Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers
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"Poorheathens! I quite feel for them."
"But what are you doing," said Jill, "with your hands in your pockets?"
"Why, I'm turning my money of course. Don't you always do that when yousee the new moon?"
"Poor benighted heathen!" cried Jill.
Peter now saw what was meant, and laughed as heartily as any one.
Presently we entered the toldo, and Peter sat down as usual to smoothhis bumps. I noticed Jill looking towards him with a half-subdued smileof mischief on his face. Soon he glanced towards me, and we went outtogether.
"I've thought of a little trick to play Peter," said Jill.
"Well?" I said.
"Get Nadi to give him the baby again."
"But how will you manage?"
"Come and see."
Nadi's innocent face always lighted up with smiles when Jill and I wentnear her. My brother addressed her in broken Patagonian. It was verymuch broken, but it suited the purpose. Nevertheless, Nadi understoodEnglish well, though too shy to talk it.
"Peter," he said, pointing to little copper-face. "Peter ywotisk, Peterkekoosh, moyout win coquet talenque." (Peter is weary and cold, andwould like to have the baby for a little while.)
Up jumped Nadi, her eyes sparkling with delight, and went off to thetent. We followed. In she went, and without a word popped the babydown on Peter's knee, then retired most gracefully.
Everybody laughed at Peter, but, like a sensible young man, he made thebest of it; and when we entered, looking as innocent as suckingguanacos, there he was talking away to the child, and making it laughand crow more than ever its mother did.
"You see what it is to be a good-natured fellow," Peter said to me."Now you'll live a long time before _you_ get baby to hold."
Peter often got baby after this, and I really think he came to like it,only he told Jeeka to inform his wife, that the danger of handing himthe child when on horseback was extreme. So this never occurred again.
I think, on the whole, then, that Peter had the best of Jill and hislittle joke.
The country now became changed in aspect, far more rugged and hilly andwild, but at times its beauty was almost awesome.
One day we came upon a patch of woodland, the first real trees we hadseen. Then we knew we were within a measurable distance of Castizo'sromantic home in the Cordilleran forests.
We encamped this night close to the wood.
The Indians did not, according to Jeeka, quite relish the propinquity.The wood was haunted by evil spirits. There was a fox with two headsthat had been frequently seen within its dark shades, and there wassomething in white which Jeeka could not well define. It might have twoheads or it might have twenty, he could not say; but it was veryterrible, and death soon visited the person whose track thissomething-in-white crossed.
There was no good could accrue from laughing at Jeeka. I could not helpthinking, however, what a pity it was so noble a fellow--savage, if youchoose to call him so--should remain in such mental darkness. Could wenot do a little to help him, Jill and I?
We might try. One never does know what one can do till a trial is made.
"Jeeka," I said that evening, "will you go for a walk with Jill and me,and bring Nadi?"
"So, so," was the reply, meaning "yes."
We would have led him towards the wood, but he shook his head, and spokebut one word in a very firm and decided tone--
"Gualichu!"
He led us down into a rocky ravine where grew many strange bushes we hadnever seen before, and in the more open places an abundance of wildflowers, many like our own pinks and primroses that grow among the dearCornish hills. In this ravine was a streamlet which, however, had soworn away its rocky bed that we could hardly see it. We could hear it,however, and when we peeped over the cliffs that formed its banks, thereit was foaming and tearing along, and leaping from shelf to shelf of itsstony bed. Sometimes it formed great pools of dark brown water, inwhich fish were leaping after the swarming flies.
Not far from this wild stream, and within hearing of its ceaseless song,we all threw ourselves on the grass in a ring. Nadi, woman-like, hadbrought some sewing with her, some beautiful skunk skins from which--weafterwards discovered--she was making a little roba or poncho for herfavourite Peter.
"You're not afraid of the Gualichu?" I said.
Jeeka looked hastily round as if to make sure there was nothing verydreadful in sight, before he replied--
"I shoot he quick, suppose I can."
