Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Eric Eldred, Charles
Franksand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE PURPLE LAND
Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb's Adventures in The Banda
Oriental, in South America, as Told By Himself
By W. H. Hudson
ILLUSTRATED BY
Keith Henderson
[Illustration: RICHARD]
Second Edition, 1904
NEW YORK
PREFACE
This work was first issued in 1885, by Messrs. Sampson Low, in two slim
volumes, with the longer, and to most persons, enigmatical title of _The
Purple Land That England Lost_. A purple land may be found in almost
any region of the globe, and 'tis of our gains, not our losses, we keep
count. A few notices of the book appeared in the papers, one or two of
the more serious literary journals reviewing it (not favourably) under
the heading of “Travels and Geography”; but the reading public cared
not to buy, and it very shortly fell into oblivion. There it might have
remained for a further period of nineteen years, or for ever, since the
sleep of a book is apt to be of the unawakening kind, had not certain
men of letters, who found it on a forgotten heap and liked it in spite
of its faults, or because of them, concerned themselves to revive it.
We are often told that an author never wholly loses his affection for a
first book, and the feeling has been likened (more than once) to that of
a parent towards a first-born. I have not said it, but in consenting to
this reprint I considered that a writer's early or unregarded work is
apt to be raked up when he is not standing by to make remarks. He may
be absent on a journey from which he is not expected to return. It
accordingly seemed better that I should myself supervise a new edition,
since this would enable me to remove a few of the numerous spots and
pimples which decorate the ingenious countenance of the work before
handing it on to posterity.
Besides many small verbal corrections and changes, the deletion of
some paragraphs and the insertion of a few new ones, I have omitted
one entire chapter containing the Story of a Piebald Horse, recently
reprinted in another book entitled _El Ombù_. I have also dropped the
tedious introduction to the former edition, only preserving, as an
appendix, the historical part, for the sake of such of my readers as may
like to have a few facts about the land that England lost.
W. H. H.
_September, 1904._
[FOR THE SECOND EDITION]
[Illustration: MARGARITA]
[Illustration: DOLORES]
[Illustration: PAQUÍTA]
[Illustration: TORIBIA]
[Illustration: MONICA]
[Illustration: ANITA]
[Illustration: SANTA COLOMA]
[Illustration: CANDELARIA]
[Illustration: DEMETRIA]
[Illustration: HILARIO]
CHAPTER I
Three chapters in the story of my life--three periods, distinct and well
defined, yet consecutive--beginning when I had not completed twenty-five
years and finishing before thirty, will probably prove the most eventful
of all. To the very end they will come back oftenest to memory and seem
more vivid than all the other years of existence--the four-and-twenty I
had already lived, and the, say, forty or forty-five--I hope it may
be fifty or even sixty--which are to follow. For what soul in this
wonderful, various world would wish to depart before ninety! The dark as
well as the light, its sweet and its bitter, make me love it.
Of the first of these three a word only need be written. This was the
period of courtship and matrimony; and though the experience seemed
to me then something altogether new and strange in the world, it must
nevertheless have resembled that of other men, since all men marry. And
the last period, which was the longest of the three, occupying fully
three years, could not be told. It was all black disaster. Three years
of enforced separation and the extremest suffering which the cruel law
of the land allowed an enraged father to inflict on his child and the
man who had ventured to wed her against his will. Even the wise may be
driven mad by oppression, and I that was never wise, but lived in and
was led by the passions and illusions and the unbounded self-confidence
of youth, what must it have been for me when we were cruelly torn
asunder; when I was cast into prison to lie for long months in the
company of felons, ever thinking of her who was also desolate and
breaking her heart! But it is ended--the abhorrent restraint, the
anxiety, the breedings over a thousand possible and impossible schemes
of revenge. If it is any consolation to know that in breaking her heart
he, at the same time, broke his own, and made haste to join her in that
silent place, I have it. Ah no! it is no comfort to me, since I cannot
but reflect that before he shattered my life I had shattered his by
taking her from him, who was his idol. We are quits then, and I can even
say, “Peace to his ashes!” But I could not say it then in my frenzy and
grief, nor could it be said in that fatal country which I had inhabited
from boyhood and had learned to love like my own, and had hoped never to
leave. It was grown hateful to me, and, flying from it, I found myself
once more in that Purple Land where we had formerly taken refuge
together, and which now seemed to my distracted mind a place of pleasant
and peaceful memories.
