Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1900-11-29
CHAPTER Y.

lIdSt OF IL
CHAPTER Y.
Next sunrise saw sc Of us ashore.
We took nothing with US but our arms
and accouterments, trusting to the
wealth of the forest to provide us with
all necessary provender by the way.
OF the 101 men who had sailed out of
Bristol river "A had died. and the re-
naming u. who were all weak from
various ills. were left behind to guard
the Bristol Merchant till our return.
You will be quite safe" said Alec to
them as they stood about the ship to
watch our departure, 'if you keep a
bright lookout. There's small chance
of men disturbing the Bristol Merchant
in her present berth. and callers won't
be so frequent as to be a nuisance. II
you do have a visit from any one Of
the pagan tribes, try kindness first, and,
If that fails, cannon. How long we
may be gone | cannot say, but wait for
us here three years at the least. You
are in land of plenty. The shores
teem with duck and deer, the waters
ripple with fish. the trees of the forest
are bending with their load of fruit.
Take. then. Gods gifts that are offered,
hold peace among yourselves, keep
your culverins loaded. and no Ill can
befall you or your ship save old age
and the ordinary maladies Of life"
The men on the ship raised a cheer.
We answered them from the shore.
And so we parted.
There was no path through these vir-
gin forests. for the wild beasts that
held them never retrod their own foot
steps. and man had not as yet pene-
trated their solitudes. To force q pas
sage was a work of time and infinite
ly hard labor. 1t was hew and hack,
hack and hew, wherever the big trees
fiourished. for the lanes which every
where abounded had woven themselves
into one solid mass of interlacing net
work. 1t was like breaking through a
never ending wall of the strongest
wickerwork. and I rather think that
after the first 20 miles of this sort Of
tunneling many Of our band of sc en-
left behind to guard the Bristol Mer-
chant.
On the second day out n piece of
misfortune befell US which left US
without the guide on whom we had re-
lied to lead US to the golden city. Our
pagan allowed himself to be bitten
by n venomous serpent and so died.
1t was like breaking our compass at
sea, as without this brown fellow for
guide we could only drift, wandering
hither, wandering thither, up noun
tains whose tops were capped with n
hood of gllstening snow, through ra-
vines where the surging waters hardly
left us standing room, now making
bridges Of felled trunks, now twisting
ropes OF tough lanes, now killing deer
for dinner and now taking a great de-
light In rolling over a spotted jaguar
who had marked one of us for his own
meal
1t was weary work, though, and there
were times when we almost gave up
the quest in despair, for often after a
long day of painful hacking and hew-
ing we had to go all the way back
again to get round swampy morass
or precipltous ravine. The dlsheart-
enlng aimlessness of our toll went very
near to quenchlng the fires of the gold
en- beacon which each mans hopes
held up before his eyes.
Occasionally we would come across
village of Carlbs or other savages,
and, though they generally showed
fight at first, as soon as they learned
that we were enemies to the Spaniards
they at once became as friendly as pos
sible. Job Trehalion was our inter-
prefer, for, having n fancy for giving
orders to his servant In his own Ian
guage, he had picked up a great deal
of the pagan speech on the voyage out,
and so now by a mixture OF scrappy
sentences and dumb show he was able
to parley with the savages. AS none
Of the rest of us knew a word of their
talk, job was immensely proud Of his
accomplishment, and by dlnt of prac-
ticing 1t on every possible occasion he
eventually became quite a good inter
prefer, or at least IL he misinterpreted
we were not competent to point out his
errors.
Weary, weary days they were, and
utterly proGtless seemed our search
through these trackless forests Every
tribe of Indians we met made signs
that they knew Manoa and willingly
pointed out the direction In which they
thought It lay, but search always
brought us to another village, whose
Inhabitants would In their turn declare
that the golden city lay In wholly diff
ferent direction.
And so we were sent to the vale be-
yond the mountain chain. from 1t to
the great river which lies half n moons 3
journey toward the setting sun, from
that to the fire mountain, whose snowy
tlppet never melts, and from that again
toward the great northern sea. Weary.
weary daysl
But running through I'll this concert
OF encouragement there was one re-
curing harmony which heartened US
and kept us constant to our search.
All the pagans with whom we spoke
Of the golden city gave the same tale
In the main. though they garnished II
with an infinitude OF conflicting en-
bellishments. One would say that the
king was white like us. another that he
was bronze colored like themselves;
this one might say that he ate flesh,
and that one would swear that his food
was wholly vegetable. but all agreed
that the city lay by great lake or on
an island In the midst of II and that
the worship OF the people somehow
centered on the lake. And, greatest
spur of all to us hungry gold hunters,
all earnestly affirmed that the treas
ures OF the city were beyond the power
OF man to count
And why should we dlsbelieye the
tale? Cortes and his conquistadores
found Just such another city and Just
such another worship In Mexico, as
also did Plzarro and his crew of ban
dts I'm Peru. No European had ever
trod those paths before them, and
when their ships touched the shore OF
the new world they had no better evil
dencc than an Indian tale TO show
them what empires lay beyond. Were
we 10 be more unbelicving or more far
seeing than they and TO declare that
the great Inca the pngnns told us about
wns myth. will-o-the wisp or
worse stlll. n sorcercr who could vanish
ut his plensuref
We canvnssed the question often
over our evening campfire. Willie Ire
halIon said we were fools and that We
should well deserve n Spanish halter
.t,, ~ last we felt IL chuiing oui