage as it did so. It looked to me like the trunk of some mighty palm-tree in motion along the ground.

“‘Fire!’ I cried; ‘fire! Friday.’

“The crack of both of our rifles followed in a second, but though wounded, the terrible creature made good its escape.

“I hurried after him, loading as I went, and thus got parted for a short time from my faithful servant and body-guard.

“I soon discovered, to my sorrow, the reason why the boa had not attacked us.

“In these dense forest lands, the wildest animals prey upon each other. Thus the boa often seizes and throttles the life out of even the puma, agile and fierce though it be. This particular boa had been watching a puma, evidently, when we came up. The brute gave me not a moment to consider, nor to finish my loading.

“I yelled in terror as I found myself seized by the shoulder. I remember no more then.

“Friday had boldly rushed to my rescue. He struck the puma over the head with his useless rifle. The beast sprang backwards fully fifteen feet, and prepared to give Friday battle, but the brave fellow was on him, knife in hand, in a moment. Friday told me afterwards that he literally flung himself on the puma. Had he missed his aim, he would never have had another chance, but deep into the monster’s very heart went the dagger, and he never moved a muscle more. Friday was unwounded.”

“And you, Ben?”

“Fearfully cut in the shoulder with the puma’s teeth, cut in the back with the talons of his fore feet, and lacerated in the stomach with his hind. They have an ugly way of cutting downwards with those talons of theirs, few who have felt it are likely to forget.”

Chapter Twelve

“Wide-rent, the clouds
Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquenched
Th’ unconquerable lightning straggles through
Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.”

Thomson.

My old friend Captain Roberts is quite a remarkable man in his way – yes, I might go farther and say, in many of his ways. As a pedestrian, for example, there are few young men can beat him. When he and I make up our minds to have a walk, the elements do not prevent us. We start and go through with it.

But in summer or spring weather, when the roads are not quite ankle-deep in mud, we dearly love to mount our tricycles and go for a good long spin. We like to return feeling delightfully hungry and delightfully tired; then we dine together, and after dinner, when good old Ben gets his pipe in full blast, it would indeed do your heart good to listen to him. Everything or anything suggests a yarn to Ben, or brings back to his mind some sunny memory or gloomy recollection.

One day last summer we started for a ride, for the morning looked very promising, and the roads were in splendid form. We followed the course of the Thames upwards, and about noon found ourselves enjoying our frugal luncheon near a pretty little reach of the river, one of the thousand beautiful spots by the banks of this famous old stream.

As the clouds, however, began to bank up rather suddenly in the west, and as they soon met and quite hid the sun, and as the day was still and sultry, we expected, what we soon got, a thunderstorm. Neither my friend nor I am very shy, when it comes to the push, so we ran for shelter, and just as the thunder began to roll and the raindrops to fall, we got our ’cycles comfortably housed in a farmer’s shed.

The farmer was not content, however, until he had us both indoors in his comfortable parlour. He threw the window wide open, because, he said, the glass drew the lightning; so there we sat with the thunder rattling overhead, the rain pattering on the grass and sending up delicious odours of red and white clover, while the lightning seemed to run along the ground, and mix itself up with the sparkling rain-rush in quite a wonderful way.

“Terrible thunder!” said Captain Roberts. “Terrible! puts me in mind of South America.”

The farmer looked eagerly towards him.

The farmer’s wife entered with tea, and this completed our feeling of comfort.

“You’ve got something to tell us, Ben,” I said. “There is something which that storm reminds you of. Better out with it, without much further parley.”

“Ah, well,” he said, “I suppose I must. Not that it is very much of a story; only, gentlemen, it is true. I haven’t lived long enough yet to have to invent yarns. I haven’t told half what I’ve seen and come through. But not to weary you – what delicious tea, ma’am!”

“So glad it pleases you, sir.”

“I’ve sailed around a good many coasts in my time; but I think you will find scenery more charming on the seaboard of some parts of South America than in any other country in the world. Round about Patagonia, now, what can beat the coast line for grandeur and stern beauty? Nothing that I know of.

