A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before Part 21

Upon this, they made to the first rising ground they could come at, and there they encamped, and at night fired some rockets, and after the third rocket was fired, they, to their great joy, saw two rockets rise up from the westward, and soon after that a third; and in two days more they all joyfully met.

We had been here, as I have said, impatiently expecting them a great while; but, at last, the man at the main-top, who was ordered to look out, called aloud to us below, that he saw a flash of fire; and immediately, the men looking to landward, they saw two rockets rise up in the air at a great distance, which we answered by firing three rockets again, and they returned by one rocket, to signify that they saw our men's signal.

This was a joyful exchange of distant language to both sides; but I was not there, for, being impatient, I had put out and sailed about ten leagues farther; but our s.h.i.+p fired three guns to give me notice, which, however, we heard not, and yet we knew they fired too; for, it being in the night, our men, who were very attentive with their eyes, as well as ears, saw plainly the three flashes of the guns, though they could not hear the report, the wind being contrary.

This was such certain intelligence to me, and I was so impatient to know how things went, that, having also a small gale of wind, I weighed immediately, and stood back again to our other s.h.i.+p; it was not, however, till the second day after we weighed that we came up to them, having little or no wind all the first day; the next day in the morning they spied us, and fired the three guns again, being the signal that they had got news of our friends.

Nothing could be more to my satisfaction than to hear that they had got news, and it was as much to their satisfaction as to ours to be sure, I mean our little army; for if any disaster had happened to us, they had been in a very odd condition; and though they might have found means to subsist, yet they would have been out of all hope of ever returning to their own country.

Upon the signal I stood into the bay, and came to an anchor at about a league to the northward of our other s.h.i.+p, and as far from the sh.o.r.e, and, as it were, in the mouth of the river, waiting for another signal from our men, by which, we might judge which side of the river to go ash.o.r.e at, and might take some proper measures to come at them.

About five o'clock in the evening, our eyes being all up in the air, and towards the hills, for the appointed signals, beheld, to our great surprise, a canoe come rowing to us out of the mouth of the river.

Immediately we went to work with our perspective gla.s.ses; one said it was one thing, and one said it was another, until I fetched a large telescope out of the cabin, and with that I could easily see they were my own men, and it was to our inexpressible satisfaction that they soon after came directly on board.

It might very well take up another volume to give a farther account of the particulars of their journey, or, rather, their journey and voyage.

How they got through the hills, and were entertained by the generous Spaniard, and afterwards by the wealthy Chilian; how the men, greedy for gold, were hardly brought away from the mountains; and how, once, they had much ado to persuade them not to rob the honest Chilian who had used them so well, till my lieutenant, then their captain, by a stratagem, seized on their weapons, and threatened to speak to the Spaniard to raise the Chilians in the mountains, and have all their throats cut; and yet even this did not suffice, till the two mids.h.i.+pmen, then their lieutenants, a.s.sured them that at the first opening of the hills, and in the rivers beyond, they would have plenty of gold; and one of the mids.h.i.+pmen told them, that if he did not see them have so much gold that they would not stoop to take up any more, they should have all his share to be divided among them, and should leave him behind in the first desolate place they could find.

How this appeased them till they came to the outer edge of the mountains, where I had been, and where my patron, the Spaniard, left them, having supplied them with sixteen mules to carry their baggage, and some guinacoes, or sheep of Peru, which would carry burdens, and afterwards be good to eat also.

Also, how here they mutinied again, and would not be drawn away, being insatiable in their thirst after gold, till about twenty, more reasonable than the rest, were content to move forward; and, after some time, the rest followed, though not till they were a.s.sured that the picking up of gold continued all along the river, which began at the bottom of the mountains, and that it was likely to continue a great way farther.

How they worked their way down these streams, with still an insatiable avarice and thirst after the gold, to the lake called the Golden Lake, and how here they were astonished at the quant.i.ty they found; how, after this, they had great difficulty to furnish themselves with provisions, and greater still in carrying it along with them until they found more.

I say, all these accounts might suffice to make another volume as large as this. How, at the farther end of the lake, they found that it evacuated itself into a large river, which, running away with a strong current to the south-south-east, and afterwards to the south-by-east, encouraged them to build canoes, in which they embarked, and which river brought them down to the very bay where we found them; but that they met with many difficulties, sank and staved their canoes several times, by which they lost some of their baggage, and, in one disaster, lost a great parcel of their gold, to their great surprise and mortification.

How at one place, they split two of their canoes, where they could find no timber to build new ones, and the many hards.h.i.+ps they were put to before they got other canoes. But I shall give a brief account of it all, and bring it into as narrow a compa.s.s as I can.

