The Rover of the Andes: A Tale of Adventure on South America

So exact are these Indians in their observations and knowledge of the turtle question, that they can tell almost to a day when and where their unsuspecting victims will land and lay. There was an extensive stretch of flat sand close to the spot where our voyageurs put ashore, on which the Indians had observed numerous claw-marked furrows, which had been traced by the turtles. Here, therefore, they had called a halt, built a number of ajoupas, or leafy sheds, about two hundred yards from the edge of the river, under the shelter of which to sit at night and watch for their prey.

The turtles, it was found, were expected to land that night. Meanwhile, the savages were regaling themselves with a splendid dish, or rather jar, containing hundreds of turtles’ eggs, mixed with bananas.

These they hospitably shared with their visitors. The mess was very palatable, though “heavy,” and our travellers did justice to it—especially the negro, whose gastronomic powers were equal to all emergencies.

“How do they know,” asked Lawrence, as he and Pedro busied themselves in tying up the hammocks in a suitable part of the jungle, “when to expect the turtles?”

“Who can tell?” said Pedro. “Instinct, I suppose.”

“But dey not stink at all,” objected Quashy, “anyhow, not till arter dey’s dead, so’t can’t be dat.”

“It’s not that kind of stink I mean, Quashy; quite another sort,” said Pedro, who felt unequal to the task of explanation. “But look sharp; we must lend the Indians a helping hand to-night.”

“But I don’t know nuffin about it,” said Quashy, “an’ a man what don’t know what to do is on’y in de way ob oder peepil.”

“You take a just view of things, boy,” returned Pedro, “but you won’t find it difficult to learn. Five minutes looking at what the Indians do will suffice, for they only turn the turtles.”

“How you mean? Turn ’im upside-down, or outside in—w’ich?”

“You’d find it hard to do the last, Quashy. No, you’ve only to turn them over on their backs, and let them lie; that’s all.”

While the negro was thus gathering useful knowledge, the Indians amused themselves in various ways until darkness should call them forth to the business of the hour. Some, with that amazing tendency to improve their personal appearance, which is common alike to civilised and savage, plucked out the little beard with which nature had endowed them by means of tweezers, deeming it no doubt wiser on the whole to pluck up the beard by the roots than to cut it off close thereto, as indeed it was, seeing that the former process did not need regular repetition. Others were still busy with the turtle-egg ragout, unable, apparently to decide whether or not appetite was satisfied. Two somewhat elderly but deeply interested savages whiled away the time with a game of cup-and-ball, turn and turn about, with imperturbable gravity.

This game was different from that of Europe to the extent of being played on precisely opposite principles. It was not he who caught the ball on the point of the sharp stick that won, but he who failed to catch it, for failure was more difficult to achieve than success! The explanation is simple. The handle was a piece of pointed wood, about the thickness of a ramrod, and a yard or so in length. To this, by a piece of string made from fibres of the palm, was attached the ball, which was formed of the skull of a turtle, carefully scraped. There was no “cup” in the game. It was all point, and the great point was to touch the ball a certain number of times without catching it, a somewhat difficult feat to accomplish owing to the dozen or more natural cavities with which the skull-ball was pierced, and into one of which the point was almost always pretty sure to enter.

At last the shades of night descended on the scene, and the Indians, laying aside ragout, tweezers, cup-and-ball, etcetera, went down to the sand-flats, and crouched, kneeled, or squatted under the leafy ajoupas. Of course their visitors accompanied them.

It was a profoundly dark night, for during the first part of it there was no moon, and the stars, although they lent beauty and lustre to the heavens, did not shed much light upon the sands. There is a weird solemnity about such a scene which induces contemplative thought even in the most frivolous, while it moves the religious mind to think more definitely, somehow, of the near presence of the Creator. For some time Lawrence, who crouched in profound silence beside Pedro, almost forgot the object for which he was waiting there. The guide seemed to be in a similarly absent mood, for he remarked at last in a low voice—

“How striking would be the contrasts presented to us constantly by nature, if we were not so thoroughly accustomed to them! Storm, and noise, and war of elements last night,—to-night, silence, calm, and peace! At present, darkness profound,—in half an hour or so the moon will rise, and the sands will be like a sheet of silver. This moment, quiet repose,—a few moments hence, it may be, all will be turmoil and wildest action—that is, if the turtles come.”