“But farther north – on the shores of Bolivia, for instance – the scenery is just a trifle disappointing; the coast is low and sandy, and very rough in places.

“They call the ocean that laves it the Pacific. Bless my soul! friends, had you but seen it one day in the month of April, 18 – , you wouldn’t have said there was much ‘pacific’ about it. The bit of a barque I was coasting in was on a lee-shore, too, and there was nothing short of a miracle could save her. We all saw that from the first. That miracle never took place. We were carried on shore – carried in on top of a mountain wave, struck with fearful force, and broke in two in less than an hour.

“It was a wonder anybody was saved. As it was, seven of us got on shore one way or another, and there we lay battered and bruised. The sun dried one half of our clothes; then we rolled round, and he dried the other. We had tasted no food for four-and-twenty hours, for we had been battened down, and all hands had to be on deck. So when a case rolled right up to our very feet we weren’t long looking inside it, and glad enough to find some provisions in the shape of tinned soup.

“Stores floated on shore next day, and spars, and one thing and another, so we rigged a tent, and made ourselves as much at home as it was possible for shipwrecked mariners to do.

“We had been shipwrecked apparently on a most inhospitable shore. To say there wasn’t a green thing in sight would hardly be correct. Bits of scrubby bushes grew here and there in the sand, and a kind of strong rough grass also in patches; but that was all. Inland, the horizon was bounded by a chain of mountains; to the west was the ocean, calm enough now, very wide and dark and blue, with not even an island to break its monotony.

“It was a poor look-out for us, only we all agreed that it would be better to stay where we were until our wounds and bruises were somewhat healed, and until we had gathered sufficient strength to explore the country.

“We had plenty to eat and drink where we were; we could not tell how we might fare elsewhere. Only we were quite out of the way of ships, and our provisions would not last for ever.

“For the first three or four days, I may say we did nothing else but bury our dead. Sad enough employment, you must allow. But after this a breeze of wind sprang up, which during the night increased to a gale, blowing right on to the shore. When the darkness lifted, to our great joy we found our ship, or rather the pieces of her that had in a sort of way held together, floated high and dry on the beach.

“Had we wished now to become Crusoes we should have had every convenience, for we not only got provisions of all kinds out of the wreck, but boxes of stores, guns, and ammunition. For the last we were very grateful; and rough sailors though we were, we did not forget to kneel down there on the sands and thank the Giver of all good, not only for having mercifully spared us from the violence of the sea, but for giving us this earnest of future good fortune.

“The hawk scents the quarry from afar, and early next morning we were not surprised to receive a visit from some armed Indians. They rode on horses and on mules that seemed as fleet as they were sure-footed. These Indians were kind enough to express a wish, not over-politely worded, to possess samples of our various stores. We gave them to eat as much as they liked; but when they attempted to pillage the wreck, we first and foremost smilingly and persuasively hinted our disapproval of such a proceeding.

“This hint not being taken, we tried another: we levelled guns at them, and they fled.

“They came again the next day; and we made them many presents, and asked them, in broken Spanish and a deal of sign language, to conduct us safely over the mountains to the nearest Bolivian town or settlement.

“They were in all about twenty, and if they were half as bad in heart as they looked, then they were indeed scoundrels of the first water. But we numbered seven – seven bold hearts and true, and we were well armed, and able enough to drive a bargain with these fellows to our mutual advantage.

“We did so in this way: we were to have several horses and five mules, which should be laden with all our own especial baggage. They – the Indians – should have as much as they liked of the stores that remained.

“They appeared to consent to this willingly enough. So we made our packs up – taking the best of everything, of course, and whatever was of the greatest value.

“It was now well on in the afternoon, so we determined to start on our journey inland the very next morning. The Indians had still half a dozen good mules left, and they at once set about making preparations for loading them.

“There was a deal of squabbling and wrangling over the division, and more than once they seemed coming to blows.

“As soon as they had chosen all they could carry, we set about piling up the rest of the wreckage in a heap, preparatory to setting fire to it. This was absolutely necessary, for if anything was left behind it would be but a short convoy those Indians would give us. They would hide their mule packs among the mountains and hurry back for more.

