Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas

by Charles James Lever

A sharp short stroke of the “barreta,” the iron-shod staff of the Gambusino, soon shivers the rock where treasure is suspected; and, the fragments being submitted to the action of a strong fire, the existence of gold is at once tested. Often the mere stroke of the barreta will display the shining lustre of the metal without more to do. Such is, for the most part, the extent of their skill.

There are, of course, gradations even here; and some will distinguish themselves above their fellows in the detection of profitable sources and rich “crestones,” while others rarely rise above the rank of mere “washers,”—men employed to sift the sands and deposits of the rivers in which the chief product is gold-dust.

Such, then, is the life of a “Gambusino.” In this pursuit he traverses the vast continent of South America from east to west, crossing torrents, scaling cliffs, descending precipices, braving hunger, thirst, heat, and snow, encountering hostile Indians and the not less terrible bands of rival adventurers, contesting for existence with the wild animals of the desert, and generally at last paying with his life the price of his daring intrepidity. Few, indeed, are ever seen as old men among their native villages; nearly all have found their last rest beneath the scorching sand of the prairie.

Upon every other subject than that of treasure-seeking, their minds were a perfect blank. For them, the varied resources of a land abounding in the products of every clime, had no attraction. On the contrary, the soil which grew the maize, indigo, cotton, the sugar-cane, coffee, the olive, and the vine, seemed sterile and barren, since in such regions no gold was ever found. The wondrous fertility of that series of terraces which, on the Andes, unite the fruits of the torrid zone with the lichens of the icy North, had no value in the estimation of men who acknowledged but one wealth, and recognized but one idol. Their hearts turned from the glorious vegetation of this rich garden to the dry courses of the torrents that fissure the Cordilleras, or the stony gorges that intersect the Rocky Mountains.

The life of wild and varied adventure, too, that they led was associated with these deserted and trackless wastes. To them, civilization presented an aspect of slavish subjection and dull uniformity; while in the very vicissitudes of their successes there was the excitement of gambling: rich to-day, they vowed a lamp of solid gold to the “Virgin,”—to-morrow, in beggary, they braved the terrors of sacrilege to steal from the very altar they had themselves decorated. What strange and wondrous narratives did they recount as we wandered over that swelling prairie!

Many avowed that their own misdeeds had first driven them to the life of the deserts; and one who had lived for years a prisoner among the Choctaws confessed that his heart still lingered with the time when he had sat as a chief beside the war-fire, and planned stratagems against the tribe of the rival Pawnees. To men of hardy and energetic temperament, recklessness has an immense fascination. Life is so often in peril, they cease to care much for whatever endangers it; and thus, through all their stories, the one feeling ever predominated,—a careless indifference to every risk coupled with a most resolute conduct in time of danger.

I soon managed to make myself a favorite with this motley assemblage; my natural aptitude to pick up language, aided by what I already knew of French and German, assisted me to a knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese; while from a “half-breed” I acquired a sufficiency of the Indian dialect in use throughout the Lower Prairies. I was fleet of foot, besides being a good shot with the rifle,—qualities of more request among my companions than many gifts of a more brilliant order; and, lastly, my skill in cookery, which I derived from my education on board the “Firefly,” won me high esteem and much honor. My life was therefore far from unpleasant. The monotony of the tract over which we marched was more than compensated for by the marvellous tales that beguiled the way. One only drawback existed on my happiness; and yet that was sufficient to embitter many a lonely hour of the night, and cast a shade over many a joyous hour of the day. I am almost ashamed to confess what that source of sorrow was, the more as, perhaps, my kind reader will already fancy he has anticipated my grief, and say, “It was the remembrance of Donna Maria; the memory of her I was never to see more.” Alas, no! It was a feeling far more selfish than this afflicted me. The plain fact is, I was called “The Lépero.” By no other name would my companions know or acknowledge me. It was thus they first addressed me, and so they would not take the trouble to change my appellation. Not that, indeed, I dared to insinuate a wish upon the subject; such a hint would have been too bold a stroke to hazard in a company where one was called “Brise-ses-fers,” another, “Colpo-di-Sangue,” a third, “Teufel's Blut,” and so on.

It was to no purpose that I appeared in all the vigor of health and strength. I might outrun the wildest bull of the buffalo herd; I might spring upon the half-trained “mustang,” and outstrip the antelope in her flight; I might climb the wall-like surface of a cliff, and rob the eagle of her young: but when I came back, the cry of welcome that met me was, “Bravo, Lépero!” And thus did I bear about with me the horrid badge of that dreary time when I dwelt within the Lazaretto of Bexar.

The very fact that the name was not used in terms of scoff or reproach increased the measure of its injury. It called for no reply on my part; it summoned no energy of resistance; it was, as it were, a simple recognition of certain qualities that distinguished me and made up my identity; and at last, to such an extent did it work upon my imagination that I yielded myself up to the delusion that I was all that they styled me,—an outcast and a leper! When this conviction settled down on my mind, I ceased to fret as before, but a gloomy depression gained possession of me, uncheered save by the one hope that my life should not be entirely spent among my present associates, and that I should yet be known as something else than “The Lépero.”

The prairie over which we travelled never varied in aspect save with the changing hours of the day. The same dreary swell, the same yellowish grass, the same scathed and scorched cedars, the same hazy outlines of distant mountains that we saw yesterday, rose before us again to-day, as we knew they would on the morrow,—till at last our minds took the reflection of the scene, and we journeyed along, weary, silent, and footsore. It was curious enough to mark how this depression exhibited itself upon different nationalities. The Saxon became silent and thoughtful, with only a slight dash of more than ordinary care upon his features, the Italian grew peevish and irritable, the Spaniard was careless and neglectful, while the Frenchman became downright vicious in the wayward excesses of his spiteful humor. Upon the half-breeds, two of whom were our guides, no change was ever perceptible. Too long accustomed to the life of the prairie to feel its influence as peculiar, they plodded on, the whole faculties bent upon one fact,—the discovery of the Chihuahua trail, from which our new track was to diverge in a direction nearly due west.