by Daniel Defoe
flashes of the guns, though they could nothear the report, the wind being contrary.
This was such certain intelligence to me, and I was so impatient to knowhow things went, that, having also a small gale of wind, I weighedimmediately, and stood back again to our other ship; it was not,however, till the second day after we weighed that we came up to them,having little or no wind all the first day; the next day in the morningthey spied us, and fired the three guns again, being the signal thatthey had got news of our friends.
Nothing could be more to my satisfaction than to hear that they had gotnews, and it was as much to their satisfaction as to ours to be sure, Imean our little army; for if any disaster had happened to us, they hadbeen in a very odd condition; and though they might have found means tosubsist, yet they would have been out of all hope of ever returning totheir own country.
Upon the signal I stood into the bay, and came to an anchor at about aleague to the northward of our other ship, and as far from the shore,and, as it were, in the mouth of the river, waiting for another signalfrom our men, by which, we might judge which side of the river to goashore at, and might take some proper measures to come at them.
About five o'clock in the evening, our eyes being all up in the air, andtowards the hills, for the appointed signals, beheld, to our greatsurprise, a canoe come rowing to us out of the mouth of the river.Immediately we went to work with our perspective glasses; one said itwas one thing, and one said it was another, until I fetched a largetelescope out of the cabin, and with that I could easily see they weremy own men, and it was to our inexpressible satisfaction that they soonafter came directly on board.
It might very well take up another volume to give a farther account ofthe particulars of their journey, or, rather, their journey and voyage.
How they got through the hills, and were entertained by the generousSpaniard, and afterwards by the wealthy Chilian; how the men, greedy forgold, were hardly brought away from the mountains; and how, once, theyhad much ado to persuade them not to rob the honest Chilian who hadused them so well, till my lieutenant, then their captain, by astratagem, seized on their weapons, and threatened to speak to theSpaniard to raise the Chilians in the mountains, and have all theirthroats cut; and yet even this did not suffice, till the two midshipmen,then their lieutenants, assured them that at the first opening of thehills, and in the rivers beyond, they would have plenty of gold; and oneof the midshipmen told them, that if he did not see them have so muchgold that they would not stoop to take up any more, they should have allhis share to be divided among them, and should leave him behind in thefirst desolate place they could find.
How this appeased them till they came to the outer edge of themountains, where I had been, and where my patron, the Spaniard, leftthem, having supplied them with sixteen mules to carry their baggage,and some guinacoes, or sheep of Peru, which would carry burdens, andafterwards be good to eat also.
Also, how here they mutinied again, and would not be drawn away, beinginsatiable in their thirst after gold, till about twenty, morereasonable than the rest, were content to move forward; and, after sometime, the rest followed, though not till they were assured that thepicking up of gold continued all along the river, which began at thebottom of the mountains, and that it was likely to continue a great wayfarther.
How they worked their way down these streams, with still an insatiableavarice and thirst after the gold, to the lake called the Golden Lake,and how here they were astonished at the quantity they found; how, afterthis, they had great difficulty to furnish themselves with provisions,and greater still in carrying it along with them until they found more.
I say, all these accounts might suffice to make another volume as largeas this. How, at the farther end of the lake, they found that itevacuated itself into a large river, which, running away with a strongcurrent to the south-south-east, and afterwards to the south-by-east,encouraged them to build canoes, in which they embarked, and which riverbrought them down to the very bay where we found them; but that they metwith many difficulties, sank and staved their canoes several times, bywhich they lost some of their baggage, and, in one disaster, lost agreat parcel of their gold, to their great surprise and mortification.How at one place, they split two of their canoes, where they could findno timber to build new ones, and the many hardships they were put tobefore they got other canoes. But I shall give a brief account of itall, and bring it into as narrow a compass as I can.
