June 17.—The three previous days passed without any active indications on the part of our tracking foes, but during the twilight dawn of this morning Waantha discovered parties crossing the river in advance from the right to the left bank. With every safe opportunity fuel was renewed to guard against unforeseen emergencies. At noon large bodies of Indians were seen watching our progress from eminences inland, and the trees of either shore. Their appearance caused M. Hollydorf to question his duty in opposition to the prospect the adventure offered for the fulfillment of his commission. All, with the exception of Mr. Dow, expressed themselves in terms of discouragement. Dr. Baāhar depicted the horrors of a death from putrefactive poison, which entailed in life the lingering corruption of bodily decomposition, which even the vultures would disdain to hasten. Mr. Dow was obliged to acknowledge that the preoccupation of their thoughts, while engaged in field avocations, would expose them to certain surprise, and inevitable extermination. But he had set his heart upon the venture and pleaded the advantage that would accrue from the river’s exploration, hoping for some chance interposition for the furtherance of his enterprise. Captain Greenwood, for the relief of Mr. Dow, proposed that the exploration of the river should be continued as far as admissible for the safety of the steamer. M. Hollydorf accepted this proviso, notwithstanding the loss of time it would cause.
June 19.—While the captain and M. Hollydorf were engaged with the calculation of their meridian observations, just as the steamer was closing a long reach, Waantha hobbled aft in great excitement, pointing with energetic gesticulation to a headland we were approaching, and then to our guns on the forecastle deck. Interpreting some new emprise on the part of our savage foes, the boat was kept in the centre of the current, until the view opened beyond the headland, when in melée encounter were seen parties on horseback. On nearer approach women and children were discovered huddled together within a barrier of mules and horses. Parry, the engineer, always prompt with his weapon, sounded a parley, which caused a momentary cessation of hostilities, allowing the boat to gain a position commanding a full view of the parties engaged. A glance, aided by the imploring gestures of the women, whose garments and other indications bespoke an approach to civilized origin, at once enlisted the inclination of our sympathy. The novelty of a scene so unexpected, rendered us for a moment undecided how to act, but the sound of Antonio’s Chinese weapon restored our presence of mind. The Indians quickly recovering from the momentary panic, caused by the shriek of the whistle and clangor of the gong, engaged in a renewed charge upon the unfortunates, who were defending their families with the desperation of despair, and in numbers seemed scarcely one to ten of their foes. The charge of the Indians was accompanied with a derisive whoop, this was almost simultaneously echoed back by the bray of the mules opposed in forlorn hope, which revived Mr. Dow’s with a realizing perception of the ways and means for the achievement of his ambitious project. His rifle had reported the death of four Indians before a general volley put the survivors to flight. The rescued, when they saw the Indians fall and themselves spared, hastened down the bank that they might not interpose their bodies as shields to the savages. The panic of the Indians who were in flight over the pampa was increased by a shell, the report of the gun startling from the western shore a party lying in wait for the issue of the battle on the eastern, with the probable hopes of a chance advantage to themselves. Acting upon the hint that there were among them those who had witnessed the effect of shot and shell on a former occasion, the opportunity was embraced for reviving the impression. When satisfied that all able to molest had carried their bodies out of range, preparations were made for landing to succor the rescued with food and raiment, for they appeared to be in a deplorable condition.
Before landing for the personal expression of sympathy, the punt was loaded with provisions and dispatched to allay the immediate cravings of hunger. The steamer in the meantime was moored to a wood-rift, from which the captain and members of the corps gained the shore. They were received by a man past the middle age, whose face was exceedingly attractive, although wan with fatigue and anxiety. Momentarily embarrassed, as if with doubt of his capacity to make his emotions of gratitude intelligible, he bowed himself down with the intention of prostrating himself at the feet of the captain, but this act of humiliation was arrested by the grasp and hearty shake of his hands. As distress evokes compassionate emotions with the kind-hearted, the captain’s eyes were not alone mindful in the reciprocation of the stranger’s outburst of grateful tears. Quick in demonstration, when his generous impulses were aroused, the captain exceeded the cautious discretion that usually guarded his movements, from fear of imposition, by bestowing a hearty embrace of sympathy upon the careworn guardian of the rescued flock. This act caused, with one exception, a general prostration accompanied with a grateful outburst of tears. The exception to this indicative act of eastern humiliation, bestowed alike in reverence to the tyrant and benefactor, was a maiden who had probably numbered eighteen seasons. Tall and erect in stature, she stood unmindful of the prostrate throng, but not unmoved by the scene enacted between the representative leaders of the rescuers and rescued. The clear transparency of her skin, with the healthy purity of its texture, combined with a graceful form, exceeding in height those with whom she was associated, declared her at once alien to them by birth. Seemingly aware that grateful expressions confined to pantomimic enactment would at the close of the introductory scene prove embarrassing, she advanced, after securing with touch the companionship of two young maidens who had prostrated themselves beside her. Approaching Captain Greenwood, she addressed him in an unknown tongue, which M. Hollydorf with surprise recognized as an idiom of the Latin language. His wonder was augmented by her confident assumption that there were among us some who would be able to converse with her, and through her interpretation would be enabled to hold communication with her protectors, her companions speaking a dialect in remote correspondence with her own. The captain, although gratefully recompensed for his lack of language by the eyes of the fair vision, felt himself unaccountably moved in his isolation, notwithstanding she continued to bestow upon him from those members sympathetic admiration exceeding the compass of speech. The maiden announced herself as a native of Heraclea of the Falls, a walled city but a few days’ travel remote.
