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

by Daniel Defoe

One night I had a very strange fright here, and behaved myself very much like a simpleton about it. The case was this. I waked in the middle of the night, and, chancing to open my eyes, I saw a great light of fire, which, to me, seemed as if the house, or some part of it, had been on fire, I, as if I had been at Wapping or Rotherhithe, where people are always terrified with such things, jumped out of bed, and called my friend, Captain Merlotte, and cried out, Fire! fire! The first thing I should have thought of on this occasion should have been, that the Spaniards did not understand what the words fire! fire! meant; and that, if I expected they should understand me, I should have cried Fuego, Fuego!

However, Captain Merlotte got up, and my Madagascar captain, for we all lay near one another, and, with the noise, they waked the whole house; and my landlord, as he afterwards confessed, began to suspect some mischief, his steward having come to his chamber door, and told him that the strangers were up in arms; in which mistake we might have all had our throats cut, and the poor Spaniard not to blame neither.

But our doctor coming hastily in to me, unriddled the whole matter, which was this: that a volcano, or burning vent among the hills, being pretty near the Spanish side of the country, as there are many of them in the Andes, had flamed out that night, and gave such a terrible light in the air as made us think the fire had at least been in the outhouses, or in part of the house, and, accordingly, had put me in such a fright.

Upon this, having told me what it was, he ran away to the Spanish servants, and told them what the meaning of it all was, and bade them go and satisfy their master, which they did, and all was well again; but, as for myself, I sat up almost all the night staring out from the window at the eruption of fire upon the hills, for the like wonderful appearance I had never seen before.

I sincerely begged my landlord's pardon for disturbing his house, and asked him if those eruptions were frequent? He said no, they were not frequent, for they were constant, either in one part of the hills or another; and that in my passing the mountains I should see several of them. I asked him if they were not alarmed with them? and if they were not attended with earthquakes? He said, he believed that among the hills themselves they might have some shakings of the earth, because sometimes were found pieces of the rocks that had been broken off and fallen down; and that it was among those that sometimes parts of stone were found which had gold interspersed in them, as if they had been melted and run together, of which he had shown me some; but that, as for earthquakes in the country, he had never heard of any since he came thither, which had been upwards of fifteen years, including three years that he dwelt at St. Jago.

One day, being out on horseback with my landlord, we rode up close to the mountains, and he showed me at a distance, an entrance as he called it, into them, frightful enough, indeed, as shall be described in its place. He then told me, that was the way he intended to carry me when he should go to show me the highest hills in the world; but he turned short, and, smiling, said it should not be yet; for, though he had promised me a safe return, and left hostages for it, yet he had not capitulated for time.

I told him he need not capitulate with me for time; for if I had not two ships to stay my coming, and between three and four hundred men eating me up all the while, I did not know whether I should ever go away again or not, if he would give me house room. He told me as to that, he had sent my men some provisions, so that they would not starve if I did not go back for some days. This surprised me not a little, and I discovered it in my countenance. Nay, seignior, says he, I have only sent them some victuals to maintain my two hostages, for you know they must not want. It was not good manners in me to ask what he had sent; but I understood, as soon as my midshipman returned, that he had sent down sixteen cows or runts, I know not what else to call them, but they were black cattle, thirty hogs, thirteen large Peruvian sheep, as big as great calves, and three casks of Chilian wine, with an assurance that they should have more provisions when that was spent.

I was amazed at all this munificence of the Spaniard, and very glad I was that I had sent my midshipman for the things I intended to present him with, for I was as well able to requite him for a large present as he was to make it, and had resolved it before I knew he had sent anything to the ships; so that this exchanging of presents was but a kind of generous barter or commerce; for as to gold, we had either of us so much, that it was not at all equal in value to what we had to give on both sides, as we were at present situated.

In short, my midshipman returned with the horses and servants, and when he had brought what I had sent for into a place which I desired the Spaniard to allow me to open my things in, I sent my doctor to desire the Spaniard to let me speak with him.