Читать книгу After Icebergs with a Painter - Louis Legrand Noble - Страница 6

Table of Contents

THE PAINTER’S STORY.

Twenty days, and most of them days of intense heat and sea-sickness, were spent on a brig from New York to the mouth of the Magdalena. In twenty minutes all that tedious voyage was sailed over again, and he was in the best humor possible for the next nine days in a steamboat up the river, a mighty stream, whose forests appear like hills of verdure ranging along its almost endless banks.

After the steamboat, came a tiresome time in a canoe, followed by a dark and fireless night in the great woods, where they were stung by the ants, and startled by the hootings and howlings, and all the strange voices and noises of a tropical forest.

Then the tale kept pace with the mules all day, jogging on slowly, an all-day story that pictured to the listener’s mind all the passing scenery and incidents, the people and the travellers themselves, even the ears of the self-willed, ever-curious mules. Towards sunset, the wayfarers found themselves journeying along the slope of a mountain, willing to turn in for the night at almost any dwelling that appeared at the road-side. The guide and the baggage were behind, and suggested the propriety of an early halt. But each place, to which they looked forward, seemed sufficiently repulsive, upon coming up, to make them venture on to the next. They ventured, without knowing it, beyond the very last, and got benighted where it was difficult enough in the broad day. After a weary ride up and up, until it did appear that they would never go down again in that direction, they stopped and consulted, but finally concluded to continue on, although the darkness was almost total, trusting to the mules to keep the path. At length it was evident that they were at the top of the mountain, and passing over upon its opposite side. Very soon, the road, a mere bridle-path, became steep and rugged, leading along the edges of precipices, and down rocky, zigzag steps, that nothing but the bold, sure-footed mule would or could descend. The fact was, they were going down a fearfully dangerous mountain-road, on one of the darkest nights. And, wonderful to tell, they went down safely, coming out of the forest into a level vale beset with thickets and vine-covered trees, a horrible perplexity, in which they became heated, scratched, and vexed beyond all endurance. At last, they lost the way and came to a dead halt. Here C⁠—— got off, and leaving the mule with F⁠——, plunged into the bushes to feel for the path, pausing occasionally to shout and to wait for an answer. No path, however, could be found. In his discouragement, he climbed a tree with the hope of seeing a light. He climbed it to the very top, and gazed around in all directions into the wide, unbroken night. There was a star or two in the black vault, but no gleam of human dwelling to be seen below.

Extremes do indeed meet, even the dreadful and the ridiculous. And so it was with C⁠—— in the tree-top. From almost desperation, he passed into a frolicsome mood, and began to talk and shout, at the top of his voice, in about the only Spanish he could then speak, that he would give cinco pesos, cinco pesos—five dollars, five dollars, to any one that would come and help them. From five he rose to ten. But being scant of Spanish, he could express the ten in no other way than by doubling the cinco—cinco cinco pesos, cinco cinco pesos. Fruitless effort! A thousand pounds would have evoked no friendly voice from the inhospitable solitude.

The airing, though, was refreshing, and he clambered down and attempted his way back, shouting as usual, but now, to his surprise, getting no reply. What could it mean? Where was F⁠——? Had he got tired of waiting, and gone off? With redoubled energy C⁠—— pushed on through the interminable brush to see. He was in a perfect blaze of heat, and dripping with perspiration. A thousand vines tripped him, a thousand branches whipped him in the face. When he stopped to listen, his ears rung with the beating of his own heart, and he made the night ring too with his loud hallooing. But no one answered, and no mules could be found. Nothing was left but to push forward, and he did it, with a still increasing energy. Instantly, with a crack and crash he pitched headlong down quite a high bank into a broad brook. For a moment he was frightened, but finding himself sound, and safely seated on the soft bottom of the brook, he concluded to enjoy himself, moving up and down, with the warm water nearly to his neck, till he had enough of it; when he got up, and felt his way to the opposite bank, which, unfortunately for him, was some seven or eight feet of steep, wet clay. Again and again did he crawl nearly to the top, and slip back into the water—a treadmill operation that was no joke. A successful attempt at scaling this muddy barrier was made, at length, through the kindly intervention of some vines.

But how was all that? Where was he? He never crossed a stream in going to the tree. He must be lost. He must have become turned at the tree, and gone in a wrong direction. And yet he could not relinquish the notion that all was right. He decided to continue forward, pausing more frequently to halloo. To his exceeding joy, he presently heard a faint, and no very distant reply. He quickly heard it again—close at hand—“C⁠——, come here!—come here!” He hastened forward. F⁠—— was sitting on the mule. He said, in a low tone of voice, “Come here, and help me off. I am very sick.” He was alarmingly sick. C⁠—— helped him down, and laid him on the ground. The only thing to be done was to make a rough bed of the saddles and blankets, secure the mules, and wait for daylight. While engaged in this, one of the mules suddenly broke away, and with a perilous flourish of heels about C⁠——‘s head, dashed off through the thickets, and was seen no more. To crown their troubles, a ferocious kind of ant attacked them at all points, and kept up their assault during the remainder of the miserable night. They had made their bed upon a large ant-hill. In the morning, there they were, they knew not where, with but one mule, trappings for two, and F⁠—— too indisposed to proceed. C⁠—— mounted the mule and set off for relief. A short ride brought him out upon the path, which soon led down to the border of a wide marsh. The crossing of the marsh was terrible. The poor animal sank into the mire to the girth, reared, plunged and rolled, plastering himself and rider all over and over again with the foulest mud. When they reached the solid ground, and trotted along towards some natives coming abroad to their labor, the appearance of our traveller, in quest of the sublime and beautiful, was certainly not imposing. He told his story to the staring Indians in the best way his ingenuity could invent, none of which they could be made to comprehend. He inquired the way to the town, the very name of which they seemed never to have heard. He asked the distance to any place—the nearest—no matter what. It was just as far as he was pleased to make it.

“Was it two leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“Was it five leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“Was it eight, nine, ten leagues?”

“Si, Señor.”

“For how much money would they guide him to the town?”

Ah! that was a different thing; they had more intelligence on that subject. They would guide him for a great deal. In fact, they would do it for about ten times its value. He spurred his muddy mule, galloped out of sight and hearing, more amused than vexed, and went ahead at a venture. The venture was lucky. In the course of the morning he made his entrance into the city, succeeded in finding out the residence of the person to whom he had letters of introduction, presented himself to the gentleman of the house, an American, and had both a welcome and a breakfast. Before the day was past, F⁠—— and himself were comfortably settled, and, with their kind host, were making merry over their first ride on the mountains of South America. I am sure I was made merry at the quiet recital. Lying as I was in my berth, rolled in cloak and blanket, and looking neither at the face nor motions of the speaker, but only at the blank beams and boards close above, I laughed till the tears ran copiously, and I forgot that I was miserable and sea-sick.