Les fils de la tortue. English

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE ABDUCTION.

  After the infernal dance performed by the Indians round the tree ofwar, Tcharanguii, one of them, exhausted by fatigue, fell at the footof the tree, in order to rest, and whether voluntarily or throughexcessive weariness, fell asleep. When he awoke, he found himselfalone; his comrades had abandoned the camp.

  Without loss of time, he set off to join a party of his friends, whomhe knew had gone in the direction of the Cordilleras. He came up withthe caravan, as we described in a previous chapter, at the momentwhen it was continuing its journey towards Valdivia, and the suddenimpression produced on him by the sight of the two young ladies arousedin him an eager desire to seize them.

  In all probability, the Indian had instantly followed the trail of thetravellers, and so soon as they had established their bivouac in thewood, Tcharanguii had hastened off to warn his companions, exhortingthem not to lose the magnificent opportunity that presented itself ofmassacring some thirty Spaniards--that is to say, deadly enemies.

  As for the maidens, he had been very careful not to allude tothem, through fear of arousing in the others the feelings which heexperienced. Besides, it was far more simple that the rape shouldbecome the result of the fight, than the fight the result of the rape.

  The Indians greeted Tcharanguii's project with great demonstrations ofjoy, and swore by common agreement the destruction of the caravan. Wehave seen what the consequences of the attack on the travellers' campwere for the Indians, who did not give up the struggle till they hadmade numerous victims, and their chief Tcharanguii had seized Dona Inezand Dona Maria de Soto-Mayor; that is to say, the Redskin had succeededin obtaining what he desired.

  A thrill of extraordinary pleasure coursed through the Indian'sveins so soon as he had rendered it impossible for the two maidensto escape, by himself escorting the horses on which he had compelledthem to mount. His eyes, sparkling with pleasure, turned from Maria toInez, and could not dwell with greater complacency on one than on theother. He considered them both so lovely, that he was never weary ofcontemplating them with the frenzied admiration that Indians feel atthe sight of Spanish women, whom they infinitely prefer to those oftheir tribe.

  Now, in drawing our readers' attention to this peculiarity, we mustadd that, for their part, the Spaniards eagerly seek the good gracesof the Indian squaws, in whom they find irresistible attractions. Isthis one of the effects of a wise combination of Providence, desiringto accomplish the fusion of the two races in a complete fashion? No oneknows; but what cannot be denied is, that there are few Spaniards inSouth America who have not Indian blood in their veins.

  On this subject we may perhaps be allowed to leave for a momentthe framework of this romance, in order to establish the enormousdifference which exists at the present time between the situation ofthe aborigines of South America to the Spaniards, their conquerors, andthat of the North American Indians toward the Yankees, their masters.It is a difference that is destined to weigh heavily in the balance ofthe destinies of the New World.

  The Spaniards who rushed upon South America sword and fire in hand, whoconquered those ill-fated countries amid the glare of arson and thedespairing shrieks of the unhappy inhabitants, whom they killed withhorrible sufferings, ended, however, though without suspecting it, ingradually becoming blended with them, by contracting marriages withIndian girls, while the natives chose squaws among the Spanish women.

  Then, still following the incline down which they were gliding, theyeventually recognised the intelligence and political influence of thevarious tribes they have conquered, but which they respect by dealingand trafficking with them.

  Let us now see what has been the conduct of the English in NorthAmerica. Disembarking on this portion of the New World, under theguidance of William Penn, they purchased the territories which theypossess, and continually treated the Indians on equal terms, whilehaving always words of peace on their lips. They succeeded in thisway, and under the deceitful appearances of an entire good faith andperfect loyalty, in gradually becoming aggrandized, though they werenot willing to regard the men whom they plundered as their equals, orlower the pride of their race so far as to mingle their blood with thatof the Indians.

  Even more. The English, impelled by that philanthropic spirit thatdistinguishes them, and to which we have already had occasion to refer,were too humane to shoot down the men whose wealth they coveted, andfound it far more simple to inoculate them with all the vices of oldEurope; above all, that of drunkenness, which brutalizes and decimatesthem.

  What are the results of the opposite systems adopted by the twonations? North America is losing its aborigines with frightfulrapidity, while South America, on the contrary, is covered withinnumerable Indian tribes.

  After the organic law of the world, which wishes that the old andexhausted blood of the ancient races should be renewed and regeneratedby a young and vigorous blood, it is easy to foresee that, in spite ofthe present state of the great Republic of the United States, whichstrives to invade everything, and behaves with that shorthanded systempeculiar to the English character, it is only a colossus with feetof clay, which has not and cannot find in itself the necessary vitalstrength to accomplish the task laid down for itself by this youthfulRepublic, formed of heterogeneous elements which come into collisionand thwart each other at every step. Its blood, vitiated by a longservitude in Europe, would require to be completely rejuvenated.

