The Purple Land: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Three chapters in the story of my life--three periods, distinct and
well defined, yet consecutive--beginning when I had not completed
twenty-five years and finishing before thirty, will probably prove the
most eventful of all. To the very end they will come back oftenest to
memory and seem more vivid than all the other years of existence--the
four-and-twenty I had already lived, and the, say, forty or
forty-five--I hope it may be fifty or even sixty--which are to follow.
For what soul in this wonderful, various world would wish to depart
before ninety! The dark as well as the light, its sweet and its bitter,
make me love it.

Of the first of these three a word only need be written. This was the
period of courtship and matrimony; and though the experience seemed
to me then something altogether new and strange in the world, it must
nevertheless have resembled that of other men, since all men marry.
And the last period, which was the longest of the three, occupying
fully three years, could not be told. It was all black disaster. Three
years of enforced separation and the extremest suffering which the
cruel law of the land allowed an enraged father to inflict on his child
and the man who had ventured to wed her against his will. Even the
wise may be driven mad by oppression, and I that was never wise, but
lived in and was led by the passions and illusions and the unbounded
self-confidence of youth, what must it have been for me when we were
cruelly torn asunder; when I was cast into prison to lie for long
months in the company of felons, ever thinking of her who was also
desolate and breaking her heart! But it is ended--the abhorrent
restraint, the anxiety, the breedings over a thousand possible and
impossible schemes of revenge. If it is any consolation to know that
in breaking her heart he, at the same time, broke his own, and made
haste to join her in that silent place, I have it. Ah no! it is no
comfort to me, since I cannot but reflect that before he shattered my
life I had shattered his by taking her from him, who was his idol. We
are quits then, and I can even say, "Peace to his ashes!" But I could
not say it then in my frenzy and grief, nor could it be said in that
fatal country which I had inhabited from boyhood and had learned to
love like my own, and had hoped never to leave. It was grown hateful
to me, and, flying from it, I found myself once more in that Purple
Land where we had formerly taken refuge together, and which now seemed
to my distracted mind a place of pleasant and peaceful memories.

During the months of quietude after the storm, mostly spent in lonely
rambles by the shore, these memories were more and more with me.
Sometimes sitting on the summit of that great solitary hill, which
gives the town its name, I would gaze by the hour on the wide prospect
towards the interior, as if I could see, and never weary of seeing,
all that lay beyond--plains and rivers and woods and hills, and cabins
where I had rested, and many a kindly human face. Even the faces of
those who had ill-treated or regarded me with evil eyes now appeared
to have a friendly look. Most of all did I think of that dear river,
the unforgettable Y�, the shaded white house at the end of the little
town, and the sad and beautiful image of one whom I, alas! had made
unhappy.

So much was I occupied towards the end of that vacant period with these
recollections that I remembered how, before quitting these shores, the
thought had come to me that during some quiet interval in my life I
would go over it all again, and write the history of my rambles for
others to read in the future. But I did not attempt it then, nor until
long years afterwards. For I had no sooner begun to play with the idea
than something came to rouse me from the state I was in, during which
I had been like one that has outlived his activities, and is no longer
capable of a new emotion, but feeds wholly on the past. And this
something new, affecting me so that I was all at once myself again,
eager to be up and doing, was nothing more than a casual word from a
distance, the cry of a lonely heart, which came by chance to my ear;
and, hearing it, I was like one who, opening his eyes from a troubled
doze, unexpectedly sees the morning star in its unearthly lustre above
the wide, dark plain where night overtook him--the star of day and
everlasting hope, and of passion and strife and toil and rest and
happiness.

I need not linger on the events which took us to the Banda--our
nocturnal flight from Paqu�ta's summer home on the pampas; the hiding
and clandestine marriage in the capital and subsequent escape northwards
into the province of Santa F�; the seven to eight months of somewhat
troubled happiness we had there; and, finally, the secret return to
Buenos Ayres in search of a ship to take us out of the country. Troubled
happiness! Ah, yes, and my greatest trouble was when I looked on her,
my partner for life, when she seemed loveliest, so small, so exquisite
in her dark blue eyes that were like violets, and silky black hair and
tender pink and olive complexion--so frail in appearance! And I had
taken her--stolen her--from her natural protectors, from the home where
she had been worshipped--I of an alien race and another religion,
without means, and, because I had stolen her, an offender against the
law. But of this no more. I begin my itinerary where, safe on our
little ship, with the towers of Buenos Ayres fast fading away in the
west, we began to feel free from apprehension and to give ourselves
up to the contemplation of the delights before us. Winds and waves
presently interfered with our raptures, Paqu�ta proving a very
indifferent sailor, so that for some hours we had a very trying time
of it. Next day a favourable north-west breeze sprang up to send us
flying like a bird over those unlovely red billows, and in the evening
we disembarked in Montevideo, the city of refuge. We proceeded to an
hotel, where for several days we lived very happily, enchanted with
each other's society; and when we strolled along the beach to watch
the setting sun, kindling with mystic fire heaven, water, and the great
hill that gives the city its name, and remembered that we were looking
towards the shores of Buenos Ayres, it was pleasant to reflect that
the widest river in the world rolled between us and those who probably
felt offended at what we had done.