“They were very much displeased, therefore, to see what we were about.

“But nothing cared we; and just as the sun dipped down into the western ocean we set fire to the immense pile.

“When darkness fell, and the flames leaped high into the air, the scene was one worthy of the brush of a Rembrandt. The sea was lit up for miles with a ruddy glare; the sands were all aglow with the blaze; the Indians and their mules thrown out in bold relief looked picturesque in the extreme, while we, the white men, armed to the teeth, and carefully watching the Indians, though not in any way to give them cause for alarm, formed a by no means insignificant portion of the scene.

“We were early astir the next day, and on the road before the sun had begun to peep down over the eastern hills.

“We marched in single file, an old grey-bearded Indian leading the van as our guide.

“Before many hours we had left the sandy hills along the seashore, and had entered the mountain defiles.

“Scenery more rugged, wild, and beautiful I had seldom clapped eyes upon, either before or since. At the same time we could not help feeling thankful that we had obtained the guidance of these Indians, treacherous though they no doubt were, for we never could have made our way otherwise across this range of rugged mountains, nor through the wild entanglement of forest.

“By day many a wild beast crossed our pathway, but only seldom we shot them, and we never followed far; we were shipwrecked sailors trying to make our way to some semi-civilised town, where we could live in some degree of safety until we found out the lay of the land, as our mate called it, and fell in at last with some British ship.

“These fellows, our guides, could tell us nothing, but they led us day after day towards the east and the north.

“We kept a strict watch over their every movement, and it was well we did so. At night we bivouacked but a little distance from their camp, and had separate fires and separate sentries.

“Almost every evening after supper they made themselves madly drunk with the wine they had received from us, and without which they would have refused to guide us at all.

“After four days’ wandering we arrived, during a pitiless storm of thunder and rain, at a strange and semi-barbarian village. The houses or huts were built upon piles, and the inhabited portion of them stood high above the ground; you had to ascend to this on a sort of hen’s ladder.

“The street itself at the time we entered the town was more like a river than anything else. But we were glad enough to find shelter of any kind, drenched to the skin as we were, and wet and weary as well.

“Next day was bright and clear again, and it seemed to me that every one of the villagers turned out to see us start. They appeared to be peaceable enough, so we made little presents to the women, and advised our Indian guides to do the same. They were not inclined to part with anything, however, and evidently looked upon us as fools for what we did.

“Our march that day was across vast plains and swamps towards another mountain-chain, more rugged and grand than any we had yet seen.

“We chatted pleasantly and sang as we rode on, for the Indians assured us that in two days more we should arrive at a very large and populous city, where plenty of rich white men lived, with splendid houses, broad paved streets, hotels, and even palaces. We bivouacked that night at the very foot of the chain of mountains, and next morning entered and rode through gloomy glens and dark woods, and the farther we rode the wilder the country seemed to become. Yet some of the woodland scenes were inexpressibly lovely. We came out at last on the brow of a hill, just as the sun was setting over the distant forest, and bathing with its golden glory a scene as lovely as it was sad and melancholy.

“A vast plain in the centre of an amphitheatre of hills, clad almost to their summits with lofty trees, a broad river meandering through this plain, and on both banks thereof what appeared from where we stood to be a city of palaces. Alas! on entering it we found it a city of ruins. Trees and shrubs grew where the streets had been, the gardens had degenerated into jungles; we saw wild beasts hiding behind the mouldering walls, and heard them growl as we passed; and we saw monster snakes and lizards wriggling hither and thither, and these were the only inhabitants of this once large and populous town.

“Yet in the halls of its palaces the banquet had once been spread, and gaiety, mirth, and music had resounded in its streets and thoroughfares, till war came with murder and pestilence, and then all was changed. The city’s best sons were sent to work in mines, or slain; the city’s fairest daughters marched away in chains to become the slaves of their terrible foes.

“I could not help thinking of all this as I rode through this ruined city of the plain, and sighed as I did so. The words and music of the sad old song came into my mind: