Part 18 (2/2)
On the following morning, however, the imposing caravan started, with the first light of day, upon its journey toward the coast, winding its way along the eastern margin of the Sacred Lake until it reached its southern extremity, when it swerved away to the south-westward across the valley in which the lake lay embosomed, toward the towering snow-peaks of the western cordillera of the Andes. The first three days of the journey were quite pleasant and uneventful, for during that time the caravan was winding its slow way across the mountain valley; but on the fourth day the train entered a mountain pa.s.s which the Peruvians a.s.serted was known only to themselves--and which they had chosen in order to avoid the possibility of collision with the armed forces of the Spaniards; and thenceforward, for four full days, the train wound its perilous way along narrow pathways bounded on the one hand by towering, inaccessible, rocky cliffs, and on the other by ghastly precipices, of such awful depth that their bases were frequently hidden by the wreaths of mountain mist floating far below; across frail swing bridges stretched from side to side of those awful, fathomless rifts called _barrancas_ which seem to be peculiar to the Andes; or up and down steep, rugged, almost precipitous slopes where a single false step or a loose stone would send man or beast whirling away down to death a thousand feet below. But the llamas seemed to be more sure-footed than mountain goats, and despite their loads they scrambled up and down apparently inaccessible places, or plodded sedately along the narrowest and most dizzy ledges without accident, while the Peruvians seemed to be absolutely at home among the peaks and precipices.
But at length, after four full days of incessant peril, the train emerged from the last mountain pa.s.s and found itself upon a sloping, gra.s.sy plateau on the western slope of the Andes, with the limitless Pacific stretching away into the infinite distance, and the perils and hards.h.i.+ps of the journey were at an end; for thenceforward the road wound its serpentine way downward through a series of ravines that, wild and savage enough at first, gradually widened out into gentle, gra.s.sy, tree-clad slopes that led down to the sandy plains which lie between the lower spurs of the Andes and the ocean. It took the train two days to cross these plains, which, under the neglect of the Spaniards, were fast returning to the desert state from which, under the wise rule of the Incas, they had been reclaimed; and finally, on the seventeenth day of the journey the entire train arrived safely at the little Peruvian village on the site of which the important port of Arica now stands.
And thanks to the precautions adopted by the guide of the party, not a Spaniard had been encountered on any part of the journey.
But the good luck of the party did not end here; for on the very night of their arrival a small Spanish coasting craft of about seventy tons was sighted by the light of the full moon, becalmed in the offing; and manning four fis.h.i.+ng canoes with the forty Peruvian volunteers, d.i.c.k and Phil paddled off and took her without the slightest difficulty, towing her safely into the bay before sunrise, where they brought her to an anchor. Her crew of fifteen Spaniards were easily disposed of by the return train, who took them far enough up into the mountains to render it impossible for them to do any harm, and then turned them adrift. The craft herself--named _El Ciudad de Lima_--proved, upon examination, to be a very fine, stanch little vessel, nearly new, in ballast; she therefore required nothing to be done to her to prepare her for her long voyage, save the storage of a sufficient quant.i.ty of water and provisions; and this, with the a.s.sistance of the Peruvians, was soon obtained. Before sailing, however, Phil, at d.i.c.k's suggestion, had her completely emptied of all her ballast and stores of every description, and then hauled close in to the beach, in a sheltered position, and careened, so that her bottom might be carefully examined, and all weed removed from it. Then, when this was done, the gold bricks were stowed right down alongside her keelson, upon plenty of dunnage, and on top of them was stowed the gems, packed in strong wooden boxes, the joints of which were afterward caulked and well paid with pitch, the boxes finally being thickly coated all over with pitch. Then, on top of and all round the gold and the boxes of gems, a sufficient quant.i.ty of sand to ensure ample stability was placed; and on top of that again the water and provisions were stowed. To do all this to d.i.c.k's satisfaction demanded nearly a month's strenuous labour; but when it was all finished and the little craft--re-christened _Elisabeth_--was finally ready for sea, d.i.c.k p.r.o.nounced her fit to face the heaviest weather and the longest voyage.
As she was only a small craft, the pair decided that twenty of the forty Peruvian volunteers would suffice as a crew, and these twenty were selected because of their superior fitness for the work of sailors, as exemplified during the preparation of the little s.h.i.+p for sea.
At length, everything being ready, the little craft hove up her anchor and sailed out of the bay on her long voyage round the southern extremity of America and up through the vast Atlantic ocean. To say that this voyage, undertaken in so small a vessel, and with a crew of men who had never before looked upon the sea, was an adventurous one, full of peril, and marked by countless hairbreadth escapes from capture and s.h.i.+pwreck, seems superfluous; indeed so full of adventure was it that a detailed description of what the little vessel and her crew went through would require a larger volume than the present for its adequate recital. It must suffice therefore to state that the adventurers ultimately arrived safely and with their precious cargo intact in Plymouth Sound, some six months after her departure from the Peruvian fis.h.i.+ng village, to the unbounded astonishment and delight of those who had long given up Phil and d.i.c.k for dead. The meeting with old friends--and relatives, so far as d.i.c.k was concerned--the landing and eventual disposal of the gems and gold, with every necessary precaution, must be left for the reader to picture in detail; but it may be mentioned that while d.i.c.k purchased a big estate and built himself thereon a magnificent mansion not far from Plymouth, speedily becoming one of Plymouth's most important citizens, using his enormous wealth wisely and well, and ultimately earning his knighthood for his valiant conduct in a.s.sisting to disperse the Spanish Armada, Phil Stukely was so enamoured of the idea of returning to Peru, becoming its Inca, and driving out the Spaniards, that he actually fitted out an expedition with that intent. How he fared and what ultimately became of him it may perhaps be the privilege of the present historian some day to relate.
