Maiden Voyages (5 page)

I cannot describe the bitter reflections this story caused me. Everywhere I encountered moral anguish; everywhere I saw that it proceeded from the evil prejudice that sets man against Providence, and I raged at the slow progress of human reason. I asked the handsome commander if he had any children. “Yes,” he replied, “a daughter as beautiful as her mother, and a son who is said to look very much like me; I have not seen him, he will be four years old when I do, if God permits it.” And the unhappy man repressed a sigh. He was still sensitive, because he was still young, but by the time he is fifty he will probably be as unfeeling as his father-in-law; and perhaps he will exact from his own son and daughter sacrifices as cruel as those imposed on him. This is how the prejudices which deprave our nature are transmitted; and the sequence will not be broken until there arise beings endowed by God with a firm will and resolute courage, who are prepared to suffer martyrdom rather than endure servitude.

On 30 April at eleven in the morning we sailed out of the Bay of Islay, and on 4 May at two in the afternoon we dropped anchor in the roads of Callao. This port did not seem to be as busy as Valparaiso. Recent political events had had a disastrous effect on trade and there were fewer ships than usual.

From the sea Lima is clearly visible on a hill surrounded by the mighty Andes. The size of the city, together with the imposing height of its many bell-towers, lend it an air of grandeur and enchantment.

We stayed at Callao until four o’clock waiting for the coach for Lima, which gave me ample time to examine the town. Like Valparaiso and Islay, Callao has grown so rapidly in the past ten years that after an absence of two or three years captains hardly recognise the place. The finest houses are owned by English or American merchants; they have large warehouses there, and their commercial activities give rise to continual movement between the port and the city some five miles away. Mr. Smith took me to the house of his correspondents, and here once more I found all the luxury and comfort characteristic of the English. The servants were English, and like their masters they were dressed just as they would have been in England. The house had a verandah, as do all the houses in Lima, and this is very convenient in hot countries, as it gives shelter from the sun and enables one to walk all round the house to take the air. This particular verandah was embellished with pretty English blinds. I stayed there for some time and could survey in comfort the only long wide street which constitutes the whole of Callao. It was a Sunday, and sailors in holiday attire were strolling about: I saw groups of Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Germans—in short, a mixture from nearly every nation—and I heard snatches of every tongue. As I listened to these sailors I began to understand the charm they find in their adventurous life and the enthusiasm it inspired in that
true sailor
Leborgne. When I tired of looking at the street I cast a glance into the large drawing-room whose windows overlooked the verandah, where five or six immaculately dressed Englishmen, their handsome faces calm and impassive, were drinking grog and smoking excellent Havana cigars as they swung gently to and fro in hammocks from Guayaquil suspended from the ceiling.

At last it was four o’clock and we climbed into the coach. The driver was French and all the people I found there spoke French or English. I met two Germans, great friends of Althaus, and immediately I felt at home. It was the first time I had been in a coach since I left Bordeaux, and the pleasure this gave me kept me happy all through the two-hour journey; I really thought I was back in civilisation.

The road out of Callao is bad, but after a mile or so it becomes tolerably good: very wide, smooth, and not too dusty. Just over a mile from Callao, on the right, lie the extensive ruins of some Indian city
which had already ceased to exist when the Spaniards conquered the country. It would probably be possible to discover from Indian chronicles what this place was and how it came to be destroyed; but up to now the history of the Indians has not inspired sufficient interest in their conquerors for them to devote themselves to such research. A little further, on the left, is the village of Bella-Vista, where there is a hospital for sailors. Half-way to Lima, our driver stopped at an inn kept by a Frenchman, and after that, the city spread before us in all its magnificence, while the surrounding countryside provided a wealth of luxuriant vegetation in every shade of green: there were giant orange trees, clumps of bananas, lofty palms and many other species native to these regions, each with its distinctive foliage.

A mile or so before one enters the city the road is lined with great trees, and the effect of this avenue is truly majestic. There were quite a few people strolling on either side and several young men on horseback passed by our coach. I was told that this avenue is one of the principal promenades in Lima; among the women many were wearing the
saya
, and this costume struck me as so bizarre that it captured all my attention. Lima is a closed city, and at the end of the avenue we arrived at one of the gates. Its pillars are made of brick, and the façade, engraved with the arms of Spain, had been defaced. Officials searched the coach, just as they do at the gates of Paris. We went through much of the city; I thought the streets looked spacious and the houses quite different from the houses in Arequipa. Lima, so splendid from a distance, does not live up to its promise when you are inside; the houses are shabby, the windows are unglazed, and their iron grilles create an impression of suspicion and constraint; at the same time it is depressing to see so little sign of life in the streets. The coach stopped at a pleasant-looking house from which emerged a large stout lady whom I recognised immediately from the description the gentlemen of the
Mexicain
had given me as Madame Denuelle. This lady opened the door of the coach herself, helped me to alight, and said in the most affable manner: “Mademoiselle Tristan, we have been impatiently awaiting your arrival for a long time. M Chabrié and M David have told us so much about you that we are very happy to have you with us.”