“True,” assented Lawrence, “and we may add yet another illustration: at one moment, subjects of contemplation most sublime,—next moment, objects the most ridiculous.”

He pointed as he spoke to Quashy, whose grinning teeth and glaring eyes alone were distinctly visible in the background of ebony. He was creeping on his hands and knees, by way of rendering himself, if possible, less obtrusive.

“Massa,” he said, in a hoarse yet apologetic whisper, “I’s come to ax if you t’ink de turtles am comin’ at all dis night.”

“How can I tell, Quash, you stupid fellow? Get away to your own ajoupa, and keep quiet. I wonder the Indians haven’t let fly a poisoned arrow at you. Go,—and have patience.”

Poor Quashy shut his mouth and his eyes—it was as if three little lights had gone out—while his dusky frame melted into its native gloom.

No sound was to be heard on the sand-flats after that until about midnight, when the moon appeared on the horizon. Just then a sound was heard on the river.

“Here they come,” whispered Pedro.

The sound increased. It was like a swirling, hissing noise. Soon they could see by the increasing light that the water of the river seemed actually to boil. Immediately afterwards, thousands of turtles came tumbling clumsily out of the water, and spread themselves over the flats.

Evidently egg-laying was no joke with them. The well-known sluggishness of the creatures was laid aside for this great occasion, and wonderful activity marked their every movement from first to last. You see, they had to manage the business in a wholesale sort of fashion, each turtle having from thirty to forty eggs, or more, to deposit in the sand,—on which sand, in conjunction with the sun, devolved the duty of subsequent maternal care.

That the creatures acted on pre-arranged principles was evident from the fact that they worked in separate detachments, each working-party devoting its energies to the digging of a trench two feet deep, four feet broad, and sometimes 200 yards long. Their zeal was amazing; as well it might be, for they allowed themselves less than an hour in which to do it all. Each animal dug like a hero with its fore-feet, and sent the sand flying about it to such an extent that the whole flat appeared to be enveloped in a thick fog!

When satisfied that their trench was deep enough they stopped work, deposited their soft-shelled eggs, and, with their hind feet, soon filled up the trench. So great was their eagerness and hurry, that during the operation more than one turtle, tumbling over her companions, rolled into the trench and was buried alive. No sooner was the stupendous work accomplished than they made a disorderly rush for the river, as if aware of the fate which threatened them.

And now at last came the opportunity of the savage. The Iron Duke’s “Up, guards, and at ’em!” could not have been more promptly or gladly obeyed than was the signal of the red-skinned chief. Like statues they had awaited it. Like catapults they responded to it, with yells of mingled madness and joy.

But there was method in their madness. To have run between the shelly host and the river, so as to cut off its retreat, would have been sheer lunacy, at which Luna herself—by that time shining superbly—would have paled with horror, for the men would have certainly been overthrown and trampled under foot by the charging squadrons. What the Indians did was to rush upon the flanks of the host, seize the animals’ tail, and hurl them over on their backs, in which position they lay flapping helplessly. Before the retreating “miserables” reached the river, hundreds of captives were thus obtained.

You may be sure that Lawrence and Pedro and Spotted Tiger acted their part well that night, and that Quashy was not long in learning his lesson!

The first tail the negro grasped slipped through his hands, so mighty was his effort, and, as a consequence, he sat down with that sudden involuntary flop which one associates irresistibly with nurseries. Jumping up, and rendered wise, he took a better grip next time, turned the turtle over, and fell on the top of it, receiving a tremendous whack on the cheek from its right flipper as a reward for his clumsiness. But practice makes perfect. Even in the brief space of time at his disposal, Quashy managed to turn ten turtles with his own hands, besides turning himself over six times, if not more.