During the months of quietude after the storm, mostly spent in lonely
rambles by the shore, these memories were more and more with me.
Sometimes sitting on the summit of that great solitary hill, which gives
the town its name, I would gaze by the hour on the wide prospect towards
the interior, as if I could see, and never weary of seeing, all that lay
beyond--plains and rivers and woods and hills, and cabins where I had
rested, and many a kindly human face. Even the faces of those who
had ill-treated or regarded me with evil eyes now appeared to have
a friendly look. Most of all did I think of that dear river, the
unforgettable Yí, the shaded white house at the end of the little town,
and the sad and beautiful image of one whom I, alas! had made unhappy.
So much was I occupied towards the end of that vacant period with these
recollections that I remembered how, before quitting these shores, the
thought had come to me that during some quiet interval in my life I
would go over it all again, and write the history of my rambles for
others to read in the future. But I did not attempt it then, nor until
long years afterwards. For I had no sooner begun to play with the idea
than something came to rouse me from the state I was in, during which
I had been like one that has outlived his activities, and is no longer
capable of a new emotion, but feeds wholly on the past. And this
something new, affecting me so that I was all at once myself again,
eager to be up and doing, was nothing more than a casual word from a
distance, the cry of a lonely heart, which came by chance to my ear;
and, hearing it, I was like one who, opening his eyes from a troubled
doze, unexpectedly sees the morning star in its unearthly lustre above
the wide, dark plain where night overtook him--the star of day and
everlasting hope, and of passion and strife and toil and rest and
happiness.
I need not linger on the events which took us to the Banda--our
nocturnal flight from Paquíta's summer home on the pampas; the hiding
and clandestine marriage in the capital and subsequent escape northwards
into the province of Santa Fé; the seven to eight months of somewhat
troubled happiness we had there; and, finally, the secret return to
Buenos Ayres in search of a ship to take us out of the country. Troubled
happiness! Ah, yes, and my greatest trouble was when I looked on her, my
partner for life, when she seemed loveliest, so small, so exquisite
in her dark blue eyes that were like violets, and silky black hair and
tender pink and olive complexion--so frail in appearance! And I had
taken her--stolen her--from her natural protectors, from the home
where she had been worshipped--I of an alien race and another religion,
without means, and, because I had stolen her, an offender against the
law. But of this no more. I begin my itinerary where, safe on our little
ship, with the towers of Buenos Ayres fast fading away in the west, we
began to feel free from apprehension and to give ourselves up to the
contemplation of the delights before us. Winds and waves presently
interfered with our raptures, Paquíta proving a very indifferent sailor,
so that for some hours we had a very trying time of it. Next day a
favourable north-west breeze sprang up to send us flying like a bird
over those unlovely red billows, and in the evening we disembarked in
Montevideo, the city of refuge. We proceeded to an hotel, where for
several days we lived very happily, enchanted with each other's society;
and when we strolled along the beach to watch the setting sun, kindling
with mystic fire heaven, water, and the great hill that gives the city
its name, and remembered that we were looking towards the shores of
Buenos Ayres, it was pleasant to reflect that the widest river in the
world rolled between us and those who probably felt offended at what we
had done.
This charming state of things came to an end at length in a somewhat
curious manner. One night, before we had been a month in the hotel,
I was lying wide awake in bed. It was late; I had already heard the
mournful, long-drawn voice of the watchman under my window calling out,
“Half-past one and cloudy.”
Gil Blas relates in his biography that one night while lying awake he
fell into practising a little introspection, an unusual thing for him to
do, and the conclusion he came to was that he was not a very good young
man. I was having a somewhat similar experience that night when in the
midst of my unflattering thoughts about myself, a profound sigh from
Paquíta made me aware that she too was lying wide awake and also, in
all probability, chewing the cud of reflection. When I questioned her
concerning that sigh, she endeavoured in vain to conceal from me that
she was beginning to feel unhappy. What a rude shock the discovery gave
me! And we so lately married! It is only just to Paquíta, however, to
say that had I not married her she would have been still more unhappy.
