[Illustration]
For three days after our parting with H., we kept on our course up the
Great Cape river. The current increased as we advanced, and large rocks
of quartz and granite began to appear in the channel. The valley of the
river also contracted to such a degree as to deserve no better name
than that of a gorge. Sometimes we found ourselves, for miles together,
shut in between high mountains, whose rugged and verdureless tops rose
to mid-heaven, interposing impassable barriers to the vapor-charged
clouds which the north-east trade-winds pile up against their eastern
declivities, where they are precipitated in almost unceasing rains.
Night and storm overtook us in one of these gigantic mountain clefts.
The thunder rolled along the granite peaks, and the lightning burned
adown their riven sides, and were flashed back by the dark waters of the
angry river. The dweller in northern latitudes can poorly comprehend
any description which may be given of a tropical storm. To say that the
thunder is incessant, does not adequately convey to the mind the terror
of these prolonged peals which seem to originate in the horizon, roll
upward to the zenith, louder and louder, until, silent for a moment,
they burst upon the earth in blinding flame, and a concentrated crash,
which makes the very mountains reel to their foundations. Not from one
direction alone, but from every quarter of the compass, the elements
seem to gather to the fierce encounter, and the thunder booms, and the
lightning blazes from a hundred rifts in the inky sky. So intense and
searing is the electric flame, that for hours after heavy storms I have
had spasmodic attacks of blindness, accompanied with intense pain of the
eyeballs. I found that my Indian companions were equally affected, and
that to avoid evil consequences they always bound their handkerchiefs,
dipped in water, over their eyes, while the storm continued. The Indians,
I may here mention, have many prejudices on the subject of electricity,
as well as in regard to the effect of the rays of the moon. They will
not sleep with their faces exposed to its light, nor catch fish on the
nights when it is above the horizon. My companions, at such times,
always selected the densest shade for our encampment. They affirmed that
the effect of exposure would be the distortion of the features, and the
immediate mortification of such wounds and bruises as might be reached
by the moonlight. I afterward found that the mahogany-cutters on the
north coast never felled their trees at certain periods of the moon, for
the reason, as they asserted, that the timber was then not only more
liable to check or split, but also more exposed to rot. They have the
same notion with the Indians as to the effect of the moonlight on men and
animals, and support it by the fact that animals, left to themselves,
always seek shelter from the moon, when selecting their nightly
resting-places.
We had now ascended the river, five full days from the Cape, having,
according to my computation, advanced one hundred and twenty miles. The
Poyer was perfectly acquainted with the stream, which he had several
times descended with the people of his village, in their semi-annual
visits to the coast. In these visits, he told me, they took down liquid
amber, a few deer-skins, a little anotto, and sarsaparilla, bringing back
iron barbs for their arrows, knives, machetes, and a few articles of
ornament.
On the night of the fifth day, we encamped at the mouth of the Tirolas,
a considerable stream, which enters the Wanks from the north, and up
which we, next morning, took our course. Our advance was now slow and
laborious, owing to the rapidity of the current, and the numerous rocks
and fallen trees which obstructed the channel. The river wound among
hills, which increased in altitude as we penetrated farther inland, until
I discovered that we were approaching the great mountain range, which
traverses the country from south-west to north-east, constituting the
“divide,” or water-shed, as I afterward found, between the valley of the
Cape River and the streams which flow northward into the Bay of Honduras.
Hour by hour we came nearer to this great barrier, which presented to us
a steep and apparently inaccessible front. I was rather appalled when my
Poyer told me that the village of his people lay beyond this range, over
which we would be obliged to climb in order to reach it. However, there
was now no alternative left but to go ahead, so I gave myself no further
concern, although I could not help wondering how we were to clamber up
the dizzy steeps which appeared more and more abrupt as we approached
them.
