Our Home in the Silver West Part 10

'Steady it is, sir!'

'Port a little! Steady!'

Then came a crash that almost flung us out of our beds. Before we gained the deck of our cabin there was another, and still another. Had we run on sh.o.r.e? We dreaded to ask each other.

But just then the steward, with kindly thought, drew back our curtain and rea.s.sured us.

'We're only b.u.mping over the bar, young gentlemen--we'll be in smooth water in a jiffey.'

We were soon all dressed and on deck. We were pa.s.sing the giant hill called Sugar Loaf, and the mountains seemed to grow taller and taller, and to frown over us as we got nearer.

Once through the entrance, the splendid bay itself lay spread out before us in all its silver beauty. Full twenty miles across it is, and everywhere surrounded by the grandest hills imaginable. Not even in our dreams could we have conceived of such a n.o.ble harbour, for here not only could all the fleets in the world lie snug, but even cruise and manoeuvre.

Away to the west lay the picturesque town itself, its houses and public buildings s.h.i.+ning clear in the morning sun, those nearest nestling in a beauty of tropical foliage I have never seen surpa.s.sed.

My brothers and I felt burning to land at once, but regulations must be carried out, and before we had cleared the customs, and got a clean bill of health, the day was far spent. Our picnic must be deferred till to-morrow.

However, we could land.

As they took their seats in the boat and she was rowed sh.o.r.eward, I noticed that Donald and Dugald seemed both speechless with delight and admiration; as for me, I felt as if suddenly transported to a new world.

And such a world--beauty and loveliness everywhere around us! How should I ever be able to describe it, I kept wondering--how give dear old mother and Flora any notion, even the most remote, of the delight instilled into our souls by all we saw and felt in this strange, strange land! Without doubt, the beauty of our surroundings const.i.tutes one great factor in our happiness, wherever we are.

When we landed--indeed, before we landed--while the boat was still skimming over the purple waters, the green mountains appearing to mingle and change places every moment as we were borne along, I felt conquered, if I may so express it, by the enchantment of my situation. I gave in my allegiance to the spirit of the scene, I abandoned all thoughts of being able to describe anything, I abandoned myself to enjoyment. _Laisser faire_, I said to my soul, is to live. Every creature, every being here seems happy. To partake of the _dolce far niente_ appears the whole aim and object of their lives.

And so I stepped on sh.o.r.e, regretting somewhat that Flora was not here, feeling how utterly impossible it would be to write that 'good letter'

home descriptive of this wondrous medley of tropical life and loveliness, but somewhat reckless withal, and filled with a determination to give full rein to my sense of pleasure. I could not help wondering, however, if everything I saw was real. Was I in a dream, from which I should presently be rudely awakened by the rattle and clatter of the men hauling up ashes, and find myself in bed on board the Canton? Never mind, I would enjoy it were it even a dream.

What a motley crowd of people of every colour! How jolly those negroes look! How gaily the black ladies are dressed! How the black men laugh!

What piles of fruit and green stuff! What a rich, delicious, warm aroma hovers everywhere!

An interpreter? You needn't ask _me_. I'm not in charge. Ask my aunt here; but she herself can talk many languages. Or ask that tall brawny Scot, who is hustling the darkies about as if South America all belonged to him.

'A carriage, Moncrieff? Oh, this is delightful! Auntie, dear, let me help you on board. Hop in, Dugald. Jump, Donald. No, no, Moncrieff, I mean to have the privilege of sitting beside the driver. Off we go. Hurrah! Do you like it, Donald? But aren't the streets rough! I won't talk any more; I want to watch things.'

I wonder, though, if Paradise itself was a bit more lovely than the gardens we catch glimpses of as we drive along?

How cool they look, though the sun is s.h.i.+ning in a blue and cloudless sky!

What dark shadows those gently waving palm-trees throw! Look at those cottage verandahs! Look, oh, look at the wealth of gorgeous flowers--the climbing, creeping, wreathing flowers! What colours! What fantastic shapes! What a merry mood Nature must have been in when she framed them so! And the perfume from those fairy gardens hangs heavy on the air; the delicious balmy breeze that blows through the green, green palm-leaves is not sufficient to waft away the odour of that orange blossom. Behold those beautiful children in groups, on terraces and lawns, at windows, or in verandahs--so gaily are they dressed that they themselves might be mistaken for bouquets of lovely flowers!

I wonder what the names of all those strange blossom-bearing shrubs are.

But, bah! who would bother about names of flowers on a day like this? The b.u.t.terflies do not, and the bees do not. Are those really b.u.t.terflies, though--really and truly? Are they not gorgeously painted fans, waved and wafted by fairies, themselves unseen?

The people we meet chatter gaily as we pa.s.s, but they do not appear to possess a deal of curiosity; they are too contented for anything. All life here must be one delicious round of enjoyment. And n.o.body surely ever dies here; I do not see how they could.

'Is this a cave we are coming to, Moncrieff? What is that long row of columns and that high, green, vaulted roof, through which hardly a ray of suns.h.i.+ne can struggle? Palm-trees! Oh, Moncrieff, what glorious palms! And there is life upon life there, for the gorgeous trees, not apparently satisfied with their own magnificence of shape and foliage, must array themselves in wreaths of dazzling orchids and festoons of trailing flowers. The fairies _must_ have hung those flowers there? Do not deny it, Moncrieff!'

