In Far Bolivia: A Story of a Strange Wild Land

Miles upon miles from the banks of the mighty river, had you wandered far away in the shade of the dark forest that clothed the valleys and struggled high over the mountain-tops themselves, you would have heard the roar and the boom of that great buzz-saw.

As early as six of a morning it would start, or soon after the sun, like a huge red-hot shot, had leapt up from his bed in the glowing east behind the greenery of the hills and woods primeval.

To a stranger coming from the south towards the Amazon--great queen of all the rivers on earth--and not knowing he was on the borders of civilization, the sound that the huge saw made would have been decidedly alarming.

He would have stopped and listened, and listening, wondered. No menagerie of wild beasts could have sent forth a noise so loud, so strange, so persistent! Harsh and low at times, as its great teeth tore through the planks of timber, it would change presently into a dull but dreadful basso profundo, such as might have been emitted by antediluvian monsters in the agonies of death or torture, rising anon into a shrill howl or shriek, then subsiding once again into a steady grating roar, that seemed to shake the very earth.

Wild beasts in this black forest heard the sounds, and crept stealthily away to hide themselves in their caves and dens; caymans or alligators heard them too, as they basked in the morning sunshine by lakelet or stream--heard them and crawled away into caves, or took to the water with a sullen plunge that caused the finny inhabitants to dart away in terror to every point of the compass.

"Up with the tree, lads. Feed him home," cried Jake Solomons loudly but cheerily. "Our pet is hungry this morning. I say, Bill, doesn't she look a beauty. Ever see such teeth, and how they shine, too, in the red sunlight. Guess you never did, Bill. I say, what chance would the biggest 'gator that ever crawled have with Betsy here. Why, if Betsy got one tooth in his hide she'd have fifty before you could say 'Jerusalem', and that 'gator'd be cut in two. Tear away, Betsy! Grind and groan and growl, my lass! Have your breakfast, my little pet; why, your voice is sweetest music to my ear. I say, Bill, don't the saw-dust fly a few? I should smile!

"But see," he continued, "yonder come the darkies with our matutinal. Girls and boys with baskets, and I can see the steam curling up under Chloe's arm from the great flagon she is carrying! Look how her white eyes roll, and her white teeth shine as she smiles her six-inch smile! Good girl is Chloe. She knows we're hungry, and that we'll welcome her. Wo, now, Betsy! Let the water off, Bill. Betsy has had her snack, and so we'll have ours."

There was quietness now o'er hill and dell and forest-land.

And this tall Yankee, Jake Solomons, who was fully arrayed in cotton shirt and trousers, his brown arms bare to the shoulder, stretched his splendidly knit but spare form with a sort of a yawn.

"Heigho, Bill!" he said. "I'm pining for breakfast. Aren't you?"

"That I am," replied Burly Bill with his broadest grin.

Jake ran to the open side of the great saw-mill. Three or four strides took him there.

"Ah! Good-morning, Chloe, darling! Morning, Keemo! Morning, Kimo!"

"Mawning, sah!" This was a chorus.

"All along dey blessed good-foh-nuffin boys I no come so queeck," said Chloe.

"Stay, stay, Chloe," cried Jake, "never let your angry passions rise. 'Sides, Chloe, I calculate such language ain't half-proper. But how glittering your cheeks are, Chloe, how white your teeth! There! you smile again. And that vermilion blouse sets off your dark complexion to a nicety, and seems just made for it. Chloe, I would kiss you, but the fear of making Bill jealous holds me back."

Burly Bill shook with laughter. Bill was well named the Burly. Though not so tall as Jake, his frame was immense, though perhaps there was a little more adipose tissue about it than was necessary in a climate like this. But Bill's strength was wonderful. See him, axe in hand, at the foot of a tree! How the chips fly! How set and determined the man's face, while the great beads of sweat stand like pearls on his brow!

Burly Bill was a white man turned black. You couldn't easily have guessed his age. Perhaps he was forty, but at twenty, when still in England, Bill was supple and lithe, and had a skin as white as a schoolboy's. But he had got stouter as the years rolled on, and his face tanned and tanned till it tired of tanning, and first grew purple, and latterly almost black. The same with those hirsute bare arms of his.

There was none of the wild "Ha! ha!" about Bill's laughter. It was a sort of suppressed chuckle, that agitated all his anatomy, the while his merry good-natured eyes sought shelter behind his cheeks' rotundity.

Under a great spreading tree the two men laid themselves down, and Chloe spread their breakfast on a white cloth between them, Jake keeping up his fire of chaff and sweet nothings while she did so. Keemo and Kimo, and the other "good-foh-nuffin boys" had brought their morning meal to the men who fed the great buzz-saw.

"Ah, Chloe!" said Jake, "the odour of that coffee would bring the dead to life, and the fish and the beef and the butter, Chloe! Did you do all this yourself?"

"All, sah, I do all. De boys jes' kick about de kitchen and do nuffin."

"Dear tender-eyed Chloe! How clever you are! Guess you won't be so kind to me when you and I get spliced, eh?"

"Ah sah! you no care to marry a poor black gal like Chloe! Dere is a sweet little white missie waiting somew'eres foh Massa Jake. I be your maid, and shine yo' boots till all de samee's Massa Bill's cheek foh true."

As soon as Chloe with her "good-foh-nuffin boys" had cleared away the breakfast things, and retired with a smile and saucy toss of her curly poll, the men lay back and lit their pipes.

"She's a bright intelligent girl that," said Jake. "I don't want a wife or--but I say, Bill, why don't you marry her? I guess she'd make ye a tip-topper."

"Me! Is it marry?"

Burly Bill held back his head and chuckled till he well-nigh choked.

Honest Bill's ordinary English showed that he came from the old country, and more particularly from the Midlands. But Bill could talk properly enough when he pleased, as will soon be seen.

He smoked quietly enough for a time, but every now and then he felt constrained to take his meerschaum from his mouth and give another chuckle or two.

"Tchoo-hoo-hoo!" he laughed. "Me marry! And marry Chloe! Tchoo-hoo-hoo!"

"To change the subject, William," said Jake, "seein' as how you've pretty nearly chuckled yourself silly, or darned near it, how long have you left England?"

"W'y, I coom over with Mr. St. Clair hisse'f, and Roland w'y he weren't more'n seven. Look at 'e now, and dear little Peggy, 'is sister by adoption as ever was, weren't a month over four. Now Rolly 'e bees nigh onto fifteen, and Peggy--the jewel o' the plantation--she's goin' on for twelve, and main tall for that. W'y time do fly! Don't she, Jake?"

"Well, I guess I've been here five years, and durn me if I want to leave. Could we have a better home? I'd like to see it. I'd smile a few odd ones. But listen, why here comes the young 'uns!"

There was the clatter of ponies' feet, and next minute as handsome a boy as ever sat in saddle, and as pretty and bright a lassie as you could wish to meet, galloped into the clearing, and reined up their spirited little steeds close to the spot where the men were lounging.

Burly Bill stuck his thumb into the bowl of his meerschaum to put it out, and Jake threw his pipe on the bank.

Roland was tall for his age, like Peggy. But while a mass of fair and irrepressible hair curled around the boy's sun-burned brow, Peggy's hair was straight and black. When she rode fast it streamed out behind her like pennons in the breeze. What a bright and sunny face was hers too! There was ever a happy smile about her red lips and dark eyes.

"You've got to begin to smoke again immediately," said the boy.

"No, no, Master Roland, not in the presence of your sister."

"But," cried Peggy, with a pretty show of pomposity, "I command you!"