"But you shot him before in the shape of a horse?" I said.
"So, so."
"And he has come to life again?"
"He, everywhere."
"You speak the truth, Jeeka: the spirit of evil, if not the evil spiritin person, is everywhere. Now who, think you, made these grand oldhills, the mountains beyond? Who made trees and those sweet flowers?Who made the horses at first, the guanaco and the ostrich? Who mademan? Not the Gualichu, surely?"
"N-no. He not make them good," said Jeeka, thoughtfully.
It was an innocent, childlike answer, but yet it brought to my mind atonce the words in the first chapter of Genesis, "And God saw that it wasgood."
It brought me at once to my subject too. I had felt very shy inspeaking at first, but I felt it my duty to speak, and I really think Iwaxed eloquent as I proceeded. Words seemed to come at all events,simple words and simple language, but they suited the occasion.
I told Nadi and Jeeka the story of the world, the story of its fall, andof its redemption through the mercy and loving-kindness of the GoodSpirit who made it.
A story so simple that babes and sucklings can understand it, appealedto the very hearts of these poor handsome heathens.
Nadi dropped her skunk skins in her lap, and listened open-mouthed.Jeeka was cutting the root of a bush which he had plucked into chipswith his dagger. He never once looked up, but I knew he was listeningtoo.
There was silence for a time after I had finished. Then Jeeka rose, andgrasped my hand.
"Brother," he said, "you tell me this story again? So, so?"
"So, so," repeated poor Nadi.
During all my story she looked as though she understood every word, andI have no doubt she did; but her husband frequently interrupted me bysaying to her--
"Ma Onques?" (Do you understand?) on which Nadi would merely nodassent, without taking her eyes a moment from my face.
I have often thought since then what a blessing it is that all a poorhuman being needs for his soul's salvation is so easily understood, thateven the intellect of a savage can compass and comprehend it. What ahard road it would be to the New Jerusalem were the finger-posts thatpoint the way written in a language few could understand, or thedirections couched in technicalities only a limited few could fathom.But no, there it is in a nutshell. "Repent, love, believe and beforgiven."
The truth had got firm hold of Jeeka, or Jeeka had got firm hold of thetruth. I was soon sure of that. It was not so much that he tried to bea better man, as that he seemed ever afterwards to live as if he wereonly "down here"--the woods are his own for a brief time,--and that hisreal home was in the far beyond.
He used often now to make Jill or me repeat the story of the world tohim, and especially the story of the Cross. He always brought Nadi withhim when he desired to speak to me on such subjects. But he sometimesasked us strange questions. Such as about the grass: was it a good cropin heaven? Horses: were they well trained? etc, etc. Once Jill read tohim from the Revelation a passage where white horses are mentioned in avision.
Jeeka was delighted, and made him read it over and over again. He wasalso greatly pleased with descriptions of Bible battles.
One day Jill read to him the description of the great fight between theIsraelites and the Canaanites, in which it is said that the Lord causedgreat stones to be rained from heaven upon the enemy.
Jeeka here grew quite excited.
"Hum-m-m. So. So. So!" he cried. "The same thing I have seen."
"You, Jeeka?"
"So, so. Big stone. Terrible fire, much smoke and t'under. Big stonefall eberywhere. So, so."
As he spoke Jeeka waved his arm away towards the west, and I at onceunderstood him to refer to an eruption of some great volcano of theCordilleras, for there are several such.
What pleased Nadi more than anything else was the singing of hymns. Sheused to join with us, but it was more of a child's voice than anythingelse.
However, Nadi was very young, not more than sixteen perhaps, wife andmother though she was.
Our route lay even more to the north than the west now, and it was soonevident that we were on the great border-line betwixt the wild bleakPampas and the forest-clad mountains, which are but a continuation ofthe great Andes chain.
The way was now a winding one, for we often had to make