It was on the second evening after leaving the great river, that we
reached the head of canoe navigation on the Tirolas, at a point where
two bright streams, tumbling over their rocky beds, united in a placid
pool of clear water, at the very feet of the mountains. It was a spot of
surpassing beauty. The pool was, perhaps, a hundred yards broad, and, in
places, twenty or thirty feet deep, yet so clear that every pebble at
the bottom, and every fish which sported in its crystal depths, were
distinctly visible to the eye. Upon one side rose huge gray rocks of
granite, draped over with vines, and shadowed by large and wide-spreading
trees, whose branches, crowded with the wax-like leaves and flowers of
innumerable air-plants, cast dark, broad shadows on the water. Upon the
other side was a smooth, sandy beach, completely sheltered from the sun
by large trees, beneath which were drawn up a number of canoes, carefully
protected from the weather by rude sheds of cahoon leaves. These canoes
belonged to the Poyer Indians, and are used by them in their voyages to
the Cape. A little lower down the stream were clusters of palm-trees,
and large patches of bananas and plantains, which seemed to have been
carefully nurtured by the Indians in their visits to this picturesque
“embarcadero.”
[Illustration: EMBARCADERO ON THE TIROLAS.]
The slant rays of the evening sun fell upon one half of the pool, where
the little ripples chased each other sparkling to the shore, while upon
the other part, the rocks and forest cast their cool, dark shadows. And
as our canoe shot in upon its transparent bosom, I could not help joining
in my Poyer boy’s shout of joy. Even “El Moro” fluttered his bright
wings, and screamed in sympathetic glee. A few vigorous strokes of the
paddles, and our canoe drove up half its length on the sandy shore, the
sharp pebbles grating pleasantly beneath its keel. For the present, at
least, I had done with lagoons and rivers, and a new excitement awaited
me among the giddy steeps and untracked solitudes of the mountains.
Farewell now to the cramped canoe, and the eternal succession of low and
tangled banks; and ho, for the free limb and the expanding chest of the
son of the forest!
With glad alacrity, my companions and myself set to work to form our
encampment, on the clean dry sand. Then came Antonio, laden with the
golden clusters of the plantain, while the spear of the Poyer darted down
in the clear waters of the pool with unfailing skill. The rousing fire,
the murmur of the mountain-torrents, and the distant cry of the fierce
black tiger, the satisfied sense of having safely accomplished an arduous
undertaking, high anticipations of new adventures, and the consciousness
of being the first white man who had ever trusted himself in these
unknown fastnesses—all these, joined to the contagious joy of my faithful
companions, combined to give the keenest edge and zest to that night’s
enjoyment. In my darkest hours, its recollection comes over my soul like
a beam of sunlight through the rifts of a clouded sky—“a joy forever.”
Blessed memory, which enables us to live over again the delights of the
past, and gives an eternal solace to the cheerful mind!
That night I made a formal present of the canoe and its appurtenances to
my Poyer boy, and we selected such articles as were indispensable to us,
leaving the rest to be sent for by the Indians when we should reach the
village. My purpose was to commence our march at dawn on the following
day. But in the morning I arose with one of my feet so swollen and
painful that I could neither put on my boot nor walk, except with great
difficulty. The cause was, outwardly, very trifling. During the previous
day the water in the Tirolas had been so shallow that it frequently
became necessary to get out of the canoe and lighten it, in order to pass
the various rapids. I had therefore taken off my boots, and gone into
the water with my naked feet. I remember stepping on a rolling stone,
slipping off, and bruising my ankle. The hurt was, however, so slight,
that I did not give it a second thought. But, from this trifling cause,
my foot and ankle were now swollen to nearly double their natural size,
and the prosecution of my journey, for the time being, was rendered
impossible. Under the tropics, serious consequences often follow from
these slight causes. I have known tetanus to result from a little
wound, of the size of a pea, made by extracting the bag of a _nigua_ or
_chigoe_, which had burrowed in the foot!
The skill of my companions was at once put in requisition. They made a
poultice of ripe plantains baked in the ashes, and mixed with cocoa-nut
oil, which was applied hot to the affected parts. This done, our canoe
was hauled up, and an extempore roof built over it, to protect me from
the weather, in case it should happen to change for the worse. I passed
a fretful night, the pain being very great, and the swelling extending
higher and higher, until it had reached the knee. The applications had
no perceptible effect. Under these circumstances, I determined to send
my Poyer to his village for assistance. He represented it as distant
five days, but that it could be reached, by forced marches, in four. He
objected to leave me, but on the second day, my foot being no better, he
obeyed my positive orders, and started, taking with him only a little
dried meat, his spear, and his bow.