Rendered wild by success, and desperate with anxiety, as the fugitives neared the river, the negro fixed his glittering eyes on a particularly huge turtle, which was scuttling along in almost drunken haste. With an impromptu war-howl, Quashy charged down on it, and caught it by the tail. With a heave worthy of Hercules he lifted his foe some inches off the sand, but failed to turn it. Making a second effort, he grasped the edge of the creature’s shell with his left hand, and the tail more firmly with the right.

“Huyp!” he shouted, and made a Herculean heave. A second time he would have failed, if it had not been that he was on the edge of a part of the trench which the turtles had not had time to fill up. The weight of the creature caused a fore-leg to break off part of the edge, and over it went, slowly, on its side,—almost balancing thus, and flapping as it went. To expedite the process Quashy seized it by the neck and gave another heave and howl. Unfortunately, the edge of the trench again gave way under one of his own feet, and he fell into it with a cry of distress, for the turtle fell on the top of him, crushing him down into the soft watery sand!

Well was it for Quashy that night that Lawrence Armstrong had good ears, and was prompt to respond to the cry of distress, else had he come to an untimely and inglorious end! Hearing the cry, Lawrence looked quickly round, guessed the cause, shouted to Pedro, who was not far-off, and was soon on the spot,—yet not a moment too soon, for poor Quashy was almost squashy by that time. They dragged the turtle off, dug the negro out, and found that he had become insensible.

Raising him gently in their arms, they bore him up to the camp, where they found Manuela ready to minister to him.

“Dead!” exclaimed the horrified girl when she saw the negro laid down, and beheld the awful dirty-green colour of his countenance.

“I hope not,” replied Lawrence, earnestly.

“I’s sh–squeesh!—sure not!” exclaimed Quashy himself, with a sneeze, as he opened his eyes.

And Quashy, we need scarcely add, was right. He was not dead. He did not die for many years afterwards. For aught that we know, indeed, he may be living still, for he came of a very long-lived race.

His accident, however, had the useful effect of preventing his giving way to too exuberant felicity, and rendered him a little more careful as to the quantity of turtle-egg ragout which he consumed that night for supper.

It would be pleasant to end our chapter here, but a regard for facts compels us to refer to the slaughter of the unfortunate turtles next morning.

There is in the interior of the turtle a quantity of yellow fat, which is said to be superior in delicacy to the fat of the goose, and from which is obtained a fine oil, highly prized as an article of commerce. To secure this fat, the animals which had been “turned” were killed at daylight the following morning. The axes of the Indians caused the shells to fly in splinters; the intestines were then torn out and handed to the Indian women, whose duty it was to remove from them the precious fat, after which the carcasses were left to the vultures and fisher-eagles, which flocked from afar to the scene of carnage with that unerring instinct which has so often been commented on by travellers, but which no one can understand.

Chapter Eighteen.

Pedro becomes communicative; Manuela vocal; Lawrence preposterous; Quashy and Tiger violent—The Whole ending in a Grand Catastrophe

“Senhor Armstrong,” said Pedro, the evening after that on which the capture of turtles took place, “I have received some bad news—at least unsatisfactory news—which will necessitate a change in our style of travelling, and a more rapid progress towards our journey’s end.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Lawrence answered, “for, to my mind, our style of travelling is very agreeable, and the rate quite fast enough, especially for one who has no definite purpose in view.”

“That may be so, senhor,” returned Pedro, with a grim smile, “but as I have something of a definite purpose in view, the case is different.”

“True, Pedro,—true. I do not object to any change in your plans; I merely comment on the very pleasant time we are having, and shall be ready to act as you desire; so, you see, I am as I promised to be—an obedient follower. But where got you this news from? I have seen no one arrive in the camp since we came. What may the nature of the news be, if I may venture to ask of one who is so—so very reticent?”

The guide pondered some time before replying to these questions. Then, with the air of one who has made up his mind on an uncertain point, said—

“I had no intention of rousing your curiosity by needless secrecy. I have not very many or very profound secrets. Only, in a disturbed country it behoves a man to hold his tongue in regard to his affairs. But I feel that you are a friend, Senhor Armstrong, who may be trusted; not that I have much to trust to you,—and yet, my doings are so mixed up with the affairs of other people that to some extent I am tongue-tied. I may tell you, however, that I am a secret agent of the government, to which I have volunteered my services solely because I love peace and hate war, and am desirous of doing all I can to promote the first and abate the last. The idea may appear to you Quixotic, but—”

“Pardon me, Senhor Pedro,” interrupted Lawrence, promptly. “I think you the reverse of Quixotic. I honour you for your sentiments, and sympathise with you most heartily. Do I not remember that it is written, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ and also, ‘Scatter thou the people that delight in war?’”