They set out, as I have said, with mules and horses to carry theirbaggage, and the Spaniard gave them a servant with them for a guide,who, carrying them by-ways, and unfrequented, so that they might give noalarm at the town of Villa Rica, or anywhere else, they came to themouth of the entrance into the mountains, and there they pitched theirtent.
N.B.--The lieutenant who kept their journal, giving an account of this,merrily, in his sea language, expresses it thus: "Being all come safeinto the opening, that is, in the entrance of the mountains, and beingthere free from the observation of the country, we called it our firstport, so we brought to, and came to an anchor."
Here the generous Spaniard, who at his own request was gone before, senthis gentleman and one of his sons to them, and sent them plenty ofprovisions, as also caused their mules to be changed for others thatwere fresh, and had not been fatigued with any of the other part of thejourney.
These things being done, the Spaniard's gentleman caused them to decamp,and march two days farther into the mountains, and then they encampedagain, where the Spaniard himself came _incognito_ to them, and, withthe utmost kindness and generosity, was their guide himself, and theirpurveyor also, though two or three times the fellows were so rude, soungovernable and unbounded in their hunting after gold, that theSpaniard was almost frighted at them, and told the captain of it. Nor,indeed, was it altogether without cause, for the dogs were soungrateful, that they robbed two of the houses of the Chilians, and tookwhat gold they had, which was not much, indeed, but it hazarded so muchthe alarming the country, and raising all the mountaineers upon them,that the Spaniard was upon the point of flying from them, in spite ofall their fire-arms and courage.
But the captain begged him to stay one night more, and promised to havethe fellows punished, and satisfaction to be made; and so he brought allhis men together and talked to them, and inquired who it was? but neverwas such a piece of work in the world. When the new captain came totalk of who did it, and of punishment, they cried, they all did it, andthey did not value all the Spaniards or Indians in the country; theywould have all the gold in the whole mountains, ay, that they would, andswore to it; and, if the Spaniard offered to speak a word to them, theywould chop his head off, and put a stop to his farther jawing.
However, a little reasoning with them brought some of the men to theirsenses; and the captain, who was a man of sense and of a smooth tongue,managed so well, that he brought about twenty-two of the men, and thetwo lieutenants and surgeons, to declare for his opinion, and that theywould act better for the future; and, with these, he stepped in betweenthe other fellows, and separated about eighteen of them from their arms,for they had run scattering among the rocks to hunt for gold, and, whenthey were called to this parley, had not their weapons with them. Bythis stratagem, he seized eleven of the thieves, and made themprisoners; and then he told the rest, in so many words, that if theywould not comply to keep order, and obey the rules they were at firstsworn to, and had promised, he would force them to it, for he woulddeliver them, bound hand and foot, to the Spaniards, and they should dothe poor Chilians justice upon them; for that, in short, he would nothave the rest murdered for them; upon this, he ordered his men to drawup, to show them he would be as good as his word, when, after someconsideration, they submitted.
But the Spaniard had taken a wiser course than this, or, perhaps, theyhad been all murdered; for he ran to the two Chilian houses which therogues had plundered, and where, in short, there was a kind of tumultabout it, and, with good words, promising to give them as much gold asthey lost, and the price of so
me other things that were taken away, heappeased the people; and so our men were not ruined, as they wouldcertainly have been if the mountaineers had taken the alarm.
After this, they grew a little more governable; but, in short, the sightof the gold, and the easy getting it (for they picked it up in abundanceof places), I say, the sight of the gold made them stark mad. For nowthey were not, as they were before, trafficking for the owners and forthe voyage; but as I had promised the gold they got should be theirown, and that they were now working for themselves, there was nogetting them to go on, but, in short, they would dwell here; and thiswas as fatal a humour as the other.
But to bring this part of the voyage to an end, after eight days theycame to the hospitable wealthy Chilian's house, whom I mentioned before;and here, as the Spaniard had contrived it, they found all kind ofneedful stores for provisions laid up, as it were, on purpose; and, in aword, here they were not fed only, but feasted.
Here, again, the captain
