“Listen to me, gentlemen, and sailors all. You know that we have a maiden on board here, by no choice of our own. Whether she will be a blessing to us, God alone can tell: but she may turn to the greatest curse which has befallen us ever since we came out over Bar three years ago. Promise me one thing, or I put her ashore the next beach; and that is, that you will treat her as if she were your own sister.”
[180-1] This selection is abridged from the twenty-fifth chapter in Westward Ho! Charles Kingsley’s great novel of adventure.
In the story are related the adventures of Amyas Leigh, a large, powerful and exceedingly vigorous man from Devonshire, who follows the life of the sea during the days of Queen Elizabeth. Like many of the men of his age, he becomes absorbed with the notion that in South America is the great city of Manoa, whose wealth in gold and jewels far exceeds that of Mexico and Peru.
After an exciting voyage, enlivened by conflicts with Spanish ships, the survivors land on the coast of South America and proceed inward in search of Manoa. Besides the dangers from Spaniards and natives, they meet with all the perils of the wilderness: disease and death at the hands of the Spaniards, Indians and wild animals thinning their ranks to less than half; yet the spirits of Amyas never falter, and the remnant of his force follow him with a devotion that is wonderful.
[180-2] Charles Kingsley, an English clergyman, was born in 1819 and entered Cambridge University in 1838. Ten years later he published the first of his stories, and in 1855, Westward Ho! Next to this book probably ranks his Hypatia, which he published in 1855, and which tells a thrilling tale of the struggles of Christianity with the Greek faith in the fifth century. He was a successful clergyman and became Canon of Westminster. He visited the United States in 1874, but his health was even then failing, and a year later he died.
[180-3] The party landed on the coast of South America, and in the preceding chapter is told the story of their stay in a hospitable Indian village where they rested and prepared themselves for two weeks of hard travel.
[181-4] This Indian lad was rescued from the Spaniards by Amyas and is devoted to the latter. He acts as interpreter, and his keen sight and familiarity with the southern wilderness make him of great value to the wanderers.
[181-5] Cundinamarca was the central province in what is now the Republic of Colombia. Its streams are tributary to the Orinoco, though it extends westward into the Andes. It derived its name from a native American goddess, and before the Spaniards devastated the region it was one of the chief centers of Indian civilization in South America.