You are here
قراءة كتاب Los Gringos Or, An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Los Gringos Or, An Inside View of Mexico and California, with Wanderings in Peru, Chili, and Polynesia
Queen and her Hen-coop Habitation.—School.—Fondness for Flowers.—Native
Dinner.—Jack the Head Waiter.—Finger Glasses.—We sleep in
the Palace, and are Serenaded.—Visit from a Tahitian Noble, and how he conducted
himself.—Coral Groves in the Harbor.—Islet of Motunata.
of Faatoar.—Losses by the French.—The Diadem.—We spread a Banquet,
and the Ladies have an Appetite.—Soirée by French Governor.—Departure.
Yarn.—The Royal Bengal Tiger, who had a difficulty with the Cook.
what may be seen in the City.—Rimac.—Public Edifices.—San Domingo.
Fights.—Berlinas.—Sayas y Mantas, and Speculations upon uses and abuses.—Youthful
Lumps of Gold, and Attachment to their Uncles.
of Pizarro.—Opera.—The Scene not in the Play.
—Our Lovely Country-Women.—The Terraces.—Monte Allegro.
CHAPTER I.
It was on the last day of summer, 1846, that a large vessel of war lay in the stream of Boston Harbor; presently a dirty little steam tug, all bone and muscle, came burroughing alongside. The boatswain and his mates whistled with their silver pipes, like Canary birds, and the cry went forth, to heave up the anchor. Soon the ponderous grapnell was loosened from its hold, and our pigmy companion clasping the huge hull in his hempen arms, bore us away towards the ocean; by and by, the unbleached canvas fell in gloomy clouds from the wide-spread spars—the sails swelled to the breeze—friends were tumbling over the side—light jokes were made—hats waved—cheers given, whether from the heart, or not, was a problem, and then there came a short interval in the hoarse roar of steam, as the pigmy's fastenings splashed in the water—then all was silent; and the stately ship, dashing the salt tears from her eyes, turned her prow, in sadness, from her native land.
There were many, no doubt, of those six hundred souls on board, who leaving home with the sweet endearments of domestic life fresh upon them, were looking forward with blanched cheeks and saddened hearts, to years of distant wanderings. And there were others, too, equally indifferent, and regardless of the future—
who, perhaps, never had a home—tired of the shore—were eager for change or excitement; but I question much, if there was one on board, of all those beating hearts, who did not anticipate a safe and joyful return. Alas! how many of these fragile aspirations were never realized. Numbers found a liquid tomb beneath the dark blue waves, or died a sailor's death in foreign climes, far away from friends and kindred, or returned with broken constitutions, and wasted frames, enfeebled by disease, to linger out a miserable existence on the native land they still loved so well.
A fortnight we sailed moderately and pleasantly in a race with the sun towards the equator. The pole star slowly but surely declined in the north; faces began to assume a more cheerful aspect; we became reconciled to our fate; to banish those hateful things called reminiscences, which, even though pleasant, only make us regret them the more, when gone forever. Thus we entered the tropic, and then lay lunging and plunging in the doldrums—clouds dead and stupid, with the sun making all manner of gay transparencies, at the rising, and most particularly at the setting thereof. Then came another week of una furiosa calma—a furious calm, as the Spaniards have it—bobbing about in undulating billows, and the tough canvass beating and chafing in futile anger. It was thus we learned, those of us who had not made the discovery before, what a really animal existence one leads on shipboard; a sort of dozing nonentity, only agreeable to those who have no imaginative organizations desirous of more extended sphere of action.
It does passibly well to eat and sleep away life—that is, presuming the dinners be hot and eatable, and nights cool and sleepable—in smooth seas, and under mild suns; but when the winds are piping loud and cold, the vessel diving and leaping at every possible angle of the compass, with the stomachs of the mariners occasionally pitched into their heads, as if they were dromedaries, with several internal receptacles apiece, devised purposely to withstand the thumps and concussions of salt water; when the ship is performing these sub-marine and aerial evolutions I take it, as a reasonable being, there can be found a stray nook or two, on hard ground, far more comfortable and habitable. And by way of parenthesis, I beg leave to recommend to any and all unfortunate persons given to aquatic recreation, and troubled with the disease whilom called sea-sickness, to divest the mind and body of care and clothing, tumble into a swinging cot, and on the verge of starvation