by Daniel Defoe
mountains and rivers, as above, I asked him, that,seeing the place was so rich, why were they not all princes, or as richas princes, who dwelt there? He shook his head, and said, it was a greatreproach upon them many ways; and, when I pressed him to explainhimself, he answered, it was occasioned by two things, namely, pride andsloth. Seignior, says he, we have so much pride that we have no avarice,and we do not covet enough to make us work for it. We walk aboutsometimes, says he, on the banks of the streams that come down from themountains, and, if we see a bit of gold lie on the shore, it may be wewill vouchsafe to lay off our cloak, and step forward to take it up;but, if we were sure to carry home as much as we could stand under, wewould not strip and go to work in the water to wash it out of the sand,or take the pains to get it together; nor perhaps dishonour ourselves somuch as to be seen carrying a load, no, not for all the value of thegold itself.
I laughed then, indeed, and told him he was disposed to jest with hiscountrymen, or to speak ironically; meaning, that they did not take somuch pains as was required, to make them effectually rich, but that Isupposed he would not have me understand him as he spoke. He said Imight understand as favourably as I pleased, but I should find the factto be true if I would go up with him to Villa Rica, when I came toBaldivia; and, with that, he made his compliment to me, and invited meto his house.
I asked him with a _con licentia_, seignior, that is, with pardon for somuch freedom, that, if he lived in so rich a country, and where therewas so inexhaustible a treasure of gold, how came he to fall into thisstate of captivity? and what made him venture himself upon the sea, tofall into the hands of pirates?
He answered, that it was on the very foot of what he had beencomplaining of; and that, having seen so much of the wealth of thecountry he lived in, and having reproached himself with that veryindolence which he now blamed all his countrymen for, he had resolved inconjunction with two of his neighbours, the Spaniards, and men of goodsubstance, to set to work in a place in the mountains where they hadfound some gold, and had seen much washed down by the water, and to findwhat might be done in a thorough search after the fund or mine of it,which they were sure was not far off; and that he was going to Lima, andfrom thence, if he could not be supplied, to Panama, to buy negroes forthe work, that they might carry it on with the better success.
This was a feeling discourse to me, and made such an impression on me,that I secretly resolved that when I came to Baldivia, I would go upwith this sincere Spaniard, for so I thought him to be, and so I foundhim, and would be an eyewitness to the discovery which I thought wasmade to my hand, and which I found now I could make more effectual thanby all the attempts I was like to make by secondhand.
From this time I treated the Spaniard with more than ordinary courtesy,and told him, if I was not captain of a great ship, and had a cargo uponme of other gentleman's estates, he had said so much of those things,that I should be tempted to give him a visit as he desired, and seethose wonderful mountains of the Andes.
He told me that if I would do him so much honour, I should not beobliged to any long stay; that he would procure mules for me atBaldivia, and that I should go not to his house only, but to themountain itself, and see all that I desired, and be back again infourteen days at the farthest. I shook my head, as if it could not be,but he never left importuning me; and once or twice, as if I had beenafraid to venture myself with him, he told me he would send for his twosons, and leave them in the ship, as hostages for my safety.
I was fully satisfied as to that point, but did not let him know my mindyet; but every day we dwelt upon the same subject, and I travelledthrough the mountains and valleys so duly in every day's discourse withhim, that when I afterwards came to the places we had talked of, it wasas if I had looked over them in a map before.
I asked him if the Andes were a mere wall of mountains, contiguous andwithout intervals and spaces, like a fortification, or boundary to acountry? or whether they lay promiscuous, and distant from one another?and whether there lay any way over them into the country beyond?
He smiled when I talked of going over them. He told me they were soinfinitely high, that no human creature could live upon the top; andwithal so steep and so frightful, that if there was even a pair ofstairs up on one side, and down on the other, no man would dare to mountup, or venture down.
