THE BROTHERS ABROAD.
This book is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard
Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years--after the date
of their arrival at Cerro Pasco--would have to be filled up. I decline
to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details
might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would
be laid.
Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a
miner's life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras,
and descended into the great Amazonian forest,--the "montana," as it is
called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with
a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading
along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally
established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving "city"
of Gran Para.
Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a
fair-haired wife,--the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had
established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several
sweet children called him "father,"--only two of whom survived to
prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be
pronounced in the presence of their mother.
Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still
under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two
children,--respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary
affairs,--rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his
days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,--"otium
cum dignitate."
Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that,
having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover
the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this
design. He only awaited his brother's answer to a communication he had
made to him on this very subject.
He had no doubt that Ralph's desire would be in unison with his
own,--that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return
to their native land,--perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that
had sheltered them as children.
The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if
less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily
following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he
succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means,--independent, if not
wealthy.
Like his brother, he got married at an early period,--in fact, within
the first year after establishing himself in Cerro Pasco. Unlike the
latter, however, he chose for his wife one of the women of the
country,--a beautiful Peruvian lady. She too, but a short while before,
had gone to a better world, leaving motherless two pretty children, of
twelve and fourteen years of age,--the elder of the two being a
daughter.
Such was the family of Ralph Trevannion, and such the condition of life
in which his brother's epistle reached him,--that epistle containing the
proposal that they should wind up their respective businesses, dispose
of both, and carry their gains to the land that had given them birth.
The proposition was at once accepted, as Richard knew it would be. It
was far from the first time that the thing had been discussed,
epistolary fashion, between them; for letters were exchanged as often as
opportunity permitted,--sometimes twice or thrice in the year.
In these letters, during the last few years of their sojourn in South
America, the promise made on leaving home was mutually mentioned, and as
often renewed on either side. Richard knew that his brother was as eager
as himself to keep that well-remembered vow.
So long as the mother of Ralph's children was alive, he had not urged
his brother to its fulfilment; but now that she had been dead for more
than a year, he had written to say that the time had come for their
return to their country and their home.
His proposal was, that Ralph, having settled his affairs in
Peru,--which, of course, included the selling out of his share in the
mines,--should join him, Richard, at Para, thence to take ship for
England. That instead of going round by Cape Horn, or across the
isthmus, by Panama, Ralph should make the descent of the great Amazon
River, which traverse would carry him latitudinally across the continent
from west to east.
Richard had two reasons for recommending this route. First, because he
wished his brother to see the great river of Orellana, as he himself had
done; and secondly, because he was still more desirous that his _own
son_ should see it.
How this last wish was to be gratified by his brother making the descent
of the Amazon, may require explanation; but it will suffice to say that
the son of Richard Trevannion was at that time residing with his uncle
at the mines of Cerro Pasco.
The boy had gone to Peru the year before, in one of his father's
ships,--first, to see the Great Ocean, then the Great Andes,--afterwards
to become acquainted with the country of the Incas, and last, though not
of least importance, to make the acquaintance of his own uncle and his
two interesting cousins, the elder of whom was exactly his own age. He
had gone to the Pacific side by _sea_. It was his father's wish he
should return to the Atlantic side by land,--or, to speak more
accurately, by _river_.
The merchant's wish was to be gratified. The miner had no desire to
refuse compliance with his proposal. On the contrary, it chimed in with
his own inclinations. Ralph Trevannion possessed a spirit adventurous as
his brother's, which fourteen years of mining industry, carried on in
the cold mountains of Cerro Pasco, had neither deadened nor chilled. The
thought of once more returning to the scenes of his youth quite
rejuvenated him; and on the day of receiving his brother's challenge to
go, he not only accepted it, but commenced proceedings towards carrying
the design into execution.
A month afterwards and he might have been seen descending the eastern
slope of the Cordilleras on mule-back, and accompanied by his family and
followers; afterwards aboard a _balsa_,--one of those curious crafts
used in the descent of the Huallaga; and later still on the _montaria_,
upon the bosom of the great river itself.
With the details of his mountain travels, interesting as they may be, we
have naught to do. No more with his descent of the Huallaga, nor his
long voyage on the Amazon itself, in that up-river portion of the stream
where it is called the "Maranon." Only where it becomes the stupendous
"Solimoes" do we join Ralph Trevannion on his journey, and remain with
him as long as he is "AFLOAT IN THE FOREST," _or making a voyage among
the tree-tops_.