Paramaribo

“ You may easily sail from Cayenne to the River Surinam in two days. Its capital, Paramaribo, is handsome, rich and populous: hitherto it has been considered by far the finest town in Guiana, but probably the time is not far off when the capital of Demerara may claim the prize of superiority. You may enter a creek above Paramaribo and travel through the interior of Surinam till you come to the Nicari, which is close to the large River Coryntin. When you have passed this river there is a good public road to New Amsterdam, the capital of Berbice. ”

“ Cramer, the director of agriculture, and other members of the scientific staff, an opportunity was afforded of visiting a number of the most characteristic regions within reach of Paramaribo, and an excellent idea was thus obtained of the more salient features of the flora of this region. Excursions were made up the Surinam River and some of its tributaries, as well as to one of the characteristic "savannas" occasionally met with in lower Surinam. ”

“ We are now 800 miles from the coast of Paramaribo, the nearest portion of Dutch Guiana, and in ten or twelve days, if the weather should be favorable, I believe we could reach the shore. What I now propose to do is to stop the leak by the best means we can command, and make at once for the nearest port. ”

“ From then on the scientific party was restless and eager to get started into the unknown. As one nears his goal, he nearly always finds it hard to wait through the last few stretches. Bob and Joe [Pg 81] especially were excited, for it was their first adventure. Their hearts throbbed as they eagerly anticipated the coming days.
That evening they arrived in Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, and, as before, took a short trip about the city. It was much the same as Paramaribo, however, and they were glad to board the Empire again for the last leg of the long journey. ”

“ The sailor said he should colour the six gallons also, and did not doubt of loading his boat to the water’s edge before he reached Paramaribo.—Such, in all countries, is the force of prejudice.
Having been very well entertained at Saardam, we set forward, and arrived safe in the encampment at the Casseepore Creek, in Cottica River, on the 13th; where, in stepping ashore, being without shoes and stockings, I narrowly escaped being bitten by a land-scorpion. This insect is of the size of a small cray-fish, and has an oval body ”

“ With wildly beating heart the young girl watched the vessel tack to clear the long curve of the coast. But once before in all her life had she seen such another monster winged canoe, and that had been when Senor Don Cabrillo first cast anchor in the Bay of Moons below, now almost a year ago. For many a week had the young man lingered, renewing the friendship with the Mariposa cemented more than eighteen years before when his father, hindered by storms in his adventurous journey up the coast, cast anchor off the shore,—the first white man to see their island. ”

“ Off the coast lies the palmclad volcanic island of Oena-Oena. Paragi is the home of somewhat restless and troublesome natives; but then, the interior of the country is populated by savages who are cannibals and slave-dealers, and who can only be brought under control by degrees.
In the mountains in Celebes—which are about 7000 feet high—is found the sapi-utan, or wild cow, half antelope and half buffalo, a small animal; and the babirusa, or pig-deer, peculiar to this island, the Sulu Isles, and Bouru. It has upper tusks curling back to its eyes, and is different from all other animals. ”

“ Garlicho did not go on with the work, my dear friend, because he was breaking stone in the streets of San Juan with a ball and chain around his ankle. When Paramba came back to power he was tried for high treason and condemned to be shot. He saved his neck by turning over the lighthouse papers to Onativia. As to Carlos Onativia, he is a product of the soil. Started life as a coolie boss in a copper mine, became manager and owner, built the bridge over the Quitos River and the railroad up the Andes; is the brightest man in Moccador and the brains of the Paramba Government. ”

“ A stick of sugar-cane will taste as good to them as our best peppermint or lemon candy. All the boys learn to ride as soon as they learn how to walk. Saddles and bridles are unnecessary, as they ride bareback, and guide the wiry Filipino ponies with a halter made of rope. The carabao is a great friend of Filipino boys and girls. He lets them pull themselves up by his tail, and ride him into town—as many as [145] can make room on his back, allowing them to guide him by a rope run through his nose.
A Carabao
I do not think that many of the children can remember ever having learned to swim. ”

