CHAPTER XXIII.
DOLCE FAR NIENTE.
Few authors bother themselves, or their friends either, with maps. But I am an exception. Wherever my bark may be, in whatever part of the globe, on whatever sea, I like to know my bearings and view my position on the chart. It is the same if I journey inland.
Then, when writing my tales, I like my boy and girl readers to be with me, and each of them to keep his or her weather eye lifting, as I do mine. Indeed, as to my latitude and longitude in any portion of this small world, I am as particular and as "pernicketty" as any old maid is over her cat, or her cup of brown tea.
So—if thou lovest me, lad or lass,—just take your atlas and turn to the northern parts of South America, and you shall speedily find Venezuela, and the great Orinoco river also. Cast your eyes inland, along this mighty stream, and you will strike Ciudad Bolivar (Angostura) on the south bank and Soledad on the other.
It was for Soledad that Miguel made tracks first, and here he and his guests went on shore and dined at the poseda or hotel. It was a brisk time here at this business season. For to Soledad come now many a well-laden wain, and many a string of hardy, loaded mules, bringing with them the produce of the northern interior to ship over across stream for Ciudad Bolivar itself.
Tobacco, cereals, horns, hoofs, and hides, with cotton, corn, and rice, great cheeses, poor ill-used pigs, and quacking ducks with fowls in bundles and baskets.
Our heroes were lucky to arrive at such a time, and the landlady, though busy, set aside her best rooms and cooked her best dishes to please the "boy" Miguel, as she fondly called him. The boy had brought his guitar with him, and rejoiced the hearts of many lads and lasses from up country, who had come down with their fathers' wains to buy their dresses and bonnie things, and so go back again happy to the solitude of upland and forest.
Heigho! I fear Miguel was a sad flirt. He wasn't going to play the guitar all the evening, I can assure you. No, he must needs hand the instrument to a friend, while he mingled in the glad, the mad, the merry fandango. Well, those beautifully graceful girl dancers, with their innocent sweetness of face and dark languishing eyes, were enough to make a less susceptive young fellow than Miguel flirt. I cannot say whether Creggan flirted or not—I shouldn't like to say he didn't, but I know he danced, though it was hot work.
Poor Duckling! He was sitting half-hidden in a bank of flowers that adorned one end of the hall.
"I'm too ugly," he told Creggan, "to get a partner. I'll be a wall-flower for one night."
But—think of it—a sweetly pretty girl, after waltzing past through several dances, eyed him many times and oft. I'm sure from what followed that she pitied the poor sailor-boy in his sad loneliness. For presently, fanning herself prettily, she sat near to him.
She peeped shyly over the top of her fan a few times, then summoned courage to say:
"You no can dance—valse?"
He smiled drolly.
"Oh yes, dear, I can dance well. But—but—I think I am too ugly to find a partner."
"No, señor; no, no. A good heart is yours. I see it in your eye. Come, dance with me."
And she waltzed with him almost continually till the poseda closed.
Kind-hearted was she not?
* * * * * * * * * * *
Well, after a few days spent here the yacht was taken over to Ciudad Bolivar, in the neighbourhood of which was Miguel's house. Here dwelt this rich roving lad's mother, and he was the only son. The father had been a man who for many years held very high rank in the country, but the excitement of business and politics killed him at last.
I wish I had time and space to linger over the happy life those young sailors spent for over a fortnight at Miguel's mansion. His little sister—strange to say, she was blue-eyed—took quite a fancy to the Ugly Duckling. It might have been a case of Beauty and the Beast! Some ill-natured beings would not have hesitated to say so, but Natina saw only the boy's mind, and his kindly ways and manners.
She was only twelve. But in her innocence and naïveté she told him once that if he returned in a few years she would love him still more, and that then the padre should join their hands, and they would and should live happy ever after.
Creggan had never seen the Duckling blush before, but he did so now. Still, he held out his brown sailor hand and clasped Natina's wee white one:
"I'll come back, Natina, and marry you.
"Ah!" thought true-hearted Duckie, "shall I ever get here again? Do sailors e'er return?"
However, he ratified the agreement in the most natural way possible, and this precocious little lady henceforward considered herself of no small account, being engaged, you know.
Duckie, as his mess-mates often called him, mostly for fun but partly for fondness, measured her finger and promised to send her a ring. I may as well add here that he did, and that the correspondence kept up between them was, on her part anyhow, of a somewhat gushing description.