Only the poor child could not help thinking of father and mother; she
yearned for reconciliation, and her present sorrow rose from her belief
that they would never, never, never forgive her. I endeavoured, with all
the eloquence I was capable of, to dispel these gloomy ideas, but she
was firm in her conviction that precisely because they had loved her so
much they would never pardon this first great offence. My poor darling
might have been reading _Christabel_, I thought, when she said that
it is toward those who have been most deeply loved the wounded heart
cherishes the greatest bitterness. Then, by way of illustration, she
told me of a quarrel between her mother and a till then dearly loved
sister. It had happened many years ago, when she, Paquíta, was a mere
child; yet the sisters had never forgiven each other.
“And where,” I asked, “is this aunt of yours, of whom I have never heard
you speak until this minute?”
“Oh,” answered Paquíta, with the greatest simplicity imaginable, “she
left this country long, long ago, and you never heard of her because we
were not even allowed to mention her name in the house. She went to live
in Montevideo, and I believe she is there still, for several years ago I
heard some person say that she had bought herself a house in that city.”
“Soul of my life,” said I, “you have never left Buenos Ayres in heart,
even to keep your poor husband company! Yet I know, Paquíta, that
corporeally you are here in Montevideo, conversing with me at this very
moment.”
“True,” said Paquíta; “I had somehow forgotten that we were in
Montevideo. My thoughts were wandering--perhaps it is sleepiness.”
“I swear to you, Paquíta,” I replied, “that you shall see this aunt of
yours to-morrow before set of sun; and I am positive, sweetest, that she
will be delighted to receive so near and lovely a relation. How glad
she will be of an opportunity of relating that ancient quarrel with
her sister and ventilating her mouldy grievances! I know these old
dames--they are all alike.”
Paquíta did not like the idea at first, but when I assured her that we
were getting to the end of our money, and that her aunt might be able
to put me in the way of obtaining employment, she consented, like the
dutiful little wife she was.
Next day I discovered her relation without very much trouble, Montevideo
not being a large city. We found Doña Isidora--for that was the lady's
name--living in a somewhat mean-looking house at the eastern extremity
of the town, farthest away from the water. There was an air of poverty
about the place, for the good dame, though well provided with means to
live comfortably, made a pet of her gold. Nevertheless, she received us
very kindly when we introduced ourselves and related our mournful and
romantic story; a room was prepared for our immediate reception, and
she even made me some vague promises of assistance. On a more intimate
acquaintance with our hostess we found that I had not been very far out
in guessing her character. For several days she could talk of nothing
except her immemorial quarrel with her sister and her sister's husband,
and we were bound to listen attentively and to sympathise with her, for
that was the only return we could make for her hospitality. Paquíta had
more than her share of it, but was made no wiser as to the cause of
this feud of long standing; for, though Doña Isidora had evidently been
nursing her wrath all those years to keep it warm, she could not, for
the life of her, remember how the quarrel originated.
After breakfast each morning I would kiss her and hand her over to
the tender mercies of her Isidora, then go forth on my fruitless
perambulations about the town. At first I only acted the intelligent
foreigner, going about staring at the public buildings, and collecting
curios--strangely marked pebbles, and a few military brass buttons, long
shed by the garments they once made brave; rusty, misshapen bullets,
mementoes of the immortal nine or ten years' siege which had won for
Montevideo the mournful appellation of modern Troy. When I had fully
examined from the outside the scene of my future triumphs--for I had
now resolved to settle down and make my fortune in Montevideo--Ibegan
seriously to look out for employment. I visited in turn every large
mercantile establishment in the place, and, in fact, every house where
I thought there might be a chance of lighting on something to do. It was
necessary to make a beginning, and I would not have turned up my nose at
anything, however small, I was so heartily sick of being poor, idle, and
dependent. Nothing could I find. In one house I was told that the city
had not yet recovered from the effects of the late revolution, and
that business was, in consequence, in a complete state of paralysis; in
another that the city was on the eve of a revolution, and that business
was, in consequence, in a complete state of paralysis. And everywhere
it was the same story--the political state of the country made it
impossible for me to win an honest dollar.
