Читать книгу Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena - J. A. Zahm - Страница 5

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On a dark, cold day toward the close of January, 1907, the writer stood at a window in New York, observing some score of a mittened army removing the avalanche of snow that cumbered the streets after a half week of continuous storm. He was pondering a long vacation, musing where rest and recreation might be found, at once wholesome and instructive, amid scenes quite different from any afforded by his previous journeys. He was familiar with every place of interest in North America, from Canada to the Gulf, from Alaska to Yucatan. He had spent many years in Europe, had visited Asia, Africa, and the far-off isles of the Pacific. He cared not to revisit these, much less to go where he must entertain or be entertained. He sought rest, absolute rest and freedom, untrammeled by conventional life. For the present he would shun the society of his fellows for the serene solitude of the wilderness, or the companionship of mighty mountains and rivers. Not that he was a misanthrope or that he wished to become an anchoret. Far from it. Still less did he wish to spend his time in idleness. This for him would have been almost tantamount to solitary confinement. He dreamed of a land where he could spend most of the time in the open air close to Nature and in communion with her—where both mind and body could be always active and yet always free—free as the bird that comes and goes as it lists.

Whilst thus absorbed in thought, and casting an occasional glance at the laborers in the street battling against the Frost-King, whose work continued without intermission, the writer was awakened from his reverie by the dulcet notes evoked from a Steinway grand and the sweet, sympathetic voice of one who had just intoned the opening words of Goethe’s matchless song as set to music by Liszt:—

“Knowest thou the land where the pale citron grows,

And the gold orange through dark foliage glows?

A soft wind flutters through the deep blue sky,

The myrtle blooms, and towers the laurel high,

Knowest thou it well?

Knowest thou it well? O there with thee!

O that I might, my own beloved one, flee.”

It was La Niña—the pet name of the young musician—that came as a special providence to clear up a question that seemed to be growing more difficult the longer it was pondered. The effect was magical, and all doubt and hesitation disappeared forthwith. La Niña, as if inspired, had, without in the least suspecting it, indicated the land of the heart’s desire. Yes, the writer would leave, and leave at once, the region of cloud and frost and chilling blast, and seek the land of flowers and sunshine, the land of “soft wind” and “blue sky,” “the land where the pale citron grows,” where “the gold orange glows.” It would not, however, be the land of which Mignon sang and which she so yearned to see again. Lovely, charming Italy, with its manifold attractions of every kind, must for once yield to the sun-land of another clime far away, and in another hemisphere.

A few days afterwards the writer, with a few friends, had taken his place in a through Pullman car bound for the Land of Easter—the land of Ponce de Leon. They found every berth in the car occupied by people like themselves hastening away from the rigors of winter and betaking themselves to where

“Trees bloom throughout the year, soft breezes blow,

And fragrant Flora wears a lasting smile.”

Some were going for the rest and the amusement promised at several noted winter resorts. Others were in search of health that had been shattered by confinement or over-work. Some were going away for a few weeks only; others for the entire winter. Some were going no farther south than Florida, others purposed visiting some of the Antilles, and even, mayhap, the Spanish Main.

As for the writer, he had no fixed plan, and for this reason he had not even thought of making out an itinerary. He would go to Florida to take up again a line of travel that had been interrupted some decades before. He had always been interested in the lives and achievements of the early Spanish discoverers and conquistadores, and had, in days gone by, followed in the footsteps of Narvaez and de Soto, of Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado, Fray Marcos de Niza, and Hernando Cortes. And now that he had the opportunity, it occurred to him that he could do nothing better or more profitable than make a reality what had been a dream from boyhood. He would visit the islands and lands discovered by the immortal “Admiral of the ocean sea” and follow in the footsteps of the conquistadores in Tierra Firme. He would explore the lands first made known by Balboa, and Quesada, and Belalcazar and rendered famous by the prowess of the Almagros and the Pizarros. He would visit the homes of the Musicas, the Incas, and the Ayamaras, wander among the Cordilleras from the Caribbean Sea to Lake Titicaca and beyond, and follow in the wake of Diego de Ordaz and Alonzo de Herrera on the broad waters of the Orinoco and in that of Pedro de Orsua and Francisco de Orellana in the mighty flood of the Amazon.

A great undertaking apparently, and, considered in the light of certain reports published about tropical America, seemingly impossible. To say the least, such a journey, it was averred, implied difficulties and privations and dangers innumerable.

“Do you wish to spend the rest of your life in South America? It will require a lifetime to visit the regions you have mentioned. I have myself spent many years in traveling in tropical America, and knowing, as I do, the lack of facilities for travel, the countless unforeseen delays of every kind, and the mañana habit that obtains everywhere in the countries you would visit, I have no hesitation in stating that you are attempting the impossible, if you mean to accomplish all you have spoken of in the limited time you have allotted to yourself.”

Such were the words addressed to the writer on the eve of his departure by a noted traveler and one who is considered an authority on all things South American. Not very encouraging, truly, especially to one who was seeking rest and recreation and who was anything but inclined to court hardships and dangers in foreign lands and among peoples that were reputed to be only half-civilized, where-ever they chanced to be above the aboriginal savage that still roams over so much of the territory on both sides of the equator.

But, as already stated, the writer had on leaving home no definite programme mapped out. He left that to shape itself according to events and circumstances. He departed on his journey with little more of a plan than the vague indications of a life-long dream. Still, confiding in Providence, he hoped that he would be able to realize this, as he had, in years gone by, realized other dreams that seemed even less likely ever to become actualities.