The Perfume of Egypt by C. W. Leadbeater (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📕

is usually in a rather precarious condition, and most of its subjects are generally ready on very slight provocation to make an attempt to overturn it; so the disaffection spread and became quite a rebellion. In the part of the country where we were, little was known of the movements of the insurgents; and, as I have said, it was the policy of the Government to minimise the whole affair and assure us that it was quite unimportant.

Later, when everything was over, it transpired that Martinez had concocted a plot of considerable ingenuity, and had contrived by all kinds of specious promises to induce several of the savage Indian tribes to join him. The two parties to this precious conspiracy were each playing false with the other; the idea of the half-breeds was to utilise the Indians to help them to massacre the whites, and then to turn upon their partners and murder them in turn, and thus consolidate their power. The idea of the Red Indians on the other hand was that they could utilise the mutinous regiments to help them to drive the white men into the sea, after which it would be quite easy to massacre the half-breeds, and so regain the country for themselves.

It never occurred to us that any danger from the insurgents could menace our little expedition into the interior. Whatever fighting there was, was going on some hundreds of miles to the south, and the whole of our part of the country was perfectly free from it. But nevertheless we were destined to see much more of the struggle than we wanted, as my story will presently show.

The railway line ran through great tracts of primeval forest; and a South American forest is like no other in the world. Trees two hundred feet high and wide-spreading in proportion, literally one mass of blazing colour; domes of blue or scarlet or orange, and great creepers, thick as a man’s leg, hanging from tree to tree, extending often for hundreds of feet, and covered with flowers even more splendid than those of the trees themselves. It was a favourite game with the children to choose each one of these giant creepers, and try in spite of its entanglements to trace it out to its end — the boy who had chosen the longest creeper being of course the winner. It was a veritable fairyland, unequalled in its marvellous beauty, but much too thickly inhabited for human comfort.

Precisely because men are so few, the nonhuman inhabitants flourish to a degree unknown elsewhere, and a large proportion of them are dangerous to man. Splendid creatures, many of them, but distinctly uncomfortable neighbours. The jaguar, more beautiful and kingly-looking even than the royal tiger of India, but equally dangerous; the boa-constrictor, the largest snake in the world, often thirty feet long and as thick as a man’s thigh; the alligator, deadly as the shark of the ocean, swarming in every river and pool; all these and many other creatures make the conditions of human life somewhat arduous in those marvellous South American forests.

Full of birds, too, are they, alive with colours equalling those of the flowers; parrots of all kinds; huge screaming macaws, painted crudely and gorgeously in scarlet and blue and yellow; tiny humming-birds, no larger than the humble-bee, but glowing with ruby and emerald like actual living jewels; hundreds of varieties all resplendent in hue, but songless, except for the deep ringing bell-like note of the campanero; all kinds of strange-looking creatures, wondrous in colour but always with something bizarre about them, something unlike what is seen in any other land.

But it is the insect world above all others which forces itself upon the attention of a visitor, and usually unpleasantly. The tarantula and the scorpion are its aristocracy — not properly insects at all; huge ants, in countless millions, which start out upon mysterious migrations and turn aside for nothing; chigoes, uncomfortable little creatures which get under one’s toe-nails and lay tiny little bags full of eggs, which have to be cut out by the servants each evening before one goes to bed. Assuredly the insect world is ever with us, and we usually wish that it was not.

Nevertheless, there was little of danger about our invasion of these primeval forests, for we were undertaking it under unusually favourable conditions. The small army of labourers who were working at the end of the line gave us the advantage of company. None of the larger wild beasts would come into the neighbourhood of so great a crowd of men, and we learnt by dire experience how to deal with the smaller beasts. Along with us as a kind of valet and general guardian came our faithful negro servant Tito. He had been presented to us as a slave, but we had freed him, and consequently he was overflowing with gratitude.

The railway was a mere trench cut through the forest, almost in a straight line, for at this stage no intermediate station had as yet been erected, and though it passed in the neighbourhood of several villages, none of them were actually in sight from it, so there was nothing to prevent a clear run. I remember on one occasion, a few weeks before that of which I am writing, I had myself a very exciting experience on that same line.

One day, when we were away at the end of the line just seventy-five miles from the terminus, news reached us through the arrival of a brother of one of the labourers that very serious defalcations had taken place in the office at the terminus, and that the defaulting cashier was departing with his plunder by a certain steamer bound for Europe, which was due to start on that very day. The news arrived just an hour before the time for the sailing of the mail-steamer, and my father was in despair as to what to do. There were no telegraphs in those days, and a runner would take thirty hours to cover the distance, even going along the newly-made railway line.

We had an engine with us, but it was what is called a contractor’s engine, not built for any high speeds; and even so, its regular driver was down that day with fever, and the young lad who was in charge of it, though he managed well enough to pull a few trucks up and down, was quite incapable of trying a record run with it. My father did not know how to manage the locomotive, and besides, it would have been a very serious matter for him to leave just then; but fortunately I, with a boy’s fancy for machinery, had learnt to understand the engine pretty well, and had driven it many times, though only for short distances.

I at once offered to try to make the run in time to stop the steamer, and somehow felt certain that I could do it, although my father thought it quite impossible. Moments were flying, however, and there was little time to discuss the matter, so he consented to my making the attempt, though he thought it foredoomed to failure. The engine had steam up, and a few moments sufficed to load it with coal, and make sure that its tanks were full; and then off I started, with the boy who had previously driven the engine as a fireman. The run was a most exciting one; I pushed that engine to its utmost speed, and it was fortunate for me that on the whole the line was fairly straight, for I was in no mood to slacken much for curves. Suffice it to say that I did the distance in the time, though I arrived with the plates of the engine red-hot.

As soon as we reached the terminus, I jumped off and rushed up to the signal-tower on the hill, the official in charge of which was well known to me; and thankful I was to see the mail-steamer still lying in the bay, though she was even already getting up her anchors. Under my instructions, my friend the official at once ran up a signal imperatively calling upon the steamer to wait. Meantime I ran down the bill to the port authorities, and very soon a boat with quite an imposing array of police and other officials was being rowed out rapidly towards the steamer.

These port officials knew my father well as the consignee of large cargoes of rails and other materials, and so when once I reached the place my task was an easy one. Even the captain of the steamer knew me, and when he understood the gravity of the emergency be forgave me for delaying him. The defaulting cashier was at once arrested in spite of his excited protests, and haled ashore to prison, all the money being duly recovered. I believe I considerably damaged that engine by reckless overdriving; but the amount at stake was large enough to condone that trifling irregularity.

It was my father’s custom to have a small wooden cabin built for him out at the end of the line, and live in it for a few days until the line had been constructed to a point which he found inconveniently far from it. Then he would have another similar cabin erected a little further along. Wood was so abundant that it was not worth while to carry the logs from one such halting place to another, even though it was only a few miles further on. There were generally plenty of logs lying on the pound, so some trees could be quickly chopped down and a new cabin put up at the cost of very little labour.

The usual plan was to choose logs perhaps a foot in diameter and split them in half longitudinally and in this way a rough hut was made quite strong enough to keep out any wild beasts known in that country, though there were of course many cracks between the logs, through which came plenty of light and air. Generally such a cabin was made without a window, but with a rough door — a door which had no hinges, but was kept in its place during the night by a heavy wooden bar which prevented it from falling inwards. In the daytime the door was laid aside and the empty place served as a window. My father had a rough table for his office work, and we sat about on stumps or lay on the floor, as fancy dictated.