Afloat in the Forest: or, A Voyage among the Tree-Tops

Afloat in the Forest: or, A Voyage among the Tree-Tops
Mayne Reid

Reid Mayne

Afloat in the Forest; Or, A Voyage among the Tree-Tops

Chapter One

The Brothers at Home

Twenty years ago, not twenty miles from the Land’s End, there lived a Cornish gentleman named Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died, leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose mother all three had mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.

“Squire” Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his ancestors for hundreds of years before him had dispensed hospitality. None of them, however, had entertained so profusely as he; or rather improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after his death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to it, passed into the hands of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless. One thousand pounds apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality theirs, but had been given to them by the very respectable solicitor who had managed their father’s affairs, and had furthermore managed to succeed him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three thousand a year.

Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions received their two thousand pounds must have believed it to be a gift, since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor with the private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes elsewhere, – anywhere except in Cornwall!

The land-pirate who had plucked them – for in reality had they been plucked – did not wish them to stay at home, divested, as they were, of their valuable plumage. He had appropriated their fine feathers, and cared not for the naked bodies of the birds.

There were those in Cornwall who suspected foul play in the lawyer’s dealings with the young Trevannions, among others, the victims themselves. But what could they, do? They were utterly ignorant of their late father’s affairs, – indeed, with any affairs that did not partake of the nature of “sports.” A solicitor “most respectable,” – a phrase that has become almost synonymous with rascality, – a regular church-goer, – accounts kept with scrupulous exactness, – a man of honest face, distinguished for probity of speech and integrity of heart, – what could the Trevannions do? What more than the Smiths and the Browns and the Joneses, who, notwithstanding their presumed greater skill in the ways of a wicked lawyer world, are duped every day in a similar manner. It is an old and oft-repeated story, – a tale too often told, and too often true, – that of the family lawyer and his confiding client, standing in the relationship of robber and robbed.

The two children of Squire Trevannion could do nothing to save or recover their paternal estate. Caught in the net of legal chicanery, they were forced to yield, as other squires’ children have had to do, and make the best, of a bad matter, – forced to depart from a home that had been held by Trevannions perhaps since the Phoenicians strayed thitherward in search of their shining tin.

It sore grieved them to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the secret understanding with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By staying at home a still greater might be called for, – subsistence in penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for, notwithstanding the open house long kept by their father, his friends had disappeared with his guests. Impelled by these thoughts, the brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune wherever it seemed most likely they should find it.

They were at this period something more than mere children. Ralph had reached within twelve months of being twenty. Richard was his junior by a couple of years. Their book-education had been good; the practice of manly sports had imparted to both of them a physical strength that fitted them for toil, either of the mind or body. They were equal to a tough struggle, either in the intellectual or material world; and to this they determined to resign themselves.

For a time they debated between themselves where they should go, and what do. The army and navy came under their consideration. With such patronage as their father’s former friends could command, and might still exert in favour of their fallen fortunes, a commission in either army or navy was not above their ambition. But neither felt much inclined towards a naval or military life; the truth being, that a thought had taken shape in their minds leading them to a different determination.

Their deliberations ended by each of them proclaiming a resolve, – almost sealing it with a vow, – that they would enter into some more profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil – with their hands, if need be – until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done, – with time, patience, and industry to aid them in the execution.

“Where shall we go?” inquired Richard, the younger of the two. “To America, where every poor man appears to prosper? With a thousand each to begin the world with, we might do well there. What say you, Ralph?”

“America is a country where men seem to thrive best who have nothing to begin the world with. You mean North America, – the United States, – I suppose?”

“I do.”

“I don’t much like the United States as a home, – not because it is a republic, for I believe that is the only just form of government, whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object to it simply because I wish to go south, – to some part of the tropical world, where one may equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune.”

“Is there such a place?”

“There is.”

“Where, brother?”

“Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus of Panama. As Cornish men we should adopt the specialty of our province, and become miners. The Andes mountains will give us that opportunity, where, instead of grey tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say you to South America?”

“I like the thought of South America, – nothing would please me better than going there. But I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for the occupation you speak of. I had rather be a merchant than a miner.”

“Don’t let that penchant prevent you from selecting Peru as the scene of mercantile transactions. There are many Englishmen who have made fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow their example. We may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One thousand pounds each may give both of us a start, – you as a merchant of goods, I as a digger for gold. Peru is the place for either business. Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered celebrated by Pizarro?”