This charming state of things came to an end at length in a somewhat
curious manner. One night, before we had been a month in the hotel,
I was lying wide awake in bed. It was late; I had already heard the
mournful, long-drawn voice of the watchman under my window calling
out, "Half-past one and cloudy."

Gil Blas relates in his biography that one night while lying awake he
fell into practising a little introspection, an unusual thing for him
to do, and the conclusion he came to was that he was not a very good
young man. I was having a somewhat similar experience that night when
in the midst of my unflattering thoughts about myself, a profound sigh
from Paqu�ta made me aware that she too was lying wide awake and also,
in all probability, chewing the cud of reflection. When I questioned
her concerning that sigh, she endeavoured in vain to conceal from me
that she was beginning to feel unhappy. What a rude shock the discovery
gave me! And we so lately married! It is only just to Paqu�ta, however,
to say that had I not married her she would have been still more
unhappy. Only the poor child could not help thinking of father and
mother; she yearned for reconciliation, and her present sorrow rose
from her belief that they would never, never, never forgive her. I
endeavoured, with all the eloquence I was capable of, to dispel these
gloomy ideas, but she was firm in her conviction that precisely because
they had loved her so much they would never pardon this first great
offence. My poor darling might have been reading _Christabel_,
I thought, when she said that it is toward those who have been most
deeply loved the wounded heart cherishes the greatest bitterness. Then,
by way of illustration, she told me of a quarrel between her mother
and a till then dearly loved sister. It had happened many years ago,
when she, Paqu�ta, was a mere child; yet the sisters had never forgiven
each other.

"And where," I asked, "is this aunt of yours, of whom I have never
heard you speak until this minute?"

"Oh," answered Paqu�ta, with the greatest simplicity imaginable, "she
left this country long, long ago, and you never heard of her because
we were not even allowed to mention her name in the house. She went
to live in Montevideo, and I believe she is there still, for several
years ago I heard some person say that she had bought herself a house
in that city."

"Soul of my life," said I, "you have never left Buenos Ayres in heart,
even to keep your poor husband company! Yet I know, Paqu�ta, that
corporeally you are here in Montevideo, conversing with me at this
very moment."

"True," said Paqu�ta; "I had somehow forgotten that we were in
Montevideo. My thoughts were wandering--perhaps it is sleepiness."

"I swear to you, Paqu�ta," I replied, "that you shall see this aunt
of yours to-morrow before set of sun; and I am positive, sweetest,
that she will be delighted to receive so near and lovely a relation.
How glad she will be of an opportunity of relating that ancient quarrel
with her sister and ventilating her mouldy grievances! I know these
old dames--they are all alike."

Paqu�ta did not like the idea at first, but when I assured her that
we were getting to the end of our money, and that her aunt might be
able to put me in the way of obtaining employment, she consented, like
the dutiful little wife she was.

Next day I discovered her relation without very much trouble, Montevideo
not being a large city. We found Do�a Isidora--for that was the lady's
name--living in a somewhat mean-looking house at the eastern extremity
of the town, farthest away from the water. There was an air of poverty
about the place, for the good dame, though well provided with means
to live comfortably, made a pet of her gold. Nevertheless, she received
us very kindly when we introduced ourselves and related our mournful
and romantic story; a room was prepared for our immediate reception,
and she even made me some vague promises of assistance. On a more
intimate acquaintance with our hostess we found that I had not been
very far out in guessing her character. For several days she could
talk of nothing except her immemorial quarrel with her sister and her
sister's husband, and we were bound to listen attentively and to
sympathise with her, for that was the only return we could make for
her hospitality. Paqu�ta had more than her share of it, but was made
no wiser as to the cause of this feud of long standing; for, though
Do�a Isidora had evidently been nursing her wrath all those years to
keep it warm, she could not, for the life of her, remember how the
quarrel originated.