“Yes, I have gathered from your conversation that such are your sentiments, but do not misunderstand me. I am not of those who would have peace at any price. I believe in the right of self-defence. I recognise the right of oppressed nations to rise up and draw the sword in order to free themselves from tyrants; in short, I believe that there are some things that are worse even than war; but while I concede so much, I hold that most of the wars recorded in history have been undertaken without just cause, many of them without any real or obvious cause at all, too many of them with a distinctly bad cause. Even in the present day, and among Christian nations, there is far too little tendency to appeal to arbitration, which is the only legitimate way for reasonable men to settle any dispute or quarrel. Does your sympathy go with me thus far?”

Lawrence, with a glow of enthusiasm on his face, extended his hand, and, grasping that of his companion, shook it warmly.

“I go with you in every word, Pedro. You are a man after my own heart; and I say, God prosper you in your good work wherever you go!”

Manuela, who was standing near at the time, looked up at the enthusiastic youth quickly. Her knowledge of English must have been improving, despite the badness of her pronunciation, for she seemed to understand the conversation, and to regard Lawrence with profound interest.

The youth was so carried away with his feelings, however, that he did not observe the girl’s look or expression.

“That is well,” Pedro said, with a pleased look, as he returned his friend’s grasp; “but I fear you won’t find many of our way of thinking in this unhappy country. You are aware, no doubt, that it is frequently—I might almost say every three or four years—disturbed by factious quarrels which too often end in riot and bloodshed, though these are not often on so large a scale as to be styled civil war. Well, there is a party of peace-lovers even here, who do their best to bring about a better state of things, and a more settled and powerful government. Some of the men of influence at Buenos Ayres, and some even of the military men, are of this party. I am, as I have said, their secret agent—secret, because if I were to attempt the thing openly, or as a government agent, I should be treated with ridicule by some, or be murdered perhaps by others, in either of which cases my influence would be gone. Of course, as you have seen, I run considerable risk in travelling through the land on my mission, for I have been several times taken for a spy, but I don’t object to run risk, the cause being a good one.

“As to the news, which I have received by mere chance from a passing Indian, it is another outbreak in the San Juan district which makes a change in the disposition of troops necessary; and as I have particular business with one of the officers, I must change my route and make for Buenos Ayres as straight as possible. That is all the mystery about it; so you see, as I said, it is not very profound.”

“It is very interesting, however,” returned Lawrence, “and you may depend on my falling in with your plans, whatever they are.”

“Well, then,” returned the guide, “the first part of my plan is simple enough—merely to start off to-morrow by the first peep of day. Will you go, therefore, and tell Quashy to get ready, while I have a talk with Manuela?”

We do not intend to inflict on the reader the whole of the conversation that took place in the Indian tongue between the little brown maiden and the guide. A small portion of it will suffice.

“I repeat, Manuela,” said the latter, in a remonstrative tone, “that you are not wise.”

“My kind protector forgets,” replied the girl, with a modest look, “that I have never set up any claim to wisdom.”

“But what will your father say?”

“I really cannot guess what he will say,” she answered, with one of her prettiest little smiles.

“But you may be quite sure that the thing is impossible. Consider the immense difference between you, and, forgive me, Manuela, but I think it is not fair.”

“Now my protector forgets himself,” returned the maiden, drawing herself up and bestowing a look on the guide which was quite worthy of an Inca princess—supposing Lawrence to have been right in his conjecture on that point!

“Well, well, please yourself, Manuela,” returned Pedro, with a laugh, in which exasperation slightly mingled, “but do me the justice to tell your father when you meet that I fairly remonstrated with and warned you. After all, nothing would please me better,—if it should ever come about.”