“If you will it – I’m agreed.”

“Thither then let us go.”

In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward from the Land’s End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao, —en route first for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower above the treasures of Cerro Pasco, – vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks.

Chapter Two

The Brothers Abroad

Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years – after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco – would have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid.

Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner’s life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest, – the “montaña,” as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving “city” of Gran Pará.

Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife, – the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Pará. In a few years after, several sweet children called him “father,” – only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of their mother.

Fifteen years after leaving the Land’s End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two children, – respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary affairs, – rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet, – “otium cum dignitate.”

Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that, having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this design, he only awaited his brother’s answer to a communication he had made to him on this very subject.

He had no doubt that Ralph’s desire would be in unison with his own, – that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return to their native land, – perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that had sheltered them as children.

The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means, – independent, if not wealthy.

Like his brother, he got married at an early period, – in fact, within the first year after establishing himself in Cerro Pasco. Unlike the latter, however, he chose for his wife one of the women of the country, – a beautiful Peruvian lady. She too, but a short while before, had gone to a better world, leaving motherless two pretty children, of twelve and fourteen years of age, – the elder of the two being a daughter.

Such was the family of Ralph Trevannion, and such the condition of life in which his brother’s epistle reached him, – that epistle containing the proposal that they should wind lip their respective businesses, dispose of both, and carry their gains to the land that had given them birth.

The proposition was at once accepted, as Richard knew it would be. It was far from the first time that the thing had been discussed, epistolary fashion, between them; for letters were exchanged as often as opportunity permitted, – sometimes twice or thrice in the year.

In these letters, during the last few years of their sojourn in South America, the promise made on leaving home was mutually mentioned, and as often renewed on either side. Richard knew that his brother was as eager as himself to keep that well-remembered vow.

So long as the mother of Ralph’s children was alive, he had not urged his brother to its fulfilment; but now that she had been dead for more than a year, he had written to say that the time had come for their return to their country and their home.

His proposal was, that Ralph, having settled his affairs in Peru, – which, of course, included the selling out of his share in the mines, – should join him, Richard, at Pará, thence to take ship for England. That instead of going round by Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus, by Panama, Ralph should make the descent of the great Amazon River, which traverse would carry him latitudinally across the continent from west to east.

Richard had two reasons for recommending this route. First, because he wished his brother to see the great river of Orellana, as he himself had done; and secondly, because he was still more desirous that his own son should see it.

How this last wish was to be gratified by his brother making the descent of the Amazon, may require explanation; but it will suffice to say that the son of Richard Trevannion was at that time residing with his uncle at the mines of Cerro Pasco.

The boy had gone to Peru the year before, in one of his father’s ships, – first, to see the Great Ocean, then the Great Andes, – afterwards to become acquainted with the country of the Incas, and last, though not of least importance, to make the acquaintance of his own uncle and his two interesting cousins, the elder of whom was exactly his own age. He had gone to the Pacific side by sea. It was his father’s wish he should return to the Atlantic side by land, – or, to speak more accurately, by river.

The merchant’s wish was to be gratified. The miner had no desire to refuse compliance with his proposal. On the contrary, it chimed in with his own inclinations. Ralph Trevannion possessed a spirit adventurous as his brother’s, which fourteen years of mining industry, carried on in the cold mountains of Cerro Pasco, had neither deadened nor chilled. The thought of once more returning to the scenes of his youth quite rejuvenated him; and on the day of receiving his brother’s challenge to go, he not only accepted it, but commenced proceedings towards carrying the design into execution.

A month afterwards and he might have been seen descending the eastern slope of the Cordilleras on mule-back, and accompanied by his family and followers; afterwards aboard a balsa, – one of those curious crafts used in the descent of the Huallaga; and later still on the montaria, upon the bosom of the great river itself.

With the details of his mountain travels, interesting as they may be, we have naught to do. No more with his descent of the Huallaga, nor his long voyage on the Amazon itself, in that up-river portion of the stream where it is called the “Marañon.” Only where it becomes the stupendous “Solimoës” do we join Ralph Trevannion on his journey, and remain with him as long as he is “Afloat in the Forest,” or making a voyage among the tree-tops.

Chapter Three