Some were discovered by stratagem, others by treachery, others, again, by accident; and while the exact bearings of the places were mostly well remembered, others died out of the memory of those to whose trust they had been committed, or in some cases died with them. But to this day it is believed that vast stores of the precious metal still lie waiting the hand of the discoverer, the barbaric relics of a fierce and bloody religion, the creed of an idolatrous people; and many an explorer unrewarded has wasted his days amidst the traces of the ruined temples and tokens of a grand civilisation, scattered here and there amidst the forests and mountain fastnesses of the mighty Andes.
Chapter Two.
After three Ages.
Perhaps it was with reading Robinson Crusoe and Sindbad the Sailor—I don’t know, but I always did have a hankering after going abroad.
Twopence was generally the extent of my supply of hard cash, so I used to get dreaming about gold, and to think that I had only to be wrecked upon some rocky shore to find the remains of a Spanish galleon freighted with gold in doubloons, and bars, and ingots, a prize to which I could lay claim, and be rich for ever after.
Now, with such ideas as these in my head, I ask anybody, was it likely that I could take to soap-boiling?
That was my father’s business, and he was very proud of his best and second quality yellow, and his prime hard mottled. He had made a comfortable living out of it, as his father and grandfather had before him, helping to cleanse no end of people in their time; but I thought then, as I think now, that it was a nasty unpleasant business, whose odour is in my nostrils to the present day.
“You’re no good, Harry,” said my father, “not a bit, and unless you sink that tin-pot pride of yours, and leave off wandering about and wearing out your boots, and take off your coat and go to work, you’ll never get a living. You’ve always got your nose stuck in a book—such trash! Do you ever see me over a book unless it’s a daybook or ledger, eh?”