On the Banks of the Amazon

On the Banks of the Amazon
by W.H.G. Kingston.
CHAPTER ONE.
MY SCHOOL-BOY DAYS AND FRIENDS.
I might find an excuse for being proud, if I were so,--not because my
ancestors were of exalted rank or title, or celebrated for noble deeds or
unbounded wealth, or, indeed, on account of any ordinary reasons,--
but because I was born in one of the highest cities in the world. I saw
the light in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, then forming the northern part
of the Spanish province of Peru. The first objects I remember beyond
the courtyard of our house in which I used to play, with its fountain and
flower-bed in the centre, and surrounding arches of sun-burned bricks,
were lofty mountains towering up into the sky. From one of them,
called Pichincha, which looked quite close through the clear
atmosphere of that region, I remember seeing flames of fire and dark
masses of smoke, intermingled with dust and ashes, spouting forth.
Now and then, when the wind blew from it, thick showers of dust fell
down over us, causing great consternation; for many thought that
stones and rocks might follow and overwhelm the city. All day long a
lofty column of smoke rose up towards the sky, and at night a vast
mass of fire was seen ascending from the summit; but no harm was
done to the city, so that we could gaze calmly at the spectacle without
apprehension. Pichincha is, indeed, only one of several mountains in
the neighbourhood from the tops of which bonfires occasionally blaze
forth. Further off, but rising still higher, is the glittering cone of
Cotopaxi, which, like a tyrant, has made its power felt by the
devastation it has often caused in the plains which surround its base:
while near it rise the peaks of Corazon and Ruminagui. Far more
dreaded than their fires is the quaking and heaving and tumbling about
of the earth, shaking down as it does human habitations and
mountain-tops, towers and steeples, and uprooting trees, and opening

wide chasms, turning streams from their courses, and overwhelming
towns and villages, and destroying in other ways the works of men's
hands, and human beings themselves, in its wild commotion.
These burning mountains, in spite of their fire and smoke, appear but
insignificant pigmies compared to that mighty mountain which rises in
their neighbourhood--the majestic Chimborazo. We could see far off its
snow-white dome, free of clouds, towering into the deep blue sky,
many thousand feet above the ocean; while on the other side its brother,
Tunguragua, shoots up above the surrounding heights, but, in spite of
its ambitious efforts, has failed to reach the same altitude I might speak
of Antisana, and many other lofty heights with hard names? but I fancy
that a fair idea may be formed of that wonderful region of giant
mountains from the description I have already given.
I used often to think that I should like to get to the top of Chimborazo,
the way up looked so easy at a distance; but no one has ever reached its
summit, though several valiant philosophers and others have made the
attempt.
The mountain range I have described, of which Chimborazo was long
considered the highest point, till Aconcagua in Chili was found to be
higher, rises from the ocean in the far-off southern end of America, and
runs up along its western shore, ever proud and grand, with
snow-topped heights rising tens of thousands of feet above the ocean,
till it sinks once more towards the northern extremity of the southern
half of the continent, running along the Isthmus of Panama, through
Mexico at a less elevation, again to rise in the almost unbroken range of
the Rocky Mountains, not to sink till it reaches the snow-covered plains
of the Arctic region.
But I am becoming too scientific and geographical; and I must confess
that it was not till many years after the time of which I am speaking
that I knew anything about the matter. My father, Don Martin Fiel, had
been for some years settled in Quito as a merchant. His mother was
Spanish, or partly so, born in Peru--I believe that she had some of the
blood of the Incas in her veins, a matter of which she was not a little
proud, I have been told--but his father was an Englishman, and our

proper family name was Faithful. My father, having lived for many
years in the Spanish South American provinces, had obtained the rights
and privileges of a Spaniard. He had, however, been sent over to
England for his education, and was a thorough Englishman at heart. He
had made during his younger days several visits to England for
mercantile purposes, and during one of them had married my mother.
He