My story of the great and wonderful adventure of Philip Stukely and d.i.c.k Chichester is ended; yet upon reading the pages which I have with so much labour compiled I am conscious of a certain sense of incompleteness, conscious that something still remains untold. I feel that to let the narrative go forth to the world without offering some sort of an explanation of the source of Stukely's extraordinary and uncanny knowledge of Indian lore, and of the ancient Peruvian language-- which he had never learned--would be unfair to the reader.
But in the rough yet voluminous notes of the adventure which Sir Richard Chichester amused himself by jotting down at his leisure after his return to England, which he left to his heirs at his death, and which fell into my hands some twenty years ago, I find no word which throws the slightest light upon the subject. Yet from the time when I first skimmed through those notes I have been moved by an ardent desire to put them into narrative form, in order that Englishmen of to-day may be afforded yet one more example of the indomitable courage and tenacious perseverance that distinguished their forefathers during the stirring and glorious days of good Queen Bess. But until quite recently I have been deterred from undertaking the pleasant task, for the reason that certain portions of the narrative are of such a character as either to strain the credulity of the reader to breaking point, or to cause him to denounce the good Sir Richard as a--shall we say--perverter of the truth. And I should be exceedingly reluctant to do anything which would produce the latter result; for it seems perfectly evident, from contemporary records, that the worthy knight was held in highest esteem, by all who were brought into contact with him, as a man of unimpeachable honour and probity, whose word was always to be relied upon, and who was so unimaginative, so thoroughly matter-of-fact, and of so simple, straightforward a character generally, as to be completely above the suspicion of any slightest tendency to embellish a story by the perpetration of an untruth. Quite recently, however, I was made acquainted with certain extraordinary facts which may possibly bear upon the matter, and which, although not absolutely conclusive, appear to corroborate Sir Richard's astounding statements; and as they may perhaps prove of interest to the reader, I now set them forth.
It chanced that a few months ago I was a guest at a dinner party at which men only were present, and that I was seated next to a very brilliant young American physician who was devoting himself especially to the study of Heredity. It being his hobby, he soon contrived to turn the conversation toward that topic, and, after a few general remarks, told several very startling stories ill.u.s.trative of certain contentions which he advanced. Among others he related the case of a young Western farmer whose ancestors had emigrated from the little village of Langonnet, in Brittany, to America, some two hundred and fifty years ago. They had pa.s.sed through the usual vicissitudes of fortune experienced by the early settlers, and in process of time had become so absolutely Americanised that even their very name had become corrupted almost out of recognition as of French origin. The young farmer in question possessed only a very elementary education, and had never been taught French, yet almost from the moment when he first began to speak he occasionally interpolated a French word in his conversation, and the practice extended as he grew older. Finally, it transpired that certain property in the neighbourhood of Langonnet which his ancestors had abandoned as practically worthless had become so valuable that enquiries as to the whereabouts of the owners had been set on foot, the descendants had been with much difficulty traced, and the young farmer, as being the person most directly interested, crossed to France to investigate. And now comes the marvellous part of the story. The young man had no sooner arrived in Langonnet--which, be it remembered, he was now visiting for the first time in his life--than he began to recognise such of his surroundings as remained unaltered since the emigration of his French ancestors, and, more strange still, perhaps, was able to converse in the Breton dialect with little or no difficulty by the time that he had been twenty-four hours in the village!
The point which the narrator sought to ill.u.s.trate and emphasise was that not only is heredity responsible for the transmission and persistence of certain peculiarities of face, form, and character, but also that in a few isolated cases it has actually been known to _transmit knowledge_!
As soon as my neighbour had finished his story and replied to several comments upon it, I put to him the case of Philip Stukely, asking him whether he thought that the uncanny knowledge manifested by that gentleman was also due to heredity, to which he replied that he had not a doubt of it, and that, if I chose to investigate, I should probably discover either that Phil had Peruvian blood in his veins, or that some long dead English ancestor of his had once been in Peru and remained there for several years. I have not yet been able to undertake the suggested investigation, and were I able to do so I am afraid that after so great a lapse of time it would be found impossible to pursue it very far; but I cannot help thinking that the story of the American physician tends to explain to some extent, if not completely, the source of Stukely's amazing and otherwise inexplicable gift of knowledge, and accordingly I offer the suggestion for what it may be worth.
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