The temptation to remain longer at this beautiful house, with its terraced lawns, its tropical gardens, in which were fountains through the spray of which rare and beautiful birds dashed backwards and forwards all day long, and with the grand old forest stretching away behind to the far-off Llanos, was very great indeed, but time pressed, and there was yet very much to be seen in this land of delight. As to the parting between Natina and Duckie, I must tell you that Natina cried a good deal in a quiet way, wiping her eyes with her bonnie black hair, and that, woman-like, one of the last things she said was:
"Señor Duckie will not forget his Natina's little ring?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
Ships from all nations call at Ciudad Bolivar, although the population cannot be over seventy thousand, judging from memory. Then, though the streets are narrow in the business parts, Ciudad Bolivar looks charming as seen on a bright moonlight night—as seen from the river, I mean. The stream here makes an inward bend, forming a kind of bay, and is escarped by bold rocks, on which wave a few trees. Then the houses and mansions rise up and up the hill in rows or crescents, till they reach the top, where stands the lofty cathedral.
Creggan and his friend brought from Ciudad Bolivar many strange curios, and at the first chance that offered he sent these home to his mother, and many to Matty, for sailors when far away at sea never forget the dear ones at home.
After dropping down to the mouth of the river Orinoco, young Señor Miguel stood out to sea some distance to be clear of shoals. Then the wind being fair, though light, fires were banked on the little yacht, and slowly along the coast northwards they held a course.
All around here the sea is very lovely indeed—beyond compare.
When at Miguel's mansion our heroes had been startled by a shock of earthquake, accompanied by terrible thunder and lightning, more vivid than they had ever seen before. Miguel made light of it next day. He said it was only a baby-quake, and couldn't have rocked a cradle or basinette.
Anyhow, it seemed to have brought fine weather, and now the sky above and the sea below were both an azure blue, the wavelets sparkling like diamond dust, and now and then breaking into tiny caps of snow-white spray, as the gentle wind toyed with and fanned them.
Skip-jacks now and then darted from wave to wave; blue-black flying-fish, too, flew high into the sunshine, apparently singing I would I were a bird.
Sometimes these got on board at night, leaping high towards the lanterns. When Creggan saw them there, he picked them up and threw them safely back into the sea.
"Why should we," he said, "who have so many of the good things of this world, cruelly take the lives of those gems of the ocean wave?"
Shoals of porpoises were common enough, and occasionally a sea-cow with splendid eyes would raise her beautiful sleek, dark head above the water, and gaze long and curiously at the white-sailed passing yacht.
Sometimes Miguel laid to his vessel and lowered a boat, that he and his guests might enjoy a few hours' fishing. And it was fishing, too. The fish seemed as keen to be caught as they were in Duntulm Bay when Creggan, our hero, was a little boy, and this brought back to him sunny memories of days never to be forgotten, so that he often closed his eyes in the bright sunshine that he might think once more of the past, and long to be back again in Skye, the Island of Wings.
A week after this we find our heroes in the yacht anchored in the Caño Colorado—Caño meaning a creek; but in this case, at all events, it really is no creek, but the long quiet mouth of El rio del Guarapiche, a river that, rising afar among the wild hills and forests of the west and north, sweeps briskly on for many a league, forming here and there a cataract, and here and there a broad brown pool, where fishes love to bask in the sweet sunshine or leap gladly up to catch the passing flies.
It is all youth and sunshine and joy with the river at first. Beautiful wild flowers nod over its banks and use it as a mirror, bright-winged birds dip in it as they go skimming through the air, and cloudlands of trees bend down to kiss the gurgling stream. But after many more miles, it goes roaring through dark wild cañons, and is overhung by frowning rocks which narrow and deepen it. The river passes through jungle also, where nightly the wild beasts fight and roar. Then, getting broader now—its happy youth all gone,—less transparent old age seems to gather over its once glad waters, till, weary at last, it glides calmly, softly, into the great Atlantic Ocean.
Miguel landed at the Caño. The young fellow appeared to have friends everywhere, and to be everywhere as welcome as early primroses.
The owner of a property that lay up a creeklet, and had thereon a pretty wooden bungalow, was most happy to see Miguel and his friends. Of course they must stay to dinner, and that meal was one that Creggan could not despise. Delightful curry, most delicious fish, plantains, sweet potatoes, and the rarest of fruit.
