Abbé Balthazar.
Though my wounds had not ceased their smarting nor my bones their aching my happiness was complete. The splendid prospect before me, the glittering peaks of the Cordillera, the gleaming waters of the far Pacific, the gardens and fountains of San Cristobal, the charm of Angela’s presence, and the abbé’s conversation made me oblivious to the past and careless of the future. The hardships and perils I had lately undergone, my weary wanderings in the wilderness, the dull monotony of the Happy Valley, the passage of the Andes, my terrible ride on the nandu, all were forgotten. The contrast between my by-gone miseries and present surroundings added zest to my enjoyment. I felt as one suddenly transported from Hades to Elysium, and it required an effort to realize that it was not all a dream, destined to end in a rude awaking.
After some talk about Europe, the revolt of the Spanish colonies, and my recent adventures, the abbé gave me an account of his life and adventures. The scion of a noble French family, he had been first a page of honor at Versailles, then an officer of the garde du corps, and among the gayest of the gay. But while yet a youth some terrible event on which he did not like to dwell—a disastrous love affair, a duel in which he killed one who had been his friend—wrought so radical a change in his character and his ideals that he resigned his commission, left the court, and joined the Society of Jesus, under the name of Balthazar. Being a noble he became an abbé (though he had never an abbey) as a matter of course, and full of religious ardor and thirsting for distinction in his new calling he volunteered to go out as a missionary among the wild tribes of South America.
After long wanderings, and many hardships, Balthazar and two fellow priests accidentally discovered Quipai, at that time a mere collection of huts on the banks of a small stream which descended from the gorges of the Cordillera only to be lost in the sands of the desert. But all around were remains which showed that Quipai had once been a place of importance and the seat of a large population—ruined buildings of colossal dimensions, heaps of quarried stones, a cemetery rich in relics of silver and gold; and a great azequia, in many places still intact, had brought down water from the heart of the mountains for the irrigation of the rainless region of the coast.
Balthazar had moreover heard of the marvellous system of irrigation whereby the Incas had fertilized nearly the whole of the Peruvian desert; and as he surveyed the ruins he conceived the great idea of restoring the aqueduct and repeopling the neighboring waste. To this task he devoted his life. His first proceeding was to convert the Indians and found a mission, which he called San Cristobal de Quipai; his next to show them how to make the most of the water-privileges they already possessed. A reservoir was built, more land brought under cultivation, and the oasis rendered capable of supporting a larger population. The resulting prosperity and the abbé’s fame as a physician (he possessed a fair knowledge of medicine) drew other Indians to Quipai.
After a while the gigantic undertaking was begun, and little by little, and with infinite patience and pain accomplished. It was a work of many years, and when I travelled the whole length of the azequia I marvelled greatly how the abbé, with the means at his command, could have achieved an enterprise so arduous and vast. The aqueduct, nearly twenty leagues in length, extended from the foot of the snow-line to a valley above Quipai, the water being taken thence in stone-lined canals and wooden pipes to the seashore. In several places the azequia was carried on lofty arches over deep ravines: and there were two great reservoirs, both remarkable works. The upper one was the crater of an extinct volcano, of unknown depth, which contained an immense quantity of water. It took so long to fill that the abbé, as he laughingly told me, began to think that there must be a hole in the bottom. But in the end it did fill to the very brim, and always remained full. The second reservoir, a dammed up valley, was just below the first; it served to break the fall from the higher to the lower level and receive the overflow from the crater.
A bursting of either of the reservoirs was quite out of the question; at any rate the abbé so assured me, and certainly the crater looked strong enough to hold all the water in the Andes, could it have been got therein, while the lower reservoir was so shallow—the out-flow and the loss by evaporation being equal to the in-take—that even if the banks were to give way no great harm could be done.
I mention these particulars because they have an important bearing on events that afterward befell, and on my own destiny.
Only a born engineer and organizer of untiring energy and illimitable patience could have performed so herculean a labor. Balthazar was all this, and more. He knew how to rule men despotically yet secure their love. The Indians did his bidding without hesitation and wrought for him without pay. In the absence of this quality his task had never been done. On the other hand, he owed something to fortune. All the materials were ready to his hand. He built with the stone quarried by the Incas. His work suffered no interruption from frost or snow or rain. His very isolation was an advantage. He had neither enemies to fear, friends to please, nor government officers to propitiate.