They set out, as I have said, with mules and horses to carry their baggage, and the Spaniard gave them a servant with them for a guide, who, carrying them by-ways, and unfrequented, so that they might give no alarm at the town of Villa Rica, or anywhere else, they came to the mouth of the entrance into the mountains, and there they pitched their tent.

N.B.--The lieutenant who kept their journal, giving an account of this, merrily, in his sea language, expresses it thus: "Being all come safe into the opening, that is, in the entrance of the mountains, and being there free from the observation of the country, we called it our first port, so we brought to, and came to an anchor."

Here the generous Spaniard, who at his own request was gone before, sent his gentleman and one of his sons to them, and sent them plenty of provisions, as also caused their mules to be changed for others that were fresh, and had not been fatigued with any of the other part of the journey.

These things being done, the Spaniard's gentleman caused them to decamp, and march two days farther into the mountains, and then they encamped again, where the Spaniard himself came _incognito_ to them, and, with the utmost kindness and generosity, was their guide himself, and their purveyor also, though two or three times the fellows were so rude, so ungovernable and unbounded in their hunting after gold, that the Spaniard was almost frighted at them, and told the captain of it. Nor, indeed, was it altogether without cause, for the dogs were so ungrateful, that they robbed two of the houses of the Chilians, and took what gold they had, which was not much, indeed, but it hazarded so much the alarming the country, and raising all the mountaineers upon them, that the Spaniard was upon the point of flying from them, in spite of all their fire-arms and courage.

But the captain begged him to stay one night more, and promised to have the fellows punished, and satisfaction to be made; and so he brought all his men together and talked to them, and inquired who it was? but never was such a piece of work in the world. When the new captain came to talk of who did it, and of punishment, they cried, they all did it, and they did not value all the Spaniards or Indians in the country; they would have all the gold in the whole mountains, ay, that they would, and swore to it; and, if the Spaniard offered to speak a word to them, they would chop his head off, and put a stop to his farther jawing.

However, a little reasoning with them brought some of the men to their senses; and the captain, who was a man of sense and of a smooth tongue, managed so well, that he brought about twenty-two of the men, and the two lieutenants and surgeons, to declare for his opinion, and that they would act better for the future; and, with these, he stepped in between the other fellows, and separated about eighteen of them from their arms, for they had run scattering among the rocks to hunt for gold, and, when they were called to this parley, had not their weapons with them. By this stratagem, he seized eleven of the thieves, and made them prisoners; and then he told the rest, in so many words, that if they would not comply to keep order, and obey the rules they were at first sworn to, and had promised, he would force them to it, for he would deliver them, bound hand and foot, to the Spaniards, and they should do the poor Chilians justice upon them; for that, in short, he would not have the rest murdered for them; upon this, he ordered his men to draw up, to show them he would be as good as his word, when, after some consideration, they submitted.

But the Spaniard had taken a wiser course than this, or, perhaps, they had been all murdered; for he ran to the two Chilian houses which the rogues had plundered, and where, in short, there was a kind of tumult about it, and, with good words, promising to give them as much gold as they lost, and the price of some other things that were taken away, he appeased the people; and so our men were not ruined, as they would certainly have been if the mountaineers had taken the alarm.

After this, they grew a little more governable; but, in short, the sight of the gold, and the easy getting it (for they picked it up in abundance of places), I say, the sight of the gold made them stark mad. For now they were not, as they were before, trafficking for the owners and for the voyage; but as I had promised the gold they got should be their own, and that they were now working for themselves, there was no getting them to go on, but, in short, they would dwell here; and this was as fatal a humour as the other.

But to bring this part of the voyage to an end, after eight days they came to the hospitable wealthy Chilian's house, whom I mentioned before; and here, as the Spaniard had contrived it, they found all kind of needful stores for provisions laid up, as it were, on purpose; and, in a word, here they were not fed only, but feasted.

Here, again, the captain discovered a cursed conspiracy, which, had it taken effect, would, besides the baseness of the fact, have ended in their total destruction; in short, they had resolved to rob this Chilian, who was so kind to them; but, as I said, one of the lieutenants discovered and detected this villanous contrivance, and quashed it, so as never to let the Spaniard know of it.

But, I say, to end this part, they were one-and-twenty days in this traverse, for they could not go on so easy and so fast, now they were a little army, as we did, who were but six or seven; at length they came to the view of the open country, and, being all encamped at the edge of a descent, the generous Spaniard (and his three servants) took his leave, wis.h.i.+ng them a good journey, and so went back, having, the day before, brought them some deer, five or six cows, and some sheep, for their subsisting at their entrance into, and travel through, the plain country.