  This bastard nation, without father or country, whose ancestors do notexist, and which has a pretension to be regenerating, will suddenly andeternally collapse, when, in its fury for possession, it has devouredall the so-called Spanish republics on the seaboard, and dashes againstthe wide chests of those men of bronze who are called the Moluchos.

  In order to regenerate peoples, a nation must itself possess theregenerating virtues; but it has been said for a long time, with greattruth, that the republicans of North America possessed all the vices ofthe old world without one of its virtues. Besides, the puerile debates,insensate utopias, and absurd follies of these honourable citizens gaveus, many years ago, the measure of their strength. The future willdecide the question and say whether we are deceived in the severe butimpartial judgment which we pass on them. But to return to Tcharanguii,from whom this long digression has carried us away.

  The young Indian chief, on getting possession of his two captives,had at the outset the idea of conveying them among his tribe, andafterwards decide which of the two he would select as his squaw; buton reflecting upon the distance which separated the Cordillera fromthe territory of the Jaos, and not wishing to confide such a preciousbooty to the warriors who had fought with him, he resolved to getahead of his comrades, who were proceeding to the north, and conductGeneral Soto-Mayor's two daughters to Schymi-Tou, the Sayotkatta ofGarakouaiti, who in his quality of High Priest of the Sun, would beenabled to conceal them from all eyes up to the day when Tcharanguiicame to ask for an account of the deposit he had made with him.

  It was, therefore, towards Garakouaiti that the ravisher wasproceeding. The two unhappy girls, violently separated from theirparents and friends, whom they never hoped to see again, hadfallen into a state of prostration which almost deprived them of aconsciousness of the frightful position in which the fatal issue ofthe fight had placed them. Surrendered without defence to the willof a savage, who might at any moment display the utmost violencetoward them, they had no human succour to await. They were, therefore,compelled to leave their fate to God, and resign themselves in aChristian spirit to the harsh trials which He inflicted on them.

  Employing our privilege of narrator, we will precede the Indian chief,and sketch the character of the country he had to pass through beforereaching the city which was his destination. We will at the same timegive a description which will enable the reader to form an idea of themanners and customs of the inhabitants, while Tcharanguii is hurryingto arrive, and displaying a certain respect to his prisoners, andlavishing on them attentions which might seem surpris
ing on the part ofa man like the formidable chief of the Jaos. What were the reasons thatinduced Tcharanguii to act in this way?--we may probably know hereafter.

  The Cordillera of the Andes, that immense backbone of the Americancontinent, which it traverses through its whole length from north tosouth, has several peaks forming immense llanos on which tribes resideat an elevation where in Europe all vegetation ceases.

  After passing through the Parumo of San Juan Bautista and entering thetemplada region, which extends for about sixty leagues, the travellerfinds himself in face of a virgin forest which is no less than eightyleagues in depth, and some twenty odd in width.

  The most practised pen is powerless to describe the unnumbered marvelsto be found in that inextricable vegetation called a virgin forest,which is at once strange and fascinating, majestic, and imposing. Themost fanciful imagination recoils before this prodigious fecundity ofan elementary nature, which is necessarily born again from its owndestruction with every new strength and vigour.

  Lianas running from tree to tree and from branch to branch, plungehere and there into the soil to rise again further on skywards, andform by crossing and interlacing an almost impassable barrier, as ifjealous Nature wished to conceal from profane eyes the secret mysteriesof these forests, in whose shadows the footsteps of men have onlyechoed at rare intervals and never with impunity. Trees of all agesand species grow without order or symmetry, as if they had been sownhaphazard like grains of wheat in a furrow. Some, slight and tall,count but a few years, and the ends of their branches are covered bythe wide and grand foliage of others whose haughty crowns have seencenturies pass.

  Beneath the foliage sweetly murmur pure and limpid streams, whichescape from fissures in the rocks, and after a thousand windings arelost in some lake or unknown river, whose free waters have as yet onlyreflected on their calm mirror the arcana of the solitude. Here arefound, pell-mell and in a picturesque disorder, all the magnificentproducts of tropical regions--the mahogany, the ebony, the satinwood,the oak, the maple, the mimosa, with its silvery frondage, and thetamarind, thrusting out in all directions its branches covered withflowers, fruit, and leaves, which form a dome impenetrable by thesunbeams.

  From the vast and unexplored depths of these forests issue at timesinexplicable sounds--ferocious howls, mocking cries, mingled withshrill whistles, joyous strains full of harmony, or expressions offury, rage and terror from the formidable guests that people them.