Antonio now redoubled his attentions, and I certainly stood in need
of them. The pain kept me from slumber, and I became irritable and
feverish. But no mother could have been more constant, more patient, or
more wakeful to every want than that faithful Indian boy. He exhausted
his simple remedies, and still the limb became worse, and the unwilling
conviction seemed to be forced on his mind, that the case was beyond his
reach. When, in the intervals of the pain, he thought me slumbering, I
often saw him consult his talisman with undisguised anxiety. He however,
always seemed to feel reassured by it, and to become more cheerful.
On the third day a suppuration appeared at the ankle, and the pain and
swelling diminished; and on the succeeding morning I probed the wound,
and, to my surprise, removed a small splinter of stone, which had been
the cause of all my affliction. From that moment my improvement was
rapid, and I was soon able to move about without difficulty.
I amused myself much with fishing in the pool, in which there were
large numbers of an active kind of fish, varying from ten to sixteen
inches in length, of reddish color, and voracious appetites. Toward
evening, when the flies settled down near the surface, they rose like
the trout, and kept the pool boiling with their swift leaping after
their prey. I improved my limited experience in fly-fishing at home,
to devise impromptu insects, and astonished Antonio with that, to him,
novel device in the piscatory art. These fish, with an occasional wild
turkey, the latter generally tough and insipid, constituted about our
only food. Ducks, curlews, and snipe, so common in the vicinity of the
lagoons, were here unknown, and we listened in vain for the cry of the
_chachalaca_. There were, however, numerous birds of song, and of bright
plumage, but not fit for food. I saw some owls; and now and then a large
hawk would settle down sullenly on the trees which overhung the pool.
Gray-squirrels also occasionally rustled the branches above our heads,
but the foliage was so dense that I was only successful in obtaining a
single specimen. Once a squadron of monkeys came trooping through the
tree-tops to rob the plantain-grove, but a charge of buckshot, which
brought two of them to the ground, was effectual in deterring them from a
second visit. They were of a small variety, body black, face white, and
“whiskered like a pard.” Antonio cooked one of them in the sand, but he
looked so much like a singed baby which I once saw taken out of the ruins
of a fire in Ann-street, that I could not bring myself to taste him. So
my Indian had an undisputed monopoly of the monkey.
But the most exciting incident, connected with our stay on the banks of
the Tirolas, was one which I can never recall without going into a fit
of laughter—although, at the time, I did not regard it as remarkably
amusing. Among the wild animals most common in Central America, is the
_peccary_, sometimes called “Mexican hog,” but best known by the Spanish
name of _Savalino_. There is another animal, something similar to the
_peccary_, supposed to be the common hog run wild, called _Javalino_ by
the Spaniards, and _Waree_ by the Mosquitos. If not indigenous, the
latter certainly have multiplied to an enormous extent, since they swarm
all over the more thickly-wooded portions of the country. They closely
resemble the wild-boar of Europe, and, although less in size, seem to be
equally ferocious. They go in droves, and are not at all particular as
to their food, eating ravenously snakes and reptiles of all kinds. They
have also a rational relish for fruits, and especially for plantains and
bananas, and would prove a real scourge to the plantations, were they
always able to break down the stalks supporting the fruit. Unable to do
this, they nevertheless pay regular visits to the plantations, in the
hope of finding a tree blown down, and of feasting on the fallen clusters.
With these intimations as to their character and habits, the reader will
be better qualified to appreciate the incident alluded to. It was a
pleasant afternoon, and I had strolled off with my gun, in the direction
of the plantain-patch, stopping occasionally to listen to the clear,
flute-like notes of some unseen bird, or to watch a brilliant lizard,
as it flashed across the gray stones. Thus sauntering carelessly along,
my attention was suddenly arrested by a peculiar noise, as if of some
animal, or rather of many animals engaged in eating. I stopped, and
peered in every direction to discover the cause, when finally my eyes
rested upon what I at once took to be a pig of most tempting proportions.
He was moving slowly, with his nose to the ground, as if in search of
food. Without withdrawing my gaze, I carefully raised my gun, and fired.