But that as for the notion of the hills being contiguous, like a wallthat had no gates, that was all fabulous; that there were several fairentrances in among the mountains, and large pleasant and fruitfulvalleys among the hills, with pleasant rivers, and numbers ofinhabitants, and cattle and provisions of all sorts; and that some ofthe most delightful places to live in that were in the whole world wereamong the valleys, in the very centre of the highest and most dreadfulmountains.
Well, said I, seignior, but how do they go out of one valley intoanother? and whither do they go at last? He answered me, those valleysare always full of pleasant rivers and brooks, which fall from thehills, and are formed generally into one principal stream to every vale:and that as these must have their outlets on one side of the hills or onthe other, so, following the course of those streams, one is always sureto find the way out of one valley into another, and at last out of thewhole into the open country; so that it was very frequent to pass fromone side to the other of the whole body of the mountains, and not gomuch higher up hill or down hill, compared to the hills in other places.It was true, he said, there was no abrupt visible parting in themountains, that should seem like a way cut through from the bottom tothe top, which would be indeed frightful; but that as they pass fromsome of the valleys to others, there are ascents and descents, windingsand turnings, sloping up and sloping down, where we may stand on thoselittle ridges, and see the waters on one side run to the west, and onthe other side to the east.
I asked him what kind of a country was on the other side? and how longtime it would take up to go through from one side to the other? He toldme there were ways indeed that were more mountainous and uneasy, inwhich men kept upon the sides or declivity of the hills; in which thenatives would go, and guide others to go, and so might pass the wholeridge of the Andes in eight or nine days, but that those ways wereesteemed very dismal, lonely, and dangerous, because of wild beasts; butthat through the valleys, the way was easy and pleasant, and perfectlysafe, only farther about; and that those ways a man might be sixteen orseventeen days going through.
I laid up all this in my heart, to make use of as I should haveoccasion, but I acknowledged that it was surprising to me, as it was soperfectly agreeing with the notion that I always entertained of thosemountains, of the riches of them, the facility of access to and fromthem, and the easy passage from one side to another.
The next discourse I had with him upon this subject I began thus: Well,seignior, said I, we are now come quite through the valleys and passagesof the Andes, and, methinks I see a vast open country before me on theother side; pray tell me, have you ever been so far as to look into thatpart of the world, and what kind of a country it is?
He answered gravely, that he had been far enough several times to lookat a distance into the vast country I spoke of; And such, indeed, it is,said he; and, as we come upon the rising part of the hills we see agreat way, and a country without end; but, as to any descriptions of it,I can say but little, added he, only this, that it is a very fruitfulcountry on that side next the hills; what it is farther, I know not.
I asked him if there were any considerable rivers in it, and which waythey generally run? He said it could not be but that from such a ridgeof mountains as the Andes there must be a great many rivers on thatside, as there were apparently on this; and that, as the country wasinfinitely larger, and their course, in proportion, longer, it wouldnecessarily follow that those small rivers would run one into another,and so form great navigable rivers, as was the case in the Rio de laPlata, which originally sprung from the same hills, about the city LaPlata, in Peru, and swallowing up all the streams of less note, became,by the mere length of its course, one of the grea
test rivers in theworld. That, as he observed, most of those rivers ran rathersouth-eastward than northward, he believed they ran away to the sea, agreat way farther to the south than the Rio de la Plata; but, as to whatpart of the coast they might come to the sea in, that he knew nothing ofit.
This account was so rational that nothing could be more, and was,indeed, extremely satisfactory. It was also very remarkable that thisagreed exactly with the accounts before given me by the two ChilianIndians, or natives, which I had on board, and with whom I stillcontinued to discourse, as occasion presented; but whom, at this time, Iremoved into the Madagascar ship, to make-room for these Spanishprisoners.
I observed the Spaniard was made very sensible, by my doctor, of theobligation both he and his fellow-prisoners were under to me, in mypersuading the privateers to set them at liberty, and in undertaking tocarry them home to that part of Spain from whence they came; for, asthey had lost their cargo, their voyage seemed to be at an end. Thesense of