After breakfast each morning I would kiss her and hand her over to the
tender mercies of her Isidora, then go forth on my fruitless
perambulations about the town. At first I only acted the intelligent
foreigner, going about staring at the public buildings, and collecting
curios--strangely marked pebbles, and a few military brass buttons,
long shed by the garments they once made brave; rusty, misshapen
bullets, mementoes of the immortal nine or ten years' siege which had
won for Montevideo the mournful appellation of modern Troy. When I had
fully examined from the outside the scene of my future triumphs--for
I had now resolved to settle down and make my fortune in Montevideo--
Ibegan seriously to look out for employment. I visited in turn every
large mercantile establishment in the place, and, in fact, every house
where I thought there might be a chance of lighting on something to
do. It was necessary to make a beginning, and I would not have turned
up my nose at anything, however small, I was so heartily sick of being
poor, idle, and dependent. Nothing could I find. In one house I was
told that the city had not yet recovered from the effects of the late
revolution, and that business was, in consequence, in a complete state
of paralysis; in another that the city was on the eve of a revolution,
and that business was, in consequence, in a complete state of paralysis.
And everywhere it was the same story--the political state of the country
made it impossible for me to win an honest dollar.

Feeling very much dispirited, and with the soles nearly worn off my
boots, I sat down on a bench beside the sea, or river--for some call
it one thing, some the other, and the muddied hue and freshness of the
water, and the uncertain words of geographers, leave one in doubt as
to whether Montevideo is situated on the shores of the Atlantic, or
only near the Atlantic and on the shores of a river one hundred and
fifty miles wide at its mouth. I did not trouble my head about it; I
had other things that concerned me more nearly to think of. I had a
quarrel with this Oriental nation, and that was more to me than the
greenness or the saltness of the vast estuary that washes the dirty
feet of its queen--for this modern Troy, this city of battle, murder,
and sudden death, also calls itself Queen of the Plata. That it was
a very just quarrel on my part I felt well assured. Now, to be even
with every human being who despitefully uses me has ever been a
principle of action with me. Nor let it be said that it is an
unchristian principle; for when I have been smitten on the right or
left cheek (the pain is just the same in either case), before I am
prepared to deliver the return blow so long a time has often elapsed
that all wrathful or revengeful thoughts are over. I strike in such
a case more for the public good than for my own satisfaction, and am
therefore right in calling my motive a principle of action, not an
impulse. It is a very valuable one too, infinitely more effective than
the fantastical code of the duellist, which favours the person who
inflicts the injury, affording him facilities for murdering or maiming
the person injured. It is a weapon invented for us by Nature before
Colonel Colt ever lived, and it has this advantage, that one is
permitted to wear it in the most law-abiding communities as well as
amongst miners and backwoodsmen. If inoffensive people were ever to
cast it aside, then wicked men would have everything their own way and
make life intolerable. Fortunately the evil-doers always have the fear
of this intangible six-shooter before them; a wholesome feeling, which
restrains them more than reasonableness or the law courts, and to which
we owe it that the meek are permitted to inherit the earth. But now
this quarrel was with a whole nation, though certainly not with a very
great one, since the population of the Banda Orient�l numbers only
about a quarter of a million. Yet in this sparsely settled country,
with its bountiful soil and genial climate, there was apparently no
place for me, a muscular and fairly intelligent young man, who only
asked to be allowed to work to live! But how was I to make them smart
for this injustice? I could not take the scorpion they gave me when
I asked them for an egg, and make it sting every individual composing
the nation. I was powerless, utterly powerless, to punish them, and
therefore the only thing that remained for me to do was to curse them.

Looking around me, my eyes rested on the famous hill across the bay,
and I all at once resolved to go up to its summit, and, looking down
on the Banda Orient�l, pronounce my imprecation in the most solemn and
impressive manner.

The expedition to the _cerro_, as it is called, proved agreeable
enough. Notwithstanding the excessive heats we were just then having,
many wild flowers were blooming on its slopes, which made it a perfect
garden. When I reached the old ruined fort which crowns the summit,
I got upon a wall and rested for half an hour, fanned by a fresh breeze
from the river and greatly enjoying the prospect before me. I had not
left out of sight the serious object of my visit to that commanding
spot, and only wished that the malediction I was about to utter could
be rolled down in the shape of a stupendous rock, loosed from its hold,
which would go bounding down the mountain, and, leaping clear over the
bay, crash through the iniquitous city beyond, filling it with ruin
and amazement.