It was loaded with buckshot, and although the animal fell, he rose again
immediately, and began to make off. Of course I hurried after him, with
the view of finishing my work with my knife—but I had not taken ten
steps, when it appeared to me as if every stick, stone, and bush had
been converted into a pig! Hogs rose on all sides, with bristling backs,
and tusks of appalling length. I comprehended my danger in an instant,
and had barely time to leap into the forks of a low, scraggy tree,
before they were at its foot. I shall never forget the malicious look
of their little bead-like eyes, as they raved around my roosting-place,
and snapped ineffectually at my heels. Although I felt pretty secure,
I discreetly clambered higher, and, fixing myself firmly in my seat,
revenged myself by firing a charge of bird-shot in the face of the
savagest of my assailants. This insult only excited the brutes the more,
and they ground their teeth, and frothed around the tree in a perfect
paroxysm of porcine rage.
[Illustration: THE WAREE.]
I next loaded both barrels of my gun with ball, and deliberately shot two
others through their heads, killing them on the spot, vainly imagining
that thereby I should disperse the herd. But never was man more mistaken.
The survivors nosed around their dead companions for a moment, and
then renewed their vicious contemplations of my position. Some squatted
themselves upon their hams, as much as to say that they intended to wait
for me, and were nowise in a hurry! So I loaded up again, and slaughtered
two more of the largest and most spiteful. But, even then, there were no
signs of retreat; on the contrary, it seemed to me as if reënforcements
sprang out of the ground, and that my besiegers grew every moment more
numerous!
How long this might have lasted, I am unprepared to say, had not
Antonio, alarmed at my rapid firing, hastened to my rescue. No sooner
did my assailants catch sight of his swarthy figure than they made after
him with a vehement rush. He avoided them by leaping upon a rock, and
then commenced a most extraordinary and murderous contest. Never did a
battalion of veteran soldiers charge upon an enemy, with more steadiness
than those wild pigs upon the Indian. He was armed with only a lance, but
every blow brought down a porker. Half alarmed lest they should finally
overmatch him, I cheered his exploits, and kept up a brisk fire by way of
a diversion in his favor. I am ashamed to say how many of those pigs we
killed; it is, perhaps, enough to add, that it was long after dark before
the beasts made up their minds to leave us uneaten. And it was with a
decided sensation of relief that we heard them moving off, until their
low grunt was lost in the distance.
At one time, the odds were certainly against us, and it seemed not
improbable that the artist and his adventures might both come to a
pitiful and far from a poetical end. But fortune favored, and my faithful
gun now hangs over my table in boar-tusk brackets, triumphal trophies
from that bloody field! Instead of being eaten, we ate, wherein consists
a difference; but I was ever after wary of the _waree_!
True to his promise, on the evening of the tenth day, my Poyer boy
bounded into our encampment, with a loud shout of joy. His friends were
behind, and he said would reach us in the following afternoon. There were
five of them, sober, silent men, who made their encampment apart from us,
and whom I vainly endeavored to engage in conversation. They displayed
great aptness in packing our various articles in net-work sacks, which
they carried on their backs, supported by bands passing around their
foreheads. They wore no clothes except the _tournou_, unless sandals of
tapir-hide, and a narrow-brimmed hat, braided of palm-bark, fall within
that denomination. Besides his sack, each man carried a peculiar kind of
_machete_, short and curved like a pruning-hook; only one or two had bows.
It was with real regret that I left our encampment beside the bright
pool, and abandoned my old and now familiar canoe, in the sides of which,
like a true Yankee, I had carved my name, and the dates of my adventures.
I turned to look back more than once, as we filed away, beneath the
trees, in the trail leading to the mountains. The Indians led the
way, while Antonio and myself brought up the rear. “El Moro,” perched
upon the tallest pack, shrieked and fluttered his wings, occasionally
scrambling down to take a mischievous bite at the ear of his Indian
carrier. Whenever he was successful in accomplishing this feat, he
became superlatively happy and gleeful. In default of other amusement,
he sometimes suspended himself from the netting by a single claw, like
a dead bird, with drooping wings and dangling head, and then suddenly
scrambled back again to his perch, with triumphant screams. He was a rare
rollicking bird, that same Moro!