And now they began to descend towards the plain, but they met with more difficulty here than they expected; for, as I observed that the way for some miles went with an ascent towards the farthest part of the hill; that continued ascent had, by degrees, brought them to a very great, and in some places, impa.s.sable descent; so that, however my guide found his way down, when I was through, it was not easy for them to do it, who were so many in number, and enc.u.mbered with mules and horses, and with their baggage, so that they knew not what to do; and, if they had not known that our s.h.i.+ps were gone away, there had been some odds but, like the Israelites of old, they would have murmured against their leader, and have all gone back to Egypt. In a word, they were at their wits'

end, and knew not what course to take for two or three days, trying and essaying to get down here and there, and then frightened with precipices and rocks, and climbing up to get back again. The whole of the matter was, that they had missed a narrow way, where they should have turned off to the south-east, the marks which our men had made before having not been so regular and exact just there, as in other parts of the way, or some other turning being so very like the same, that they took one for the other; and thus, going straight forward too far before they turned, they came to an opening indeed, and saw the plain country under them, as they had done before, but the descent was not so practicable.

After they had puzzled themselves here, as I said, two or three days, one of the lieutenants, and a man with him, seeing a hut or house of a Chilian at some distance, rode away towards it; but pa.s.sing into a valley that lay between, he met with a river which he could by no means get over with the mules, so he came back again in despair. The captain then resolved to send back to the honest rich Chilian, who had entertained them so well, for a guide, or to desire him to give them such directions as they might not mistake.

But as the person sent back was one of those who had taken the journal which I mentioned, and was therefore greatly vexed at missing his way in such a manner, so he had his eyes in every corner, and pulled out his pocket-book at every turning, to see how the marks of the places agreed; and at last, the very next morning after he set out, he spied the turning where they should all have gone in, to have come to the place which they were at before; this being so remarkable a discovery, he came back again directly, without going on to the Chilian's house, which was two days' journey farther.

Our men were revived with this discovery, and all agreed to march back; so, having lost about six days in this false step, they got into the right way, and, in four more, came to the descent were I had been before.

Here the hill was still very high, and the pa.s.sage down was steep and difficult enough; but still it was practicable, and our men could see the marks of cattle having pa.s.sed there, as if they had gone in drifts or droves; also it was apparent, that, by some help and labour of hands, the way might be led winding and turning on the slope of the hill, so as to make it much easier to get down than it was now.

It cost them no small labour, however, to get down, chiefly because of the mules, which very often fell down with their loads; and our men said, they believed they could with much more ease have mounted up from the east side to the top than they came from the west side to the bottom.

They encamped one night on the declivity of the hill, but got up early, and were at the bottom and on the plain ground by noon. As soon as they came there they encamped and refreshed themselves, that is to say, went to dinner; but it being very hot there, the cool breezes of the mountains having now left them, they were more inclined to sleep than to eat; so the captain ordered the tent to be set up, and they made the whole day of it, calling a council in the morning to consider what course they should steer, and how they should go on.

Here they came to this resolution, that they should send two men a considerable way up the hill again, to take the strictest observation they could of the plain with the largest gla.s.ses they had, and to mark which way the nearest river or water was to be seen; and they should direct their course first to the water, and that, if the course of it lay south, or any way to the east of the south, they would follow on the bank of it, and, as soon as it was large enough to carry them, they would make them some canoes or shallops, or what they could do with the most ease, to carry them on by water; also, they directed them to observe if they could see any cattle feeding at a distance, or the like.

The messengers returned, and brought word that all the way to the east, and so on to south-east, they could discover nothing of water, but that they had seen a great lake, or lough of water, at a great distance, which looked like a sea, and lay from them to the northward of the east, about two points; adding, that they did not know but it might afterwards empty itself to the eastward, and it was their opinion to make the best of their way thither.

Accordingly, the next morning, the whole body decamped, and marched east-north-east, very cheerfully, but found the way much longer than they expected; for though from the mountains the country seemed to lie flat and plain, yet, when they came to measure it by their feet, they found a great many little hills; little, I say, compared to the great mountains, but great to them who were to travel over them in the heat, and with but very indifferent support as to provisions; so that, in a word, the captain very prudently ordered that they should travel only three hours in the morning and three in the evening, and encamp in the heat of the day, to refresh themselves as well as they could.

The best thing they met with in that part of the country was, that they had plenty of water, for though they were not yet come to any large, considerable river, yet every low piece of ground had a small rill of water in it; and the springs coming out from the rising grounds on the sides of the mountains being innumerable, made many such small brooks.

It cost them six days' travel, with two days' resting between, to advance to that river of water, which, from the height of the mountains, seemed to be but a little way off. They could not march, by their computation, above ten or twelve miles a day, and rest every third day too, for their luggage was heavy, and their mules but few; also some of their mules became tired and jaded by their long march, or fell lame, and were good for nothing.

Besides all this, the days which I call days of rest were really not so to them, for those intervals were employed to range about and hunt for food; and it was for want of that, more than for want of rest, that they halted every third day.

