"The steamers are neither so large nor so fine as your Clyde boats, but there is a lot of honest comfort in them after all.
"And terrible storms sometimes sweep down from the lofty Cordilleras, and then the lake is all a chaos of broken water and waves even houses high. If caught in such storms, ordinary boats are speedily sunk, and lucky are even the steamers if shelter is handy.
"Well, what would this world be, I wonder, if it were always all sunshine. We should soon get well tired of it, I guess, and want to go somewhere else--to murky England, for example."
Rodrigo blew volumes of smoke before he continued his desultory yarn.
"Do you know, boys, what I saw when in your Britain, south of the Tweed? I saw men calling themselves sportsmen chasing poor little hares with harriers, and following unfortunate stags with buck-hounds. I saw them hunt the fox too, men and women in a drove, and I called them in my own mind cowards all. Brutality and cowardice in every face, and there wasn't a farmer in the flock of stag-hunting Jockies and Jennies who could muster courage enough to face a puma or even an old baboon with a supple stick in its hand. Pah!
"But among the hills and forests around this Lake Titicaca is the paradise of the hunter who has a bit of sand and grit in his substance, and is not afraid to walk a whole mile away from a cow's tail.
"No, there are no dangerous Indians that ever I came across among the mountains and glens; but as you never know what may happen, you've got to keep your cartridges free from damp.
"What kind of game? Well, I was going to say pretty much of all sorts. We haven't got giraffes nor elephants, it is true, nor do we miss them much.
"But there are fish in the lake and beasts on the shore, and rod and gun will get but little holiday, I assure you, lads, if you elect to travel in that strange land.
"I hardly know very much about the fish. They say that the lake is bottomless, and that not only is it swarming with fish, wherever there is a bank, but that terrible animals or beasts have been seen on its deep-blue surface; creatures so fearful in aspect that even their sudden appearance has turned gray the hairs of those who beheld them.