  After resolutely entering this chaos, and struggling hand to handwith this untended and savage nature, the traveller succeeds, axe inhand, in cutting step by step a path impossible of description. At onemoment he crawls like a reptile on the detritus of leaves, dead wood,and birds' deposits, piled up for centuries; at another, he leaps frombranch to branch at the top of the trees, and travels, so to speak, inthe air.

  But woe to the man who neglects to have his eye constantly open toall that surrounds him, and his ear strained, for he has to fear, inaddition to the obstacles of the vegetation, the venomous bites ofsnakes disturbed in their retreat, and the no less dangerous teethof ferocious animals. He must also carefully watch the course of therivers and streams which he comes across, and settle the position ofthe sun by day, and guide himself at night by the Southern Cross; foronce lost in a virgin forest it is impossible to get out of it; it isa labyrinth of which Ariadne's thread would be powerless to find theissue.

  At last when the traveller has succeeded in surmounting the dangerswe have described and a thousand others no less terrible which wehave passed over in silence, he finds himself in front of an Indiancity. That is to say, he is before one of those mysterious cities intowhich no European has ever penetrated, whose exact position is everunknown, and which since the conquest have served as the refuge of theAraucanian civilization.

  The fabulous tales told by some travellers about the incalculableriches contained in these cities have inflamed the greed and avariceof a great number of adventurers, who, at various periods, haveattempted to find the lost road to these queens of the llanos andPampas of the Cordillera. Others merely impelled by the irresistibleattractions which extraordinary enterprises offer to, vagabondimaginations, have also started, during the last fifty years, in searchof the Indian cities, but, up to the present day, success has notcrowned a single one of these expeditions.

  Some of the travellers have returned disenchanted and half killed bythis journey toward the unknown; a certain number left their bodies atthe base of precipices or in the quebradas to serve as food for birdsof prey; and, lastly, others, more unhappy still, have disappearedwithout leaving a trace, and no one has ever known what became of them.

  We, in consequence of circumstances too lengthy to repeat here, butwhich we may possibly narrate some day, have involuntarily inhabitedone of these impenetrable cities, and, more fortunate than ourpredecessors, we succeeded in escaping through a thousand perils, allmiraculously avoided. The description we are about to give is thereforescrupulously exact, and will not admit of doubt, since we speak frompersonal knowledge.

  Garakouaiti, the city which appears before us, when we have at lastcrossed the virgin forest, extends from north to south in the formof a rectangle. A wide stream, over which are thrown several stonebridges of incredible lightness and elegance, passes through its entirelength. At each corner of the square an enormous block of rock, cutperpendicularly on the side facing the country, serves as an almostimpregnable fortification. These four citadels are also connectedtogether by a wall, twenty feet thick at the top, and forty high,which inside the town forms an incline whose base is sixty feet inwidth. This wall is built of the bricks of the country, which are abouta yard long, and called adobes, and surrounds the town. A wide deepditch doubles the height of the walls.

  Two gates alone offer entrance to the city: they are flankedby turrets, exactly like a mediaeval castle; and what supportsour comparison is, that an extremely narrow and light bridge ofplanks, which can be removed upon the slightest alarm, is the solecommunication between the gate and the exterior.

  The houses are low, and have terraced roofs connected with each other:they are light, and built of reeds and canaverales covered with cement,owing to the earthquakes so frequent in these countries; but they arelarge, airy, and have numerous windows. They are all one storey high,and their front is covered with a varnish of dazzling whiteness.

  The narrow streets, which intersect each other at right angles,converge upon an immense square, situated in the centre of the city,and bearing the name of Ikarepantou (the square of the sun). It isprobable that it was in honour of the sun that the Indians designedthis square, whence all the streets of the city radiate, for it isimpossible to imagine a more correct representation of the planet whichthey venerate, than this symmetrical arrangement.

  Four magnificent palaces stand in the direction of the four cardinalpoints, and on the western side is the great temple of Chemiin-Sona,surrounded by an infinite number of carved gold and silver columns.The appearance, of this building is most beautiful: it is reached bya flight of twenty steps, each made of a single marble slab ten yardslong; the walls are excessively lofty, and the roof, like that of theother buildings, is terraced, for the Indians, who are well versedin the art of constructing subterranean vaults, are ignorant of theformation of domes.

