The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1875-05-13

mentor this was job that needed more
hands than our own. At last I got hold
of two Spaniards- sturdy fellows
they were, and honest enough as Span
iards go-and then a Portigee and two
niggers. We weren't long in buying our
stores and working tackle, and by the
time Seth came back with his guide, all
was ready and away we went.
Seth was much too knowing bird to
let on what his real game was as long as
we were within hail of the town, for if
you say gold" there only in whisper
those blessed Gambusinos (gold-fnders)
will hear it hundred miles off. 80 all
that we told our gang was that we were
going prospecting among the lower
ranges, as lots of fellows did every day !;
but when we were past the old Indians
hut and well up among the hills, so that
our chaps couldn't easily turn back II
they wanted, he up and told them the
whole story. They were rather taken
aback, as well they might be, for Lake
Titicaca's good many days journey to
the nor'east, among some very awkward
mountains and good thirteen thousand
feet above the sea, If it's an inch. How
ever, Spaniard Cor any other man, for
that matter will go pretty nearly any
where if he once gets on the scent OF
gold; to our fellows they spoke up
stoutly enough, and said they were ready
to go up to the lake, and down to the
bottom of it into the bargain, after such
a haul as that and off we set again.
I've seen a good many wonders In my
time, knocking about the world as I've
done; but anything like that climb up
the Andes never saw yet. Rocks that
seemed to go up into the very sky,
straight as plumb-line beds of moss
three or four deep, and soft as velvet
cushion trees two hundred feet high,
all one blaze of flowers from top to bot
tom leaves big enough to wrap you up
like blanket tree-ferns big as table
cloth, all glittering like the finest silver
lace humming- birds and monkeys and
parrots, and butterflies as broad as the
palm of your hand waterfalls sheer
down over great black precipices thou
sand feet high and far away behind the
everlasting mountains, piled one above
another till they seemed to go right up
to heaven. Among all these enormous
things we eight men, big and strong as
we were, seemed of no more account than
lot of ants crawling on blade OF grass;
and think / never felt SO small in my
life as I did then.
However, [ hadn't much leisure to
think about it at the time, for you can't
expect fellow to have much of an eye
for scenery when he's hacking his way
through great cobweb of branches too
thick for the light to get through, with
his boots full of ants and his mouth full
of gnats, and the damp vapor bath heat
of the woods melting him away bit by
bit, fifty prickles going into him at
once, thorn-bush scalping him from
above, and creeper tripping him up
down below
And so we hammered along, till at last
we worked up to the plateau and saw the
great lake spreading away before us as
far as ever we could see. We weren' t
long of making out the three-cornered
crag, nor the shadow neither, for it was
just sunrise when we got there, as if O.
purpose for us and once we'd made it
out we hardly waited to take breath be-
fore we were at it tooth and nail.
Tho first day was regular blank one
till just toward shutdown, and then the
Portigee screeched out suddenly that
he'd got something heavy. [ helped
him to haul up the pan, and there, sure
enough, was bar of gold over a foot
long, and pretty nigh as thick as my two
fingers here. At that we all shouted at
once, and went at it harder than ever
and really think our chaps would have
worked all night, but Seth stopped 'em.
He told 'em that the gold wouldn't run
away, and that if they put on too much
steam at first they'd just knock them
selves up before they were half through,
and that they'd better just light afre and
get dried, and have some supper, and fix
up some kind of shelter against the dew,
and then start fair next morning. And
so they did.
The next day and the next and the
next after that we kept bringing it up in
handfuls- gold circlets and chains and
necklaces and ingots without end. But
on the fifth day / found the provisions
getting SO low that I was rather scared,
for up here there was no game of any
sort, there being no vegetation at that
height for the game to live on. So we
held council of war. Our chaps had
got the gold-fever so into their blood by
this time that I verify believe they have
kept digging on till they died of hunger;
but Seth and I, who were little cooler,
talked them over at last We told 'em
that we'd got enough already to make
us all as rich as Jews that we must all
starve If we didn't replenish our stock
somehow that ten to one the efnd" was
played out (and, indeed, none of us had
taken grain all that morning); and that,
in any case, the lake was always there,
and they could come back and try again
whenever they liked. So, bit by bit, we
worked 'em round, and all started to go
back together. .aa@ 5a.s
We'd hard work of it the first part of
the way, for our loads were pretty heavy,