Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the Rivers

by Thomas Bulfinch

Eight long days she wandered in this manner hopelessly, and strove to sustain her wretched existence. If one should read in a work of fiction any thing equal to it, he would charge the author with exaggeration, and violation of probability. But it is history; and, however incredible her story may sound, it is rigidly conformed to the truth in all its circumstances, as it was afterwards taken down from the mouth of Madame Godin herself.

On the eighth day of her hopeless wandering, the hapless lady reached the banks of the Bobonosa, a stream which flows into the Amazon. At the break of day, she heard at a little distance a noise, and was alarmed at it. She would have fled, but at once reflected that nothing worse than her present circumstances could happen to her. She took courage, and went towards the place whence the sound proceeded; and here she found two Indians, who were occupied in shoving their boat into the water.

Madame Godin approached, and was kindly received by them. She told to them her desire to be conveyed to Andoas; and the good savages consented to carry her thither in their boat. They did so; and now behold her arrived at that place which the mean and infamous treachery of Mr. R. was the only cause of her not having reached long ago. This base fellow had, with unfeeling cruelty, thrown to the winds his promise to procure them a boat, and had gone on business of his own to Omaguas, a Spanish mission station, without in the least troubling himself about his pledged word, and the rescue of the unfortunates left behind. The honest negro was more true to duty, though he was born and bred a heathen, and the other a Christian.

While the civilized and polished Frenchman unfeelingly went away, and left his benefactress and her companions to languish in the depths of misery, the sable heathen ceased not his exertions till he had procured two Indians to go up the river with him, and bring away his deserted mistress and her companions. But, most unfortunately, he did not reach the hut where he had left them before they had carried into execution the unlucky determination to leave the hut, and seek their way through the wilderness. So he had the pain of failing to find her on his arrival.

Even then, the faithful creature did not feel as if all was done. He, with his Indian companions, followed the traces of the party till he came to the place where the bodies of the perished adventurers lay, which were already so decayed, that he could not distinguish one from the other. This pitiable sight led him to conclude that none of the company could have escaped death. He returned to the hut to take away some things of Madame Godin's which were left there, and carried them not only back with him to Andoas, but from thence (another touching proof of his fidelity) to Omaguas, that he might deposit the articles, some of which were of considerable value, in the hands of the unworthy Mr. R., to be by him delivered to the father of his lamented mistress.

And how did this unworthy Mr. R. behave when he was apprised by the negro of the lamentable death of those whom he had so unscrupulously given over to destitution? Did he shudder at the magnitude and baseness of his crime? Oh, no! Like a heartless knave, he added dishonesty to cruelty, took the things into his keeping, and, to secure himself in the possession of them, sent the generous negro back to Quito. Joachim—for that was the name of this honest and noble black man—had unluckily set out on his journey back before Madame Godin arrived at Andoas. Thus he was lost to her; and her affliction at the loss of such a tried friend showed that the greatness of her past misfortunes had not made her incapable of feeling new distresses.

In Andoas she found a Christian priest, a Spanish missionary; and the behavior of this unchristian Christian contrasts with the conduct of her two Indian preservers, as that of the treacherous R. with that of the generous negro. For instance, when Madame Godin was in embarrassment how to show her gratitude to the good Indians who had saved her life, she remembered, that, according to the custom of the country, she wore around her neck a pair of gold chains, weighing about four ounces. These were her whole remaining property; but she hesitated not a moment, but took them off, and gave one to each of her benefactors. They were delighted beyond measure at such a gift; but the avaricious and dishonest priest took them away from them before the face of the generous giver, and gave them instead some yards of coarse cotton cloth, which they call, in that country, Tukujo. And this man was one of those who were sent to spread Christianity among the heathen, and one from whom those same Indians whom he had treated so dishonestly would hear the lesson, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"!

Madame Godin felt, at seeing such unchristian and unmanly behavior, such deep disgust, that, as soon as she was somewhat recruited from the effects of so many sufferings, she longed for a sight of some boat to enable her to escape from the companionship of this unjust priest, and get to Laguna, one of the aforementioned Spanish mission stations. A kind Indian woman made her a petticoat of cotton cloth, though Madame Godin had nothing to give her in payment for it. But this petticoat was to her, afterwards, a sacred thing, that she would not have parted with for any price. She laid it carefully away with the slippers which she made of her brothers' shoes, and never could, in after-times, look at the two without experiencing a rush of sad and tender recollections.

At Laguna she had the good fortune to find a missionary of better disposition. This one received her with kindness and sympathy, and exerted himself every way he could to restore her health, shattered by so much suffering. He wrote also on her behalf to the Governor of Omaguas, to beg him to aid in expediting her journey. By this means, the elegant Mr. R. learned that she was still alive; and as she was not likely in future to be burdensome to him, while he might, through her means, get a passage in the Portuguese vessel, he failed not to call upon her at Laguna. He delivered to her there some few of the things which Joachim had left in his charge; but to the question, "What had become of the rest?" he had no other answer to make but "They were spoilt." The knave forgot, when he said this, that gold bracelets, snuff-boxes, ear-rings, and pearls, of which this property consisted, are not apt to spoil.

Madame Godin could not forbear making to him the well-merited reproach that he was the cause of her late sufferings, and guilty of the mournful death of her brothers and her other companions. She desired to know, moreover, why he had sent away her faithful servant, the good Joachim; and his unworthy reply was, he had apprehensions that he would murder him. To the question, how he could have such a suspicion against a man whose tried fidelity and honest disposition were known to him, he knew not what to answer.