Up the Forked River; Or, Adventures in South America

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

At the period when the institution rises before us, its students represented the four quarters of the globe. There were young women fitting for the missionary field in India and China; the daughters of eminent financiers in England, Germany, France and Spain, those whose parents’ influence was felt in distant climes, including several from the revolution-pestered republics of South America.

Manuela Estacardo was the only child of the deceased sister of President Pedro Yozarro, Dictator of Atlamalco. She was a brilliant daughter of the tropics, gifted in mind and person, with the midnight eyes and hair, the dark complexion, classical features, small white teeth and faultless form rarely seen except in the fervid sunlight of the low latitudes. Positive and negative electricity draw together, which perhaps explains why the two most devoted intimates at the seminary were Señorita Estacardo and Warrenia Rowland. The latter was a true product of the North, with blue eyes, pink skin, hair like the floss of the ripening corn, and a figure as perfect as her sister’s of the South, while the mental gifts in one were equalled in the other.

The friendship of these two began with their first meeting, and continued unrippled to the sad day of gladness when they were graduated. Manuela spent most of her vacations in the home of Warrenia in California, and the promise had been solemnly given by the latter that she would visit her friend after her return to her distant home under the equator. The story of this sweet comradeship cannot be told in a fractional part of its fulness. To prevent any misunderstanding, however, on the part of the reader, let it be known that though Major Jack Starland and the Señorita were often together, and they became the warmest of friends, there never was and there never could be any tenderer feeling between them. And this was true for the best of reasons: the dark-eyed Señorita had pledged her heart to a certain young officer of her own country. Both were as loyal in their affections as is the magnet to the pole and there was no possible room for complications.

When Mr. Starland presented the handsome yacht to his son Jack, neither he nor his partner Mr. Rowland dreamed of the strange consequences that were to follow. Jack resigned his commission in the army, his yacht, which he had named the Warrenia, in honor of his “sister,” was returned to him with the thanks of the United States government, and he was then ready to carry out the stipulation of his father, that he should bring the craft around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Her usefulness when in the naval service, required her presence in the Atlantic, but she was now free to go whither her owner willed. Thus the perilous voyage had been postponed for a few years.

Manuela Estacardo had returned to her home in tropical America, and she and her dearest friend, Warrenia Rowland, were never laggard in their correspondence. The South American insisted that Warrenia should make her long-promised visit, and the daughter of the North was eager to do so. The journey, however, was so long and difficult that no practicable way presented itself until in a twinkling, as may be said, the path was cleared by the decision of Major Starland to double Cape Horn with his yacht.

What was to prevent his taking Warrenia as a passenger, ascend the Amazon to the home of Manuela and pay that cherished visit? The plan was so simple that every one to whom it was mentioned wondered why it was not thought of before. Aunt Cynthia would accompany her niece as chaperon, and the pause would cause little delay in the voyage. What matter if it did, for time was of no special consequence, and a few weeks, one way or the other, were not worth taking into account.

When Mr. Rowland proposed to his partner that a condition of the gift of the yacht to his son ought to be the severe test of a voyage under the latter’s direction around Cape Horn, he never imagined that his daughter was to share the danger. But he could not ask that the young man of whom he was so fond should be compelled to face a peril of that nature in which he would refuse his daughter a share. It cost him a pang to yield, but he did so without murmur, and fondly kissed her good bye, with never a thought of the remarkable experience she would be called upon to pass through.

As for good Aunt Cynthia, she was wholly ignorant of what in the most favorable circumstances was inevitable. The smothering temperature, the plague of insect life and the actual dangers from the character of the natives themselves, were wholly unknown and unsuspected by her. Had she understood one-half the truth, not even her love for her niece would have impelled her to leave her comfortable home, nor would she ever have given her consent that Warrenia should engage in any such wild, foolhardy undertaking. But Aunt Cynthia’s education had been of the early fashionable kind, which furnished only the smallest modicum of knowledge. You may be sure that the younger ones, who knew a good deal more about the country and the people, took care not to enlighten her when they answered her numerous inquiries.

However, all was satisfactorily arranged and Señorita Estacardo was thrown into transports of delight by the receipt of a letter saying that by the time it reached the young woman, a Miss Rowland would be out on the ocean in the charge of their old friend, Major Jack Starland, and well on their way to the home of the Señorita, where they intended to make a good long visit, before resuming their long voyage around the southern point of the continent and then up the western coast to San Francisco.