“ Night on board the Mariposa has additional attractions for the passengers who appreciate the wonders and beauties of nature. When the night is dark, they find a place in the stern of the ship, lean against the taffrail, and watch the water agitated into a diminutive storm by the powerful screw. There one beholds a sight sufficiently attractive and interesting to keep him spellbound for an hour or more. ”

“ He has prepared for Marimonda a bed beside his own; he takes care of her, he watches over her, he leaves her only to seek in the woods, or on the mountains, the herb which may heal her; he brings all sorts, and by armfuls, that she may choose;—does she not know them better than himself?
As she turns away her head, or repulses with the hand those which he presents, he thinks he has not yet discovered the one she requires, and though still suffering, though himself exhausted by so many varying emotions, he re-commences his search, to summon the entire island to the assistance of Marimonda. ”

“ Marimonda is now the companion of Selkirk, his friend, his slave; she seems to comprehend his slightest gestures and even his ennui. To amuse him, she resorts to a thousand expedients, a thousand tricks of the agility peculiar to her race; she goes, she comes, she runs, she leaps, she bounds, she chatters at his side; she tries to people his solitude, to make a rustling around him; she brings him his pipes, rocks him in his hammock, and, for all these cares, all this attention, demands only a caress, which is no longer refused. ”

“ If you see her there in the winter, frozen in the ice beside the wharf with a snowdrift against the windows of the pilot house, she looks a pathetic little thing the size of a butternut. But in the summer time, especially after you've been in Mariposa for a month or two, and have paddled alongside of her in a canoe, she gets larger and taller, and with a great sweep of black sides, till you see no difference between the Mariposa Belle and the Lusitania. Each one is a big steamer and that's all you can say. ”

“ The beast of burden in the Philippines, the ungainly, slow-moving animal that pulls the one-handled plows and the two-wheeled carts, is the carabao. The carabao, or water buffalo, is about the size of an ordinary American ox, and much like the ox, but his hide is black, thick, and looks almost as tough as an alligator's; his horns are enormous, and he has very little hair. ”

“ The marabou feeds on carrion, like the vulture. Its throat is very large, and it will greedily eat everything that comes in its way. In the swamps and plains around Khartoom, on the Nile, are immense flocks of marabous, and they are so daring as to come to the slaughter-houses on the outskirts of the city in search of food, and whole ox ears, and shin-bones with hoof attached, have been found in the crop of specimens which have been killed. ”

“ With difficulty young Harold suppressed a smile. But the older man, as well aware of what the situation demanded as he was keenly alive to its danger, received the attention with a gravity fully equal to that of his host. Indeed, he went still further.
“Most gracious hast thou been, oh Torquam, all wise chief of the Mariposa,” he began in carefully chosen Spanish, “nor shall thy kingly gift remain unrequited. ”

“ Paraiba is a very fertile province, bordering on that of Pernambuco, and vastly better peopled than the one last described, as it has a population of 70,000 to an area of 9,000 square miles; and cattle of European breeds are raised in considerable numbers with great facility. There is a fine river, some 20 miles in length, leading up to the town, of the same name as the province, where vessels can load alongside the trapixes. The bar entrance is rather intricate, but there is very good anchorage just inside. Paraiba exports largely of cotton, and also of sugar and hides. ”

“ When the eating was finished, the snakes arose and took wooden swords and launched their canoe, for they were about to fight Arebo. And Wakeke, fearing lest he might be forbidden, coiled himself upon the outrigger. Then did they paddle, and paddle, and paddle, until they floated over the place where dwelt Arebo at the bottom of the sea. And that they might better see him they squeezed coconut milk upon the water and made it calm, and so looked upon Arebo sitting below eating betel nut. ”

