Though far from as swift as the flooded Ohio, the Mississippi bore us rapidly on our way. Divided by island after island and contorted this way and that by out-jutting points, its mighty current, swollen to vast width, yet swept on in majestic grandeur past towering bluffs and inundated lowlands and wildernesses as virgin as in the remote days of De Soto the Spaniard, and La Salle the Frenchman, other than for an occasional plantation and, at longer intervals, the log cabins of the little settlements.
I will not speak of our difficulties from snags and sawyers and delaying eddies, or of the extreme difficulty of shooting the waterfowl, which, though abundant, had long since been taught wariness by the guns aboard the swarming river craft. I shot a swan and now and then a duck, but for the most part was held too close to the navigation of our awkward flat to hunt such shy game.
On the other hand, our well-stocked larder supplied us with all else than fresh meat and milk, and to obtain fish we had only to trail a line over the stern. The season was favorable to the avoidance of fevers and agues; the high water obviated in a measure the danger of shoals and sawyers, and I had had the forethought to provide nettings, which saved us when within the cabin the torments which at night we would otherwise have suffered from mosquitoes and gnats, even out in midchannel.
So, on the whole, our days would have passed pleasantly, even without those joys of companionship of which I have written. Aside from an occasional fierce thunder storm, our May days on the lower river were ideal to southern-born persons like my companions, though the fervid sunrays on the water darkened Don Pedro's aristocratic face to a coffee brown, and burned my ruddy complexion until it presented one unvaried expanse of brick red.
When not at work, Chita was accustomed to doze, uncovered, in the full blaze, mumbling in answer to my repeated warnings, that it would take a lifetime of basking to draw the fog and wet of England and my country from her bones. But she took great care that her mistress should never venture out into the sun-glare unmasked. Though the señorita could endure the heat as well as herself, there was always the señorita's complexion to be considered.
CHAPTER XI
GENERAL WILKINSON
By tacit agreement, throughout our long voyage no mention had been made of its purpose since the evening of our visit with the Blennerhassets. Intimate as had been my relations with Alisanda and her uncle, it was not the part of an honorable man to receive confidences bearing on Don Pedro's plans, until I had seen General Wilkinson and learned whether Colonel Burr's test of influence would stand. Unless committed to the furtherance of the far-reaching projects which the Colonel had outlined to me, I felt that I had no right to share the secrets of the scheme.
In compliance with my wish, Don Pedro had refrained from all allusion to the subject, going so far as seldom to mention his home and country. In consequence, this being Alisanda's first voyage to New Spain, I learned so little of their plans that when we landed at Natchez I knew only that they expected to sail from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, and from there to travel either by diligencia or private coach to a town named Chihuahua, in the desert interior, where the don was possessed of a great estate. Even of the nature and customs of the country I had gathered few facts to add to the vague information acquired in past years from the Spanish Creoles.