And here, in the Botanical Gardens, imagination must itself be dumb--such a wild wealth of all that is charming in the vegetable and animal creation.

'Donald, go your own road. Dugald, go yours; let us wander alone. We may meet again some day. It hardly matters whether we do or not. I'm in a dream, and I don't think I want to awaken for many a long year.'

I go wandering away from my brothers, away from every one.

A fountain is sending its spray aloft till the green drooping branches of the bananas and those feathery tree-ferns are everywhere spangled with diamonds. I will rest here. I wish I could catch a few of those wondrous b.u.t.terflies, or even one of those fairylike humming-birds--mere sparks of light and colour that flit and buzz from flower to flower. I wish I could--that I--I mean--I--wish--'

'Hullo! Murdoch. Where are you? Why, here he is at last, sound asleep under an orange-tree!'

It is my wild Highland brothers. They have both been shaking me by the shoulders. I sit up and rub my eyes.

'Do you know we've been looking for you for over an hour?'

'Ah, Dugald!' I reply, 'what is an hour, one wee hour, in a place like this?'

We must now go to visit the market-place, and then we are going to the hotel to dine and sleep.

The market is a wondrously mixed one, and as wondrously foreign and strange as it is possible to conceive. The gay dresses of the women--some of whom are as black as an ebony ball; their gaudy head-gear; their glittering but tinselled ornaments; their round laughing faces, in which s.h.i.+ne rows of teeth as white perhaps as alabaster; the jaunty men folks; the world of birds and beasts, all on the best of terms with themselves, especially the former, arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow; the world of fruit, tempting in shape, in beauty, and in odour; the world of fish, some of them beautiful enough to have dwelt in the coral caves of fairyland beneath the glittering sea--some ugly, even hideous enough to be the creatures of a demon's dream, and some, again, so odd-looking or so grotesque as to make one smile or laugh outright;--the whole made up a picture that even now I have but to close my eyes to see again!

When night falls the streets get for a time more crowded; side-paths hardly exist--at all events, the inhabitants show their independence by crowding along the centre of the streets. Not much light to guide them, though, except where from open doors or windows the rays from lamps shoot out into the darkness.

Away to the hotel. A dinner in a delightfully cool, large room, a punkah waving overhead, brilliant lights, joy on all our faces, a dessert fit to set before a king. Now we shall know how those strange fruits taste, whose perfume hung around the market to-day. To bed at last in a room scented with orange-blossoms, and around the windows of which the sweet stephanotis cl.u.s.ters in beauty--to bed, to sleep, and dream of all we have done and seen.

We awaken--at least, I do--in the morning with a glad sensation of antic.i.p.ated pleasure. What is it? Oh yes, the picnic!

But it is no ordinary picnic. It lasts for three long days and nights, during which we drive by day through scenes of enchantment apparently, and sleep by night under canvas, wooed to slumber by the wind whispering in the waving trees.

'Moncrieff,' I say on the second day, 'I should like to live here for ever and ever and ever.'

'Man!' replies Moncrieff, 'I'm glad ye enjoy it, and so does my mither here. But dinna forget, lads, that hard work is all before us when we reach Buenos Ayres.'

'But I will, and I _shall_ forget, Moncrieff,' I cry. 'This country is full of forgetfulness. Away with all thoughts of work; let us revel in the suns.h.i.+ne like the bees, and the birds, and the b.u.t.terflies.'

'Revel away, then,' says Moncrieff; and dear aunt smiles languidly.

On the last day of 'the show,' as Dugald called it, and while our mule team is yet five good miles from town, clouds dark and threatening bank rapidly up in the west. The driver lashes the beasts and encourages them with shout and cry to do their speedy utmost; but the storm breaks over us in all its fury, the thunder seems to rend the very mountains, the rain pours down in white sheets, the lightning runs along the ground and looks as if it would set the world on fire; the wind goes tearing through the trees, bending the palms like reeds, rending the broad banana-leaves to ribbons; branches crack and fall down, and the whole air is filled with whirling fronds and foliage.

Moncrieff hastily envelopes his mother in that Highland plaid till nought is visible of the old lady save the nose and one twinkling eye. We laugh in spite of the storm. Louder and louder roars the thunder, faster and faster fly the mules, and at last we are tearing along the deserted streets, and hastily draw up our steaming steeds at the hotel door. And that is almost all I remember of Rio; and to-morrow we are off to sea once more.

CHAPTER VIII.

MONCRIEFF RELATES HIS EXPERIENCES.

Our life at sea had been like one long happy dream. That, at all events, is how it had felt to me. 'A dream I could have wished to last for aye.' I was enamoured of the ocean, and more than once I caught myself yearning to be a sailor. There are people who are born with strange longings, strange desires, which only a life on the ever-changing, ever-restless waves appears to suit and soothe. To such natures the sea seems like a mother--a wild, hard, harsh mother at times, perhaps, but a mother who, if she smiles but an hour, makes them forget her stormy anger of days or weeks.

But the dream was past and gone. And here we had settled down for a spell at Buenos Ayres. We had parted with the kindly captain and surgeon of the Canton, with many a heartily expressed hope of meeting again another day, with prayers on their side for our success in the new land, with kindliest wishes on ours for a pleasant voyage and every joy for them.

Dear me! What a very long time it felt to look back to, since we had bidden them 'good-bye' at home! How very old I was beginning to feel! I asked my brothers if their feelings were the same, and found them identical. Time had been apparently playing tricks on us.