Often In Those Latitudes No Rain Falls For Long Months, But When Once
The Clouds Open The Earth Is Deluged!
Weeks pass, and the zephyr
breezes scarcely move the leaves of the trees, but in those days of
calm the wind stores up his forces for a mighty storm.
On this dark,
fearful night he blew his fiercest blasts. The wild beast was
affrighted from his lair and rushed down with a moan, or the mountain
eagle screamed out a wail, indistinctly heard through the moaning
sounds. During the whole night, which was black as wickedness, the
wind howled in mournful cadence, or went sobbing along the sand. As
the hours wore on we seemed to hear, in every shriek of the blast,
the strange tongue of some long-departed Indian brave, wailing for
his happy hunting-grounds, now invaded by the paleface. Coats and
rugs, that had not for many months been unpacked, were brought out,
only in some cases to be blown from us, for the wind seemed to try
his hardest to impede our departure. The rain soaked us through and
through. Mists rose from the earth, and mists came down from above.
Next morning the whole face of nature was changed.
After the violence of the tempest abated we cast off the ropes and
turned the prow of our little vessel civilizationward. When we
entered the lake the great golden sun gave us a warm welcome, now, at
our farewell, he refused to shine. The rainy season had commenced,
but, fortunately for us, after the work of exploration was done. This
weather continued - day after day clouds and rain. Down the rugged,
time-worn face of the mountains foaming streams rushed and poured,
and this was our last view - a good-bye of copious tears! Thus we saw
the lake in sunshine and storm, in light and darkness. It had been
our aim and ambition to reach it, and we rejoiced in its discovery.
Remembering that "we were the first who ever burst into that silent
sea," we seemed to form part of it, and its varying moods only
endeared it to us the more. In mining parlance, we had staked out our
claims there, for -
"O'er no sweeter lake shall morning break,
Or noon cloud sail;
No fairer face than this shall take
The sunset's golden veil."
CHAPTER VII.
PIEDRA BLANCA.
In due time we again reached Piedra Blanca, and, notwithstanding our
ragged, thorn-torn garments, felt we were once more joined on to the
world.
The bubonic plague had broken out farther down the country,
steamboats were at a standstill, so we had to wait a passage down the
river. Piedra Blanca is an interesting little spot. One evening a
tired mule brought in the postman from the next town, Holy Joseph. He
had been eight days on the journey. Another evening a string of dusty
mules arrived, bringing loads of rubber and cocoa. They had been five
months on the way.
When the Chiquitana women go down to the bay for water, with their
pitchers poised on their heads, the sight is very picturesque.
Sometimes a little boy will step into one of the giant, traylike
leaves of the Victoria Regia, which, thus transformed into a fairy
boat, he will paddle about the quiet bay.
The village is built on the edge of the virgin forest, where the red
man, with his stone hatchet, wanders in wild freedom. It contains,
perhaps, a hundred inhabitants, chiefly civilized Chiquitanos
Indians. There is here a customs house, and a regular trade in
rubber, which is brought in from the interior on mule-back, a journey
which often takes from three to four months.
One evening during our stay two men were forcibly brought into the
village, having been caught in the act of killing a cow which they
had stolen. These men were immediately thrown into the prison, a
small, dark, palm-built hut. Next morning, ere the sun arose, their
feet were thrust into the stocks, and a man armed with a long hide
whip thrashed them until the blood flowed in streamlets down their
bare backs! What struck us as being delicately thoughtful was that
while the whipping proceeded another official tried his best to drown
their piercing shrieks by blowing an old trumpet at its highest
pitch!
The women, although boasting only one loose white garment, walk with
the air and grace of queens, or as though pure Inca blood ran in
their veins. Their only adornment is a necklace of red corals and a
few inches of red or blue ribbon entwined in their long raven-black
hair, which hangs down to the waist in two plaits. Their houses are
palm-walled, with a roof of palm-leaves, through which the rain pours
and the sun shines. Their chairs are logs of wood, and their beds are
string hammocks. Their wants are few, as there are no electric-
lighted store windows to tempt them. Let us leave them in their
primitive simplicity. Their little, delicately-shaped feet are
prettier without shoes and stockings, and their plaited hair without
Parisian hats and European tinsel. They neither read nor write, and
therefore cannot discuss politics. Women's rights they have never
heard of. Their bright-eyed, naked little children play in the mud or
dust round the house, and the sun turns their already bronze-colored
bodies into a darker tint; but the Chiquitana woman has never seen a
white baby, and knows nothing of its beauty, so is more than
satisfied with her own. The Indian child does not suffer from
teething, for all have a small wooden image tied round the neck, and
the little one, because of this, is supposed to be saved from all
baby ailments! Their husbands and sons leave them for months while
they go into the interior for rubber or cocoa, and when one comes
back, riding on his bullock or mule, he is affectionately but
silently received.
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