  The interior of the temple is relatively most simple. Long pieces oftapestry, worked with feathers of a thousand hues, and representing theentire history of the Indian religion, cover the walls. In the centrestands an isolated altar surmounted by a sun glistening with gold andprecious stones, and supported by the sacred tortoise. By an ingeniousartifice, the first beams of the rising sun fall on this splendid idol,and make it flash with the most brilliant colours, so that it appearsto become animated, and really illumines all surrounding objects. Infront of this altar stands the sacrificing table, which resembles theone we described when relating the ceremony which Leon Delbes witnessedin the Indian camp. We will state at once that human sacrificesare daily becoming rarer,
and now only take place under entirelyexceptional circumstances. The victims are selected from personscondemned to death, or prisoners of war.

  At the end of the temple is a space closed by heavy curtains, to whichthe public are refused admission. These curtains conceal the entranceof a flight of steps leading to vast vaults that run underneath thetemple, and to which the priests alone have the right to descend. Theground is covered with leaves and flowers, which are daily renewed.

  On the south side of the square stands the Ulmen Fare, or Palace of theChief. It is merely a succession of reception rooms, in which everybodyhas a right to appear, and of immense courtyards which serve for themartial exercises of the nation. A separate building, to which visitorsare not admitted, is occupied by the chief's family, and the buildingserves as an arsenal and contains all the weapons of the nations, fromIndian bows and arrows, sagaies, lances and shields, up to Europeansabres, swords, and muskets, which the Indians, after fearing them sogreatly, have now learned to employ as well as ourselves, if not better.

  On the same square is the famous Jouimion Fare, or Palace of theVestals, where the Virgins of the Sun live and die. No man, the highpriest excepted, is allowed to enter the interior of this building,which is reserved for the maidens devoted to the sun: a terrible deathwould immediately punish the daring man who attempted to transgressthis law.

  The life of the Indian virgins has many points of resemblance with thatof the nuns who people European convents. They are immured, take anoath of perpetual chastity, and pledge themselves never to speak to aman, unless he be their father or brother, and in that case, are onlyallowed to converse with him through a paling in the presence of athird person, and must carefully hide their faces.

  When they appear in public and are present at the religious festivalsin the temple, they are veiled from head to foot. A vestal convictedof having allowed a man to see her face is condemned to death. Inthe interior of their abode, they occupy themselves with femininetasks, and fervently perform the rites of their religion. The vows arevoluntary: a maiden cannot be admitted among the Virgins of the Sununtil the high priest has acquired the certainty that no one has forcedher to take this determination, and that she is really following hervocation.

  Lastly, the fourth palace, situate on the east side of the square, isthe most splendid and at the same time most gloomy of all. It is theHoudaskon Fare, or Palace of the Genii, and serves as the residence ofthe Sayotkatta and piaies. It is impossible to express the mysterious,sad, and cold air of this residence, whose windows are covered with atrelliswork of osiers, so closely interwoven that it almost entirelyobstructs the light of day.

  A gloomy silence perpetually prevails in this enclosure, but at times,in the middle of the night, sleeping Indians are aroused in terrorby strange clamours, which seem to issue from the interior of theHoudaskon Fare. What is the life of the men who inhabit it?--in whatdo they pass their time? No one knows. Woe to the imprudent man who,desirous of information on this point, might try to detect secrets ofwhich he ought to be ignorant.

  If the vow of chastity is imposed on the vestals it does not existfor the piaies; still few of these marry, and all abstain from anyostensible connexion with the other sex. The novitiate of the priestslasts ten years, and it is only at the expiration of that period, andafter undergoing numberless trials, that the novices assume the titleof piaies. Till then they can recall their determination, and embraceanother profession; but such cases are extremely rare. It is true that,if they took advantage of the permission, they would be infalliblyassassinated by the priests, through a fear of a part of their secretsbeing revealed to laymen. However, they are greatly respected by theIndians, by whom they continue to make themselves loved; and we may saythat next to the Ulmen, the Sayotkatta is the most powerful man in thetribe.

  Among peoples where religion is so formidable a lever, it is remarkablethat the spiritual and temporal powers never clash; each knows howfar his attributes extend, and follows the line traced for himwithout trying to encroach on the rights of the other. Thanks to thisintelligent diplomacy, priests and chiefs work amicably together, anddouble each other's strength.

  Now that we have made our readers acquainted with Garakouaiti, let usend this chapter by saying that Tcharanguii, according to his desires,found in the Sayotkatta Schymi-Tou a complacent ally, who promised himon his head to watch with scrupulous attention over the prisoners whomhe undertook to hold in trust.

  It is as well to add that Tcharanguii told the Sayotkatta that theywere the daughters of one of the most powerful gentlemen in Chili, andthat, in order to force him to make common cause with the chief of theJaos, he had decided on taking one of them for his wife. And lastly, headded, that a magnificent present would amply reward him for the watchwhich he begged him to keep.