Feeling very much dispirited, and with the soles nearly worn off my
boots, I sat down on a bench beside the sea, or river--for some call
it one thing, some the other, and the muddied hue and freshness of the
water, and the uncertain words of geographers, leave one in doubt as to
whether Montevideo is situated on the shores of the Atlantic, or only
near the Atlantic and on the shores of a river one hundred and fifty
miles wide at its mouth. I did not trouble my head about it; I had other
things that concerned me more nearly to think of. I had a quarrel with
this Oriental nation, and that was more to me than the greenness or
the saltness of the vast estuary that washes the dirty feet of its
queen--for this modern Troy, this city of battle, murder, and sudden
death, also calls itself Queen of the Plata. That it was a very just
quarrel on my part I felt well assured. Now, to be even with every human
being who despitefully uses me has ever been a principle of action with
me. Nor let it be said that it is an unchristian principle; for when I
have been smitten on the right or left cheek (the pain is just the same
in either case), before I am prepared to deliver the return blow so long
a time has often elapsed that all wrathful or revengeful thoughts are
over. I strike in such a case more for the public good than for my own
satisfaction, and am therefore right in calling my motive a principle of
action, not an impulse. It is a very valuable one too, infinitely more
effective than the fantastical code of the duellist, which favours the
person who inflicts the injury, affording him facilities for murdering
or maiming the person injured. It is a weapon invented for us by Nature
before Colonel Colt ever lived, and it has this advantage, that one
is permitted to wear it in the most law-abiding communities as well as
amongst miners and backwoodsmen. If inoffensive people were ever to cast
it aside, then wicked men would have everything their own way and make
life intolerable. Fortunately the evil-doers always have the fear of
this intangible six-shooter before them; a wholesome feeling, which
restrains them more than reasonableness or the law courts, and to which
we owe it that the meek are permitted to inherit the earth. But now this
quarrel was with a whole nation, though certainly not with a very great
one, since the population of the Banda Orientál numbers only about a
quarter of a million. Yet in this sparsely settled country, with its
bountiful soil and genial climate, there was apparently no place for
me, a muscular and fairly intelligent young man, who only asked to
be allowed to work to live! But how was I to make them smart for this
injustice? I could not take the scorpion they gave me when I asked them
for an egg, and make it sting every individual composing the nation. I
was powerless, utterly powerless, to punish them, and therefore the only
thing that remained for me to do was to curse them.
Looking around me, my eyes rested on the famous hill across the bay, and
I all at once resolved to go up to its summit, and, looking down on
the Banda Orientál, pronounce my imprecation in the most solemn and
impressive manner.
The expedition to the _cerro_, as it is called, proved agreeable enough.
Notwithstanding the excessive heats we were just then having, many wild
flowers were blooming on its slopes, which made it a perfect garden.
When I reached the old ruined fort which crowns the summit, I got upon
a wall and rested for half an hour, fanned by a fresh breeze from the
river and greatly enjoying the prospect before me. I had not left out of
sight the serious object of my visit to that commanding spot, and only
wished that the malediction I was about to utter could be rolled down
in the shape of a stupendous rock, loosed from its hold, which would
go bounding down the mountain, and, leaping clear over the bay, crash
through the iniquitous city beyond, filling it with ruin and amazement.