“ It is four leagues in circumference, and one league wide; it has about sixty inhabitants, as well as an encomendero. The people are poor and wretched, possessing nothing but salt and fish.
Island of Maripipe. At the other side, northeast from the island of Baybay, lies the island called Maripipe. It is a very mountainous island, and by reason of its great roughness it is barren. It is about seven leagues in circumference and two and one-half leagues wide. It has a population of about one hundred Indians. ”

“ Wild carabaos are found not only at various points in Luzón, but abundantly in Mindoro and the Calamianes Islands. They appear in considerable numbers in Masbate, Negros and elsewhere in the archipelago.
To the inexperienced hunters who are inclined to try to bring them down my advice is “Don’t!”
Few indeed are the men who have killed so much as a single specimen of the tamarau of Mindoro. It is a small jungle-inhabiting ruminant. Its color, when adult, is precisely that of the carabao. It is, however, a much smaller and more active animal. ”

“ John respecting the formations in the valley of the Paranahyba, it is my belief that the changes I have been describing are but a small part of the destruction wrought by the sea on the northeastern shore of this continent. I think it will be found, when the coast has been fully surveyed, that a strip of land not less than a hundred leagues in width, stretching from Cape St. Roque to the northern extremity of South America, has been eaten away by the ocean. If this be so, the Paranahyba and the rivers to the northwest of it, in the province of Maranham, were formerly tributaries of the Amazons ”

“ During the harvest time there is a truce in these turbulent islands, but when the crops have been gathered, the natives become restless and long to sally forth to conquer. The myth that victory comes only to the tribe whose fire-tree has bloomed is implicitly believed, and impatiently the Moros await this announcement of the combat season. Paying no heed to their capital city, Manila, these merry little isles revel in intrigue, and there is no sport in Moroland that can compare with the combat. Tribes go forth to conquer and enslave others ”

“ Suddenly he remembers that rock, that island, discerned by him, on the day when at the Oasis, he was reconciled to Marimonda.
That is the island of San Ambrosio; it is there, he does not doubt it for an instant, that his new friend lives; yes, his friend! for, from this moment he experiences for him an emotion of sympathetic affection. He loves him, he is so much to be pitied! Poor father, he has lost his sons, he has lost his fortune and the hope of returning to his country ”

“ True, Maremma was so lonely, so wide, so virgin in its water-fed greenery, so severed by its season of disease from all the moving world, that such a life here was less strange than it would have been elsewhere, and the native mountaineer in the hillside woods, and the shepherd from the north on the rich grasslands, were nomads as utterly as ever were their forefathers in days when Pan and Faunus were the gods of the forest and pasture. ”

“ These are the wild carabao, which is still to be found in various parts of the archipelago, and the tamarau, a true buffalo of a species which occurs nowhere in the world except on the island of Mindoro.
The wild carabao is a formidable antagonist, hard to stop and a vicious fighter after he is once wounded. Under ordinary circumstances he is very wary and difficult to approach. It is highly important in hunting him to use bullets with great stopping power. A number of men have been killed in the Philippines by wild carabaos which they had severely wounded. ”

“ It was a difficult problem to decide. They must force the issue, be it right or wrong.
“We must ascertain from Muro how long it will take Stut to reach the tribe,” suggested John.
“He says two days, and two days more to get the people in motion. Muro was pretty smart. He says he instructed them to attack the Kurabus on the south, and that would divert them from us, but the trouble is that he has hardly reached them yet, and before night we may be within the territory of the Kurabus.”
A southwesterly course was decided on, and the Brabos followed. ”

“ After the magic circle has been limned on the ground, a Marabout announces that a woman may step within the inspired figure and that, by Allah's will, she will fall asleep and have a vision which shall contain certain guidance for the tribe in this hour of trial. The Marabouts always choose a woman that is far from young and usually in some way abnormal. When his subject falls asleep, she sees in her dream the legendary, mysterious traveler, Ali ben Abi Thaleb, with whom she speaks in a loud voice, while the Marabout constructs from her words new horoscopes for the guidance of the tribe. ”