“Yes, I mean quinine, the beautiful crystals obtained from the bark of these trees, boy; the medicine kept so jealously guarded here, the only place where it is produced, high up on the eastern slope of these mountains. I have come to seek it, and have found it far more easily than I expected: we are sitting and lying here right in the middle of one of the cinchona groves.”
“But we can’t take away much, father, even if they will let us,” said Perry.
“Wrong, boy. I hope that we shall be able to bear away, unseen, enough to stock the world, and to make the drug, which is a blessing to humanity, plentiful, instead of civilised Europe having to depend upon the supply from here—from this carefully-guarded place.”
“You mean to take away some young trees,” said Cyril excitedly.
“I should like to do so, but that is a doubtful way, my boy. The young trees would be awkward to carry, and transplanting trees often means killing them. We must try something better than that, though. I shall see what I can do in making one bundle, with the roots carefully bound up in damp moss.”
“Yes, we might do that,” assented Cyril, “but we didn’t bring a spade.”
“Let us find some tiny trees, and we’ll do without a spade,” said the colonel quietly. “But I am in this position, boys. I know very little about the trees we see around us. That they are the right ones there can be no doubt, for the Indians are camped here, cutting them down, and peeling off and drying the bark. There are several kinds which produce inferior kinds of quinine; but these laurel-like evergreen trees produce the true, the best Peruvian bark; and it is to take away the means of propagating these trees in suitable hot mountainous colonies of our own, that we are here. Now, how is it to be done?”
“Indians won’t let it be done, sir,” said Manning. “Here, I know lots o’ places up Simla way where it would grow fine. Up there, north o’ Calcutta, sir.”
“Yes; there are spots there where it might be grown, or in the mountains of Ceylon,” said the colonel; “but we have to get it there.”
“I know,” said Cyril. “Let’s get heaps of seed. Why, we might till our pockets that way.”