For the first day our course followed a line nearly parallel with the
base of the mountains, through a thick and tangled forest. We crossed
innumerable small and rapid streams of the clearest water, sparkling
over beds of variously-colored quartz pebbles—for we were now skirting
one of the great ranges of primitive rocks, which form the nucleus of
the continent. My long confinement in the canoe had contributed to
disqualify me for active exertions, and long before night I became much
fagged, and would fain have gone into camp. But the Indians traveled so
tranquilly under their loads, that I was loth to discover to them my lack
of endurance, and so kept on without complaint. In the afternoon our path
began to ascend, and we gradually emerged from the thick and tangled
woods into a comparatively open forest, which, in turn, gave place to
groves of scattered pines and oaks, among which we encamped for the night.
From our elevated position I could overlook the wilderness which we had
traversed during the day. It was at that season of the year when the
_erythrina_ puts on its scarlet robe of blossoms, and the ceiba clothes
itself in flames, in splendid relief to the prevailing green. It seemed
as if Nature held high holiday among these primeval solitudes, and
arrayed herself only to wanton in the sense of her own beauty. But while
vegetation was thus lavishly luxuriant in the valley, behind us the
mountains rose, stern, steep, and bare. Vainly the dark pines, clinging
to their sides, sought to vail their flinty frown. Wherever a little
shelf of the rocks supported a scanty bed of soil, there the mountain
grasses, and the sensitive-plant with its amaranthine flower, took root,
like kindly thoughts in the heart of the hard and worldly man. From
the gnarled oaks, and even from the unfading pines, hung long festoons
of gray moss, which swayed sadly in the wind. And when the night came
on, and I lay down beside the fire, beneath their shade, they seemed
to murmur in a low and mournful voice to the passing breeze, which,
laden with the perfume of the valley, rose with downy wings to bear its
tributary incense to the skies.
Morning broke, but dark and gloomily, and although we resumed our march,
directing our course diagonally up the face of the mountain, we were
obliged to stop before noon, and seek shelter under a mass of projecting
rocks, from a cold, drizzly rain, which now began to fall steadily, with
every promise of merging in a protracted temporal. The clouds ran low,
and drifted around and below us, in heavy, cheerless volumes, shutting
from view every object except the pines and stunted oaks, in their gray,
monastic robes, now saturated and heavy from the damp. Stowing our few
valuables securely under the rocks, we lighted a fire, now acceptable
not less for its heat than its companionship. Its cheerful flame, and
the sparkle of its embers, revived my drooping spirits, and helped
to reconcile me to the imprisonment which the temporal would be sure
to entail. I can readily understand how fire commended itself to the
primitive man as an emblem of purity and power, and became the symbol of
spirit and those invisible essences which pervade the universe. God robed
himself in flame on Sinai; in tongues of flame the Spirit descended upon
the disciples at Jerusalem; an eternal fire burned upon the altars of
the virginal Vesta, and in the Persian Pyrothea; to fire was committed
the sacrifice of propitiation, and by its ordeal was innocence and
purity made manifest. Among the American Indians it was held in especial
reverence. The Delawares and the Iroquois had festivals in its honor, and
regarded it as the first parent of the Indian nations. The Cherokees paid
their devotions to the “great, beneficent, supreme, holy Spirit of Fire,”
whose home was in the heavens, but who dwelt also on earth, in the hearts
of “the unpolluted people.” And even the rude Indians who huddled with
me beneath the protecting rocks in the heart of the wilderness, never
commenced their simple meals without first throwing a small portion of
their food in the fire, as an offering to the protecting Spirit of Life,
of which it is the genial symbol.
The temporal lasted for three days, during which time it rained almost
incessantly, and it was withal so cold, that a large and constant fire
was necessary to our comfort. At the end of that time the clouds began
to lift, and the sun broke through the rifts, and speedily dispersed the
watery legions. But the rocks were slippery with the wet, and the earth,
wherever it was found among the rocks, was sodden and unstable, rendering
our advance alike disagreeable and dangerous. We remained, therefore,
until the morning of the fourth day, when we resumed our march.