(1780–1863)

from
DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE AMERICANS

REMOVAL TO THE COUNTRY—WALK IN THE FOREST—EQUALITY

At length my wish of obtaining a house in the country was gratified. A very pretty cottage, the residence of a gentleman who was removing into town, for the convenience of his business as a lawyer, was to let,
and I immediately secured it. It was situated in a little village about a mile and a half from the town, close to the foot of the hills formerly mentioned as the northern boundary of it. We found ourselves much more comfortable here than in the city. The house was pretty and commodious, our sitting-rooms were cool and airy; we had got rid of the detestable mosquitoes, and we had an ice-house that never failed. Besides all this, we had the pleasure of gathering our tomatoes from our own garden, and receiving our milk from our own cow. Our manner of life was infinitely more to my taste than before; it gave us all the privileges of rusticity, which are fully as incompatible with a residence in a little town of Western America as with a residence in London. We lived on terms of primaeval intimacy with our cow, for if we lay down on our lawn she did not scruple to take a sniff at the book we were reading, but then she gave us her own sweet breath in return. The verge of the cool-looking forest that rose opposite our windows was so near, that we often used it as an extra drawing-room, and there was no one to wonder if we went out with no other preparation than our parasols, carrying books and work enough to while away a long summer day in the shade; the meadow that divided us from it was covered with a fine short grass, that continued for a little way under the trees, making a beautiful carpet, while sundry logs and stumps furnished our sofas and tables. But even this was not enough to satisfy us when we first escaped from the city, and we determined upon having a day’s enjoyment of the wildest forest scenery we could find. So we packed up books, albums, pencils, and sandwiches, and, despite a burning sun, dragged up a hill so steep that we sometimes fancied we could rest ourselves against it by only leaning forward a little. In panting and in groaning we reached the top, hoping to be refreshed by the purest breath of heaven; but to have tasted the breath of heaven we must have climbed yet farther, even to the tops of the trees themselves, for we soon found that the air beneath them stirred not, nor ever had stirred, as it seemed to us, since first it settled there, so heavily did it weigh upon our lungs.

Still we were determined to enjoy ourselves, and forward we went, crunching knee deep through aboriginal leaves, hoping to reach some spot less perfectly air-tight than our landing-place. Wearied with the fruitless search, we decided on reposing awhile on the trunk of a fallen
tree; being all considerably exhausted, the idea of sitting down on this tempting log was conceived and executed simultaneously by the whole party, and the whole party sunk together through its treacherous surface into a mass of rotten rubbish that had formed part of the pith and marrow of the eternal forest a hundred years before.

We were by no means the only sufferers by the accident; frogs, lizards, locusts, katiedids, beetles, and hornets, had the whole of their various tenements disturbed, and testified their displeasure very naturally by annoying us as much as possible in return; we were bit, we were stung, we were scratched; and when, at last, we succeeded in raising ourselves from the venerable ruin, we presented as woeful a spectacle as can well be imagined. We shook our (not ambrosial) garments, and panting with heat, stings, and vexation, moved a few paces from the scene of our misfortune, and again sat down; but this time it was upon the solid earth.

We had no sooner began to “chew the cud” of the bitter fancy that had beguiled us to these mountain solitudes than a new annoyance assailed us. A cloud of mosquitoes gathered round, and while each sharp proboscis sucked our blood, they teased us with their humming chorus, till we lost all patience, and started again on our feet, pretty firmly resolved never to try the
al fresco
joys of an American forest again. The sun was now in its meridian splendour, but our homeward path was short, and down hill, so again packing up our preparations for felicity, we started homeward, or, more properly speaking, we started, for in looking for an agreeable spot in this dungeon forest we had advanced so far from the verge of the hill that we had lost all trace of the precise spot where we had entered it. Nothing was to be seen but multitudes of tall, slender, melancholy stems, as like as peas, and standing within a foot of each other. The ground, as far as the eye could reach (which certainly was not far), was covered with an unvaried bed of dried leaves; no trace, no track, no trail, as Mr Cooper would call it, gave us a hint which way to turn; and having paused for a moment to meditate, we remembered that chance must decide for us at last, so we set forward, in no very good mood, to encounter new misfortunes. We walked about a quarter of a mile, and coming to a steep descent, we thought ourselves extremely fortunate, and began to scramble down, nothing doubting that it was the same we had scrambled up. In truth,
nothing could be more like, but, alas! things that are like are not the same; when we had slipped and stumbled down to the edge of the wood, and were able to look beyond it, we saw no pretty cottage with the shadow of its beautiful acacias coming forward to meet us; all was different; and, what was worse, all was distant from the spot where we had hoped to be. We had come down the opposite side of the ridge, and had now to win our weary way a distance of three miles round its base. I believe we shall none of us ever forget that walk. The bright, glowing, furnace-like heat of the atmosphere seems to scorch as I recall it. It was painful to tread, it was painful to breathe, it was painful to look round; every object glowed with the reflection of the fierce tyrant that glared upon us from above.