On the Banks of the Amazon | Page 3

soundly.

A short time after this I found that some great event was about to take
place, and I saw trunks being packed; and my mother, who had been ill
for some time, was very busy, and looked, I often thought, somewhat
sad; and then I heard that she and Ellen and I were going to England, to
be accompanied by Domingos and Maria, and that we were to remain
there some time, and that I was to go to school, and then, if my father
did not join us, that John and Ellen and I were to come back together
with our mother, unless she returned before that time. Aunt Martha and
Fanny were to stay and take care of my father. Of course I was highly
delighted when I heard this, and began packing a box with my
playthings, and all sorts of articles, and was very indignant when Maria
told me that they were not to go. I do not remember much about the
journey, except that my father came with us, and that the party rode on
mules; that Domingos carried me before him; that we went up and
down mountains and into deep valleys; and that sometimes it was very
hot, and sometimes very cold; and that we stopped at very
uncivilised-looking resting-places at night; and that at last we reached a
large town, close to the sea, which was, I have since learned, Guayaquil.
I remember seeing some magnificent fruits--pine-apples, oranges,
lemons, limes, alligator-pears, melons, and many others--and eating
some of them, or probably I should not have recollected the
circumstance. The place was very busy, and far more people were
moving about than I had been accustomed to see at Quito; and in the
harbour were a number of vessels--large ships and small ones, and
curious rafts, on which the natives were sailing or paddling about,
called balsas. They were made of light balsa wood, which is very
buoyant. They were of all sizes, and some had come in from a
considerable distance along the coast. Then my father accompanied us
on board a big ship, and took an affectionate leave of my mother and
sister and me; and we all cried very much at parting, at least Ellen and I
did, though I was so well pleased with all the sights I witnessed that I
soon forgot my sorrow. Then the sails of the Pizarro--that was the
name of our ship--were set, and we glided out of the harbour, while the
boat containing my father returned to the shore. The Pizarro was, I
should say, a Spanish ship, commanded by Captain Lopez, a very
worthy man, in whom my father had great confidence, or he would not
have committed our mother and us to his charge. At that time Spanish

vessels alone were allowed by the Spaniards to trade to the ports of
their colonies, which contributed with many other causes greatly to
retard their progress. I, however, knew nothing about such matters at
that time. I remember the compass in the binnacle placed before a big
wheel, at which a man was always standing steering the ship, and I was
told that we were sailing south. I thought the ocean, which was blue,
and calm, and glittering in the sunshine, must be very wide, and
wondered where it could end, or whether it had an end towards the west.
On the east was the coast of Peru, and I could see the lofty
snow-capped mountains rising up out of the plain, looking as if they
were intended to bear up the sky should it come down towards the earth.
Day after day we glided on. There they were as high as ever, apparently
quite close to us, though I heard the captain tell my mother that they
were fifty miles off or more. I scarcely believed him, though I did not
think so big and grave a man could tell a story. I did not understand at
that time to what a distance objects can be seen in that pure, clear
atmosphere. We after that stood off the coast for many hours, and yet
they appeared almost as high as ever. The mountains I saw were the
Andes or the Cordilleras, among which I had lived so long without
having a clear idea of their extent.
We were not idle during the voyage, for our mother set to work the
second day we were at sea to give us our lessons. She had made a point
of teaching us English as soon as we could utter a word; but though
Ellen spoke it very well from being always with her, I spoke Spanish
mixed with Quichua, the native Indian tongue, much more readily. We
now, however, learned all our lessons in English, and