He turned on his heel and went off, with a mingling of expressions on his handsome face, to look after the canoe and make preparations for an early start in the morning.

Canoe travelling appears to be rather slow work while it is going on, even when descending the current of a river. Each point of land seems to be reached and passed so gradually; every vista of the river seems so extensive, and the trees on shore drop so leisurely astern, that when you think of the hundreds of miles which lie in advance, you are apt to feel as if the journey or voyage would never come to an end. But when you forget the present and reflect on the past, when you think how many hundreds of miles now lie behind, although it seems but yesterday that you set out on the journey, then you realise the fact that the “power of littles,” of steady, daily unremitting perseverance, has had too little weight with you in your estimates, and that, just as fast as your starting-point recedes from you, exactly so fast does your goal approach, although those misleading factors, your feelings, may have induced you to think otherwise.

Five days after the occurrence of the events on what we may style Turtle-beach, Lawrence found himself wondering at what appeared to be the far-off-ness of the spot, considering the slowness of the hourly progress, yet at the same time wondering if they should ever traverse the nine hundred or a thousand miles that yet intervened between him and Buenos Ayres.

To do Lawrence Armstrong justice, however, he was by no means impatient. He was quite satisfied that things should go as slowly as they pleased, for was he not travelling through the most interesting of countries, in which the flora and the fauna and the geological features furnished abundant—ay, superabundant—food for the satisfaction of his scientific appetite, while his companions were of the pleasantest character? Pedro, since the opening up of his heart to him, had laid aside much—though not all—of his reserve, and shown himself to be a man of extensive information and profound thought.

Spotted Tiger was a splendid specimen, physically and mentally, of the sons of the soil, in the contemplation of whom he could expend whatever smattering he possessed of ethnological science. Then Quashy—was not that negro the very soul and embodiment of courage, fidelity, and good-humour, the changes of whose April face alone might have furnished rich material for the study of a physiognomist or a Rembrandt.

And as for Manuela—we cannot analyse his thoughts about her. It is probable that he could not have expounded them himself. Take the following sample of them, as overheard by us one day when he had strayed into the wild woods alone, and was seated on the roots of a mighty tree, pencil in hand, attempting unsuccessfully to make a sketch.

“I do believe,” he murmured, with a gesture of impatience—for he had drawn a small convolvulus, hanging from a tree, with such disregard for the rules of linear perspective that it was the proportionate size of an omnibus—“I do believe that that girl has come between me and my wits. Of course it is not love. That is quite out of the question. A white man could not fall in love with a black woman.”

Yes, he did the poor girl the injustice, in his perplexed indignation with himself, to call her black, although it must have been obvious to the most careless observer that she was only reddish-brown, or, to speak more correctly, brownish-red.

“I can’t understand it,” he continued to murmur in that low, slow, absent far-away tone and manner characteristic of artists when at work. “No doubt her nose is Grecian, and her mouth small, as well as exquisitely formed, her chin full and rounded, her teeth faultless, her eyes gorgeous, and her whole contour perfect, but—but—she’s black—at least,” (correcting himself with a touch of compunction), “she’s brown. No; I see what it is—it’s—(well that’s more like a balloon than a water-lily)—yes, it must be that I am in love with her spirit. That’s it! I’ve said so before, and—and—I say it again.”

He drew back his head at this point, and looked critically—even sternly—at the sketch. There was room both for criticism and indignation, for the display, in so small a compass, of bad drawing, vile composition, ridiculous chiaro-oscuro, and impossible perspective, could only have been justified by the supposition that his intellect had been warped through the heart, in consequence of an unheard of perplexity connected therewith.

“Yes,” he continued, resuming his work with the air of an invincible man, “there is something distinctly and exasperatingly wrong here. I am in love with her spirit, and not with her person! Is it possible that the human race, descending from Adam and Eve, should have reached the nineteenth century without such a case ever having been heard of before, and that I—I should be the first wretched example—or—or victim! It is like loving the jewel without caring for the cas— no, that’s a bad simile, for one could throw away a casket and keep the jewel, which could not conveniently be done in this case. I wonder what it is that makes the rules of perspective so difficult, and the practice so im—”