a structure speedily raised after the fashion of the country.
The walls were of split and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long fibres of a dried climbing plant; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the ceiling of reeds. When an earthquake shook the district—for earthquakes were frequent—the inmates of such a fabric merely felt as if shaken in a basket, without sustaining any harm. In front of the cottage lay a woody ravine, extending almost to the base of the Andes, gorgeously clothed in primeval vegetation—magnolias, palms, bamboos, tree-ferns, acacias, cedars; and, towering over all, the great almendrons, with their smooth, silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters of pure white blossom. The forest was haunted by myriads of gay insects, butterflies with wings of dazzling lustre, birds of brilliant plumage, humming-birds, golden orioles, toucans, and a
host of solitary warblers. But the glorious sunsets seen from his cottage-porch more than all astonished and delighted the young engineer; and he was accustomed to say that, after having witnessed them, he was reluctant to accuse the ancient Peruvians of idolatry.
But all these natural beauties failed to reconcile him to the harassing difficulties of his situation, which continued to increase rather than diminish. He was hampered by the action of the Board at home, who gave ear to hostile criticisms on his reports; and, although they afterwards made handsome acknowledgment of his services, he felt his position to be altogether unsatisfactory. He therefore determined to leave at the expiry of his three years engagement, and communicated his decision to the directors accordingly. On receiving his letter, the Board, through Mr. Richardson, of Lombard street, one of the directors, communicated with his father at Newcastle, representing that if he would allow his son to remain in Colombia the Company would make it “worth his while.” To this the father gave a decided negative, and intimated that he himself needed his son’s assistance, and that he must return at the expiry of his three years’ term,—a decision, writes Robert, “at which I feel much gratified, as it is clear that he is as anxious to have me back in England as I am to get there.” [199] At the same time, Edward Pease, a principal partner in the Newcastle firm, privately wrote Robert to the following effect, urging his return home:—“I can assure thee that thy business at Newcastle, as well as thy father’s engineering, have suffered very much from thy absence, and, unless thou soon return, the former will be given up, as Mr. Longridge is not able to give it that attention it requires; and what is done is not done with credit to the house.” The idea of the manufactory being given up, which Robert had laboured so hard to establish before leaving England, was painful to him in the extreme, and he wrote to the
manager of the Company, strongly urging that arrangements should be made for him to leave without delay. In the mean time he was again laid prostrate by another violent attack of aguish fever; and when able to write in June, 1827, he expressed himself as “completely wearied and worn down with vexation.”
At length, when he was sufficiently recovered from his attack and able to travel, he set out on his voyage homeward in the beginning of August. At Mompox, on his way down the river Magdalena, he met Mr. Bodmer, his successor, with a fresh party of miners from England, on their way up the country to the quarters which he had just quitted. Next day, six hours after leaving Mompox, a steamboat was met ascending the river, with Bolivar the Liberator on board, on his way to St. Bogota; and it was a mortification to our engineer that he had only a passing sight of that distinguished person. It was his intention, on leaving Mariquita, to visit the Isthmus of Panama on his way home, for the purpose of inquiring into the practicability of cutting a canal to unite the Atlantic and Pacific—a project which then formed the subject of considerable public discussion; but his presence being so anxiously desired at home, he determined to proceed to New York without delay.
Arrived at the port of Cartagena, he had to wait some time for a ship. The delay was very irksome to him, the more so as the city was then desolated by the ravages of the yellow fever. While sitting one day in the large, bare, comfortless public room at the miserable hotel at which he put up, he observed two strangers, whom he at once perceived to be English. One of the strangers was a tall, gaunt man, shrunken and hollow-looking, shabbily dressed, and apparently poverty-stricken. On making inquiry, he found it was Trevithick, the builder of the first railroad locomotive! He was returning home from the gold-mines of Peru penniless. He had left England in 1816, with powerful steam-engines, intended for the drainage and working of the
Peruvian mines. He met with almost a royal reception on his landing at Lima. A guard of honour was appointed to attend him, and it was even proposed to erect a statue of Don Ricardo Trevithick in solid silver. It was given forth in Cornwall that his emoluments amounted to £100,000 a year, [201] and that he was making a gigantic fortune. Great, therefore, was Robert Stephenson’s surprise to find this potent Don Ricardo in the inn at Cartagena, reduced almost to his last shilling, and unable to proceed further. He had indeed realised the truth of the Spanish proverb, that “a silver-mine brings misery, a gold-mine ruin.” He and his friend had lost everything in their journey across the country from Peru. They had forded rivers and wandered through forests, leaving all their baggage behind them, and had reached thus far with little more than the clothes upon their backs. Almost the only remnant of precious metal saved by Trevithick was a pair of silver spurs, which he took back with him to Cornwall. Robert Stephenson lent him £50 to enable him to reach England; and though he was afterwards heard of as an inventor there, he had no further part in the ultimate triumph of the locomotive.
But Trevithick’s misadventures on this occasion had not yet ended, for before he reached New York he was wrecked, and Robert Stephenson with him. The following is the account of the voyage, “big with adventures,” as given by the latter in a letter to his friend Illingworth:—“At first we had very little foul weather, and indeed were for several days becalmed amongst the islands, which was so far fortunate, for a few degrees further north the most tremendous gales were blowing, and they appear (from our future information) to have wrecked every vessel exposed to their violence. We had two examples of the effects of the hurricane; for, as we sailed north we took on board the remains of two crews found floating about on dismantled hulls. The one had been nine days without food of any