“Whichever way I turn,” I said, “I see before me one of the fairest
habitations God has made for man: great plains smiling with everlasting
spring; ancient woods; swift, beautiful rivers; ranges of blue hills
stretching away to the dim horizon. And beyond those fair slopes, how
many leagues of pleasant wilderness are sleeping in the sunshine, where
the wild flowers waste their sweetness and no plough turns the fruitful
soil, where deer and ostrich roam fearless of the hunter, while over all
bends a blue sky without a cloud to stain its exquisite beauty? And
the people dwelling in yon city--the key to a continent--they are the
possessors of it all. It is theirs, since the world, out of which the
old spirit is fast dying, has suffered them to keep it. What have they
done with this their heritage? What are they doing even now? They are
sitting dejected in their houses, or standing in their doorways with
folded arms and anxious, expectant faces. For a change is coming: they
are on the eve of a tempest. Not an atmospheric change; no blighting
simoom will sweep over their fields, nor will any volcanic eruption
darken their crystal heavens. The earthquakes that shake the Andean
cities to their foundations they have never known and can never know.
The expected change and tempest is a political one. The plot is ripe,
the daggers sharpened, the contingent of assassins hired, the throne
of human skulls, styled in their ghastly facetiousness a Presidential
Chair, is about to be assaulted. It is long, weeks or even months,
perhaps, since the last wave, crested with bloody froth, rolled its
desolating flood over the country; it is high time, therefore, for all
men to prepare themselves for the shock of the succeeding wave. And we
consider it right to root up thorns and thistles, to drain malarious
marshes, to extirpate rats and vipers; but it would be immoral, I
suppose, to stamp out these people because their vicious natures are
disguised in human shape; this people that in crimes have surpassed all
others, ancient or modern, until because of them the name of a whole
continent has grown to be a byword of scorn and reproach throughout the
earth, and to stink in the nostrils of all men!
“I swear that I, too, will become a conspirator if I remain long on this
soil. Oh, for a thousand young men of Devon and Somerset here with me,
every one of them with a brain on fire with thoughts like mine! What a
glorious deed would be done for humanity! What a mighty cheer we would
raise for the glory of the old England that is passing away! Blood would
flow in yon streets as it never flowed before, or, I should say, as it
only flowed in them once, and that was when they were swept clean by
British bayonets. And afterwards there would be peace, and the grass
would be greener and the flowers brighter for that crimson shower.
“Is it not then bitter as wormwood and gall to think that over these
domes and towers beneath my feet, no longer than half a century ago,
fluttered the holy cross of St. George! For never was there a holier
crusade undertaken, never a nobler conquest planned, than that which had
for its object the wresting this fair country from unworthy hands, to
make it for all time part of the mighty English kingdom. What would it
have been now--this bright, winterless land, and this city commanding
the entrance to the greatest river in the world? And to think that it
was won for England, not treacherously, or bought with gold, but in
the old Saxon fashion with hard blows, and climbing over heaps of slain
defenders; and after it was thus won, to think that it was lost--will
it be believed?--not fighting, but yielded up without a stroke by craven
wretches unworthy of the name of Britons! Here, sitting alone on this
mountain, my face burns like fire when I think of it--this glorious
opportunity lost for ever! 'We offer you your laws, your religion,
and property under the protection of the British Government,' loftily
proclaimed the invaders--Generals Beresford, Achmuty, Whitelocke, and
their companions; and presently, after suffering one reverse, they (or
one of them) lost heart and exchanged the country they had drenched in
blood, and had conquered, for a couple of thousand British soldiers made
prisoners in Buenos Ayres across the water; then, getting into their
ships once more, they sailed away from the Plata for ever! This
transaction, which must have made the bones of our Viking ancestors
rattle with indignation in their graves, was forgotten later on when
we seized the rich Falklands. A splendid conquest and a glorious
compensation for our loss! When yon queen city was in our grasp, and the
regeneration, possibly even the ultimate possession, of this green world
before us, our hearts failed us and the prize dropped from our trembling
hands. We left the sunny mainland to capture the desolate haunt of seals
and penguins; and now let all those who in this quarter of the globe
aspire to live under that 'British Protection' of which Achmuty preached
so loudly at the gates of yon capital, transport themselves to those
lonely antarctic islands to listen to the thunder of the waves on the
grey shores and shiver in the bleak winds that blow from the frozen
south!”
After delivering this comminatory address I felt greatly relieved, and
went home in a cheerful frame of mind to supper, which consisted that
evening of mutton scrag, boiled with pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and milky
maize--not at all a bad dish for a hungry man.