In this exercise they did, however, meet with such success, that they made s.h.i.+ft to kill one sort of creature or another every day, sufficient to keep them from famis.h.i.+ng; sometimes they met with some deer, other times with the guinacoes, or Peruvian sheep, and sometimes with fowls of several kinds, so that they did pretty well for food. At length, viz., the seventh day, they came to a river, which was at first small, but having received another small river or two from the northern part of the country, it began to seem large enough for their purpose; and, as it ran east-south-east, they concluded it would run into the lake, and that they might fleet down this river, if they could make anything to carry them.

But their first discouragement was, the country was all open, with very little wood, and no trees, or very few to be found large enough to make canoes, or boats of any sort; but the skill of their carpenters, of which they had four, soon conquered this difficulty; for, coming to a low swampy ground on the side of the river, they found a tree something like a beech, very firm good sort of wood, and yet soft enough to yield to their tools; and they went to work with this, and at first made them some rafts, which they thought might carry them along till the river was bigger.

While this was doing, which took up two or three days, the men straggled up and down; some with their guns to shoot fowls, some with contrivances to catch fish, some one thing, some another; when, on a sudden, one of their fishermen, not in the river, but in a little brook, which afterwards ran into the river, found a little bit of s.h.i.+ning stuff among the sand or earth, in the bank, and cried, he had found a piece of gold.

Now, it seems, all was not gold that glistened, for the lump had no gold in it, whatever it was; but the word being given out at first, it immediately set all our men a-rummaging the sh.o.r.es of every little rill of water they came at, to see if there was any gold; and they had not looked long till they found several little grains, very small and fine, not only in this brook, but in several others; so they spent their time more cheerfully, because they made some advantage.

All this while they saw no people, nor any signals of any; except once, on the other side of the river, at a great distance, they saw about thirty together, but whether men or women, or how many of each, they could not tell, nor would they come any nearer, only stood and gazed at our people at a distance.

They were now ready to quit their camp and embark, intending to lay all their baggage on the rafts, with three or four sick men, and so the rest to march by the river side, and as many as could, to ride upon the mules; when on a sudden, all their navigation was put to a stop, and their new vessels, such as they were, suffered a wreck.

The case was thus:--They had observed a great many black clouds to hang over the tops of the mountains, and some of them even below the tops, and they did believe it rained among the hills, but, in the plain where they lay, and all about them, it was fair, and the weather fine.

But, in the night, the carpenters and their a.s.sistants, who had set up a little tent near the river side, were alarmed with a great roaring noise, as they thought, in the river, though at a distance upwards; presently after, they found the water begin to come into their tent, when, running out, they found the river was swelling over its banks, and all the low grounds on both sides of them.

To their great satisfaction, it was just break of day, so that they could see enough to make their way from the water, and the land very happily rising a little to the south of the river, they immediately fled thither. Two of them had so much presence of mind with them, as to pick up their working-tools, at least some of them, and carry off, and the water rising gradually, the other two carpenters ventured back to save the rest, but they were put to some difficulty to get back again with them; in a word, the water rose to such a height that it carried away their tent, and everything that was in it, and which was worse, their rafts (for they had almost finished four large ones) were lifted off from the place where they were framed, which was a kind of a dry dock, and dashed all to pieces, and the timber, such as it was, all carried away. The smaller brooks also swelled in proportion to the large river; so that, in a word, our men lay as it were, surrounded with water, and began to be in a terrible consternation; for, though they lay in a hard dry piece of ground, too high for the land-flood to reach them, yet, had the rains continued in the mountains, they might have lain there till they had been obliged to eat one another, and so there had been an end of our new discovery.

But the weather cleared up among the hills the next day, which heartened them up again; and as the flood rose so soon, so the current being furiously rapid, the waters ran off again as easily as they came on, and in two days the water was all gone again. But our little float was s.h.i.+pwrecked, as I have said, and the carpenters finding how dangerous such great unwieldy rafts would be, resolved to set to it, and build one large float with sides to it, like a punt or ferry-boat. They worked so hard at this, ten of the men always working with them to help, that in five days they had her finished; the only thing they wanted was pitch and tar, to make her upper work keep out the water, and so they made a s.h.i.+ft to fetch a juice out of some of the wood they had cut, by help of fire, that answered the end tolerably well.

But that which made this disappointment less afflicting was, that our men hunting about the small streams where this water had come down so furiously, found that there was more gold, and the more for the late flood. This made them run straggling up the streams, and, as the captain said, he thought once they would run quite back to the mountains again.

But this was his ignorance too; for after awhile, and the nearer they came to the rising of the hills the quant.i.ty abated; for where the streams were so furious, the water washed it all away, and carried it down with it, so that by the end of five days, the men found but little, and began to come back again.