And so with talk and song the evening passed away. Then down the creek in the starlight they dropped, and just about
"The wee short 'oor ayont the twal"
everybody was fast asleep—except the sentry—on board the yacht.
On next day towards Maturin.
In no hurry, however. 'Twas best to lounge and dawdle thus, enjoying the dolce far niente by the river's green wooded banks, or out amid-stream in the sparkling sunshine.
On shore many times and oft, however, to enjoy the scenery. Once a huge and insolent cayman attempted to seize a boatman where he sat. They were just then nearing the yacht. Almost instantly after the crack of a heavy rifle in the bows of the Queen sounded the death-knell of that terrible cayman. Even before the sound had ceased to reverberate from rock to rock, he was lashing the water with his tail like some fabled monster of a bygone age, and dyeing the water with his blood.
Once they landed on the north bank of the river, and after dragging the light boat a long way through a rough country, they launched her on a lovely lake of cerulean blue, that, extending far on every side, looked like some vast inland sea.
Miguel had brought along to-day an extra good luncheon. The water teemed with fish, so sport was excellent. They landed in a little cove,
"O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green",
and there in cool umbrageous shade they dined. Then romantic Miguel, who never went anywhere without his sweet-and-sad guitar, played and sang.
They returned not until the moon was shining high and clear over the mirrored lake. Some hands from the yacht met them in the landing-cove, and the boat was again dragged riverwards.
Not without adventure, however.
Creggan always took with him from his ship a Highland plaid, to be worn at night if belated. He was wrapped in that—happily for him—on this particular evening.
The boat was still being dragged along a terribly rough cattle-track, and Creggan was a little way behind. Suddenly from out the jungle came a roar that seemed to shake the earth, and next moment a huge dark beast sprang high in the moonlit air, and our hero was thrown violently to the ground.
The American lion, his yellow eyes glaring, his red mouth spitting spume, tore at the Highland plaid. But the beast's last hour had come, for with an activity but little less than his own, Miguel attacked him. It was a clear-shining dagger that shone aloft. It descended with a dull thud, and was lifted again wet with red blood. In less than ten seconds the wild beast was despatched.
His skin was taken as a trophy by the men, and presented, after being cured, to Creggan himself. That skin is now lying as a rug in the drawing-room of Creggan's mother's house at Torquay.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Half-way up the river Guarapiche lies the town or city of Maturin. Spanish, of course, with quaintly-tiled or thatched houses, laid out in terraces, streets, and squares.
The people are peaceable enough, though sometimes quarrels ensue in gambling or drinking dens, knives are drawn, and red blood spurts all over glasses, decanters, and counter.
There are many Europeans here, and, I think, they stand by Scotch or Italian. The latter may occasionally draw a stiletto, but Sandie doesn't. Sandie usually owns a fist as hard and big as the butt-end of an elephant rifle, and if a row begins, he finds that fist wondrous handy.
I believe that Miguel never thought anything about the cruelty of cock-fighting and bull-baiting; and at his invitation our young heroes went to see both. They were disgusted with the former, and even more so with the latter. The poor horses are often gored even to death, and on that night our Creggan and his friends saw one unhappy animal rushing wildly around the arena with—will it be believed?—a portion of his entrails gushing from his side. The only incident of this one-sided bull-fight which the Ugly Duckling really enjoyed, was when a bull picked a fallen matador airily up by the trews—the fellow was on his face—and flung him over into the crowd.
The twisting of the tails of the bulls is very cruel and shocking. The matadors want Britishers to believe that they throw the bull over by sheer strength of arm. Nothing of the sort. The nobler animal throws himself over to avoid the excruciating agony of the twist.
These matadors are, as far as I could ever judge, cowardly fellows, as all cruel men are. I asked one once to have a boxing round or two with me, for love. He excused himself prettily in Spanish, and I think he did well, because there was no hospital anywhere near to carry him to after the engagement.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Well, the time was getting on, flying fast indeed, but to return without seeing the strange, wild, and dreary scenery of the Llanos would have been out of the question.
The yacht was left in charge of its somewhat ragged crew, and the three friends with servants and plenty of arms for sport—well provisioned too—started at last, and after a long, stiff climb found themselves, full three hundred feet above the sea-level, on a wide and open plain.
It extended—oh, such a distance far away to the horizon! The sea itself seemed less extensive than these
"High plains......
And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye,
Unfixed, is in a verdant ocean lost".