“My name,” she continued, “is Correliana Adinope, daughter of the Prætor Adinope, in body deceased, and step-daughter to Adestus the present Prætor. The city has sustained a constant siege for centuries by the savages in revenge for the wrongs committed against them by our ancestors. Its inhabitants are at the present time in the extremity of distress from pestilence engendered by famine. While endeavoring to obtain remedial plants without the city walls I was made prisoner by a band of our besiegers, and was rescued immediately by these fugitives, whom in turn you have saved from destruction.”
Having satisfied in outline the curiosity of M. Hollydorf, she begged that safe means of rest might be afforded her protectors, for they had been constantly harassed for weeks without an hour’s undisturbed sleep. But long before the preparations were completed for a comfortable resting place, Correliana and the wounded were the only ones that remained awake.
Waantha, assisted by the guacâcioes of the crew, collected from the hair and mouths of the dead Indians antidotes, and from the growths of the river bank counteractive remedies, which relieved the excruciating pain of the wounded, and stayed the progress of gangrenous putrefaction. At sunset all the rescued were in a deep lethargic sleep, and as the night was pleasant, and the glade where they lay was open to the river, with a day draught that freed it from miasm, but little fear was apprehended from their exposure, notwithstanding the tattered condition of their clothing. Fortunately, before the evening was far advanced, the captain bethought himself of his trading stock, from which he soon obtained fabrics well adapted for their protection. Mr. Dow, restored to the full vigor of ambitious vitality, busied himself in organizing a guard for the protection of the mules and horses, listening the while to Aabrawa’s relation of their owner’s source, for he had recognized them as belonging to a colony located far to the eastward of his place of nativity, who were known to his people by the name of Bamboyles. Mr. Dow viewing his night charge as the keys destined to unlock the gates of his New Jerusalem, he picketed them in the most verdant portion of the glade. When morning dawned his fears were startled to find them still prone with scarcely a sign of vitality; and as his attempts to arouse them failed to elicit more than a drowsy snort he feared that with all his vigilance they had been poisoned, but was reassured by Dr. Baāhar, who pronounced their immobile condition as lethargic, induced from hunger and fatigue.
While the night dew was still on the foliage Waantha pointed to a long line of animals approaching the river from the plain, which proved to be llamas. Upon this hint the three marksmen took the steamer’s boat to find their “toch,” or path to the river, and were successful in securing a supply of game sufficient for several days’ consumption. Before his guests awoke the captain had prepared a tent for the reception of the women and children, and an abundance of food for all. In addition he was able to furnish from his trading stock dresses, which, with a little alteration, would supply the requirements of the women.
The mayorong, or chief of the Bamboyles, and Correliana were the first to awake in the morning; the latter, with her two companions, were conducted to the tent and there presented with the means of renewing their garments. In communicating the kindly expressions bestowed, with the gifts, her companions, in returning thanks, used the Spanish idiom, which startled Mr. Welson with pleasurable surprise, as it opened to him a direct avenue of speaking intercourse, for its varied provincialisms were as familiar to him as his patrial mother tongue. After the agreeable confusion, occasioned by Mr. Welson addressing them in Spanish, had subsided, the eldest introduced herself as Cleorita and her sister as Oviata Arcos, daughters of Don Santiago Arcos, a native of Madrid, the chief city of Spain. On hearing this announcement he became joyfully elated, bestowing upon both a fond recognition, as they were the daughters of a personal friend of former years. After a long conversation, in which they gave him an outline history of their people, and the cause that forced them to become wandering exiles from their loved country, with the distressful mishaps which had attended their search for a new home, they separated reluctantly for the day. In answer to Mr. Welson’s sympathetic desire to render burial assistance in the regretful disposal of their dead relatives, the mayorong replied, that unless their preservers especially wished to be present they would prefer to indulge in their sorrows alone. Readily understanding the motive, Mr. Welson and associates returned to the steamer while the ceremonies were in progress.
As Waantha had discovered Indian scouts lurking above and below upon either bank of the river, Mr. Dow exercised his engineering skill in forming on the pampa a defensive redoubt for the night protection of the horses and mules. Dr. Baāhar theoretically explained the Latin nomenclature of the different departments of the Roman castrum, which possessed from his natural and cultivated innocence from mechanical attaint the supreme “virtue” of novelty. Mr. Dow submitted to his classical dictations, but stoutly refused to adopt his method of fortification, which the doctor styled fossa cingere internus, or moating inside of the redoubt, notwithstanding the strongly urged advantage of its strategic intention of concealment, that would lead the savages, on gaining the summit of the embankment, to take a blind leap into it. Fortunately the padre was present to divert the argument, which enabled him to render practical assistance to his Bamboyle aids for the completion of the inclosure in time for the night’s occupation. The absence of the doctor and padre from the supper table caused the captain to inquire where they were? Mr. Dow said that he had left them but a short time previous seated on the sods of the embankment engaged in a dogmatic discussion of the feasibility of the various methods adopted by the ancients and moderns for citadel defense, the doctor quoting from “Plutarch’s Lives” and the padre from Bunyan’s “Holy War” as the best English authority. Aggravated by the heedless lack of sympathy shown in the use of their tongues, the while withholding the useful aid of their hands, the captain, on their appearance, reprimanded the doctor over the padre’s shoulders with tart severity, which caused both to give heed to the practical suggestions of Mr. Welson in train for the outfit of the overland expedition. From the direction of Correliana, who seemed to have an innate perception of her entertainers’ dispositions, the captain concluded to continue the voyage up the river to a point she described as more favorable for debarkation, as it was nearer the southern passes of the mountains that opened a way to the city of Heraclea.