"Whichever way I turn," I said, "I see before me one of the fairest
habitations God has made for man: great plains smiling with everlasting
spring; ancient woods; swift, beautiful rivers; ranges of blue hills
stretching away to the dim horizon. And beyond those fair slopes, how
many leagues of pleasant wilderness are sleeping in the sunshine, where
the wild flowers waste their sweetness and no plough turns the fruitful
soil, where deer and ostrich roam fearless of the hunter, while over
all bends a blue sky without a cloud to stain its exquisite beauty?
And the people dwelling in yon city--the key to a continent--they are
the possessors of it all. It is theirs, since the world, out of which
the old spirit is fast dying, has suffered them to keep it. What have
they done with this their heritage? What are they doing even now? They
are sitting dejected in their houses, or standing in their doorways
with folded arms and anxious, expectant faces. For a change is coming:
they are on the eve of a tempest. Not an atmospheric change; no
blighting simoom will sweep over their fields, nor will any volcanic
eruption darken their crystal heavens. The earthquakes that shake the
Andean cities to their foundations they have never known and can never
know. The expected change and tempest is a political one. The plot is
ripe, the daggers sharpened, the contingent of assassins hired, the
throne of human skulls, styled in their ghastly facetiousness a
Presidential Chair, is about to be assaulted. It is long, weeks or
even months, perhaps, since the last wave, crested with bloody froth,
rolled its desolating flood over the country; it is high time,
therefore, for all men to prepare themselves for the shock of the
succeeding wave. And we consider it right to root up thorns and
thistles, to drain malarious marshes, to extirpate rats and vipers;
but it would be immoral, I suppose, to stamp out these people because
their vicious natures are disguised in human shape; this people that
in crimes have surpassed all others, ancient or modern, until because
of them the name of a whole continent has grown to be a byword of scorn
and reproach throughout the earth, and to stink in the nostrils of all
men!

"I swear that I, too, will become a conspirator if I remain long on
this soil. Oh, for a thousand young men of Devon and Somerset here
with me, every one of them with a brain on fire with thoughts like
mine! What a glorious deed would be done for humanity! What a mighty
cheer we would raise for the glory of the old England that is passing
away! Blood would flow in yon streets as it never flowed before, or,
I should say, as it only flowed in them once, and that was when they
were swept clean by British bayonets. And afterwards there would be
peace, and the grass would be greener and the flowers brighter for
that crimson shower.

"Is it not then bitter as wormwood and gall to think that over these
domes and towers beneath my feet, no longer than half a century ago,
fluttered the holy cross of St. George! For never was there a holier
crusade undertaken, never a nobler conquest planned, than that which
had for its object the wresting this fair country from unworthy hands,
to make it for all time part of the mighty English kingdom. What would
it have been now--this bright, winterless land, and this city commanding
the entrance to the greatest river in the world? And to think that it
was won for England, not treacherously, or bought with gold, but in
the old Saxon fashion with hard blows, and climbing over heaps of slain
defenders; and after it was thus won, to think that it was lost--will
it be believed?--not fighting, but yielded up without a stroke by
craven wretches unworthy of the name of Britons! Here, sitting alone
on this mountain, my face burns like fire when I think of it--this
glorious opportunity lost for ever! 'We offer you your laws, your
religion, and property under the protection of the British Government,'
loftily proclaimed the invaders--Generals Beresford, Achmuty,
Whitelocke, and their companions; and presently, after suffering one
reverse, they (or one of them) lost heart and exchanged the country
they had drenched in blood, and had conquered, for a couple of thousand
British soldiers made prisoners in Buenos Ayres across the water; then,
getting into their ships once more, they sailed away from the Plata
for ever! This transaction, which must have made the bones of our
Viking ancestors rattle with indignation in their graves, was forgotten
later on when we seized the rich Falklands. A splendid conquest and
a glorious compensation for our loss! When yon queen city was in our
grasp, and the regeneration, possibly even the ultimate possession,
of this green world before us, our hearts failed us and the prize
dropped from our trembling hands. We left the sunny mainland to capture
the desolate haunt of seals and penguins; and now let all those who
in this quarter of the globe aspire to live under that 'British
Protection' of which Achmuty preached so loudly at the gates of yon
capital, transport themselves to those lonely antarctic islands to
listen to the thunder of the waves on the grey shores and shiver in
the bleak winds that blow from the frozen south!"

After delivering this comminatory address I felt greatly relieved, and
went home in a cheerful frame of mind to supper, which consisted that
evening of mutton scrag, boiled with pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and milky
maize--not at all a bad dish for a hungry man.

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