Quinoa

“ Quinola is the conscience, white as your fair hands, of Lavradi. Quinola does to know Lavradi. Does the soul know the body? You may unite the soul, Quinola, to the body, Lavradi, all the more easily because this morning Quinola was at the postern of your garden, with the friends of the dawn who stopped the Duke of Olmedo—
The Marchioness
What has happened to him?
Quinola Lavradi would take advantage of this moment, which is full of promise, to ask a pardon; but Quinola is a gentleman.
The Marchioness
You are taken up too much with yourself—
Quinola And not sufficiently with him—that is just. ”

“ Fontanares
For Barcelona.
Quinola No—for a tavern. If the air of the court gives the citizens a good appetite, it makes me devilish thirsty. After a drink, my glorious master, you will see your Quinola a very busy man; for we must not delude ourselves. Between the word of the king and the attainment of success, we shall meet with as many jealous philosophers, scheming tricksters, malicious cavillers, crooked, rapacious, greedy beasts of prey, thievish parasites as have ever beset you in your attempts to see the king. ”

“ SCENE SIXTH The same persons and Quinola.
Quinola
I have only thirty doubloons left, but I have had the worth of sixty.
—Ah! what a lovely scent! The marchioness can now talk to me without
fear.
The Marchioness (pointing out Quinola)
Is this our man?
The Captain
Yes.
The Marchioness Keep watch, my cousin, so that I may be able to talk without being overheard. (To Quinola) Who are you, my friend?
Quinola (aside)
Her friend! As soon as you have a woman's secret, you are her friend. ”

“ Quinola I am counting very much upon your co-operation here. Listen, Monipodio; we are going to change the face of the earth. My master has promised the king to make one of his finest vessels move through the water, without sails or oars, in the wind's eyes, more swiftly than the wind itself. ”

“ O my dear master, if the torture chamber has not broken your bones, you are likely to get out of the cells of the holy —the thrice holy Inquisition—saved by your poor cur Quinola! Poor? —why should I say poor? My master once free, we will end by cashing our hopes. To live at Valladolid for six months without money, and without being nabbed by the alguazils, argues the possession of certain small talents, which, if applied to—other ends, might bring a man to—something different in fact! If we knew where we were going no one would stir a step—I purpose speaking to the king, I, Quinola. ”

“ Quinola One morning at Valladolid, my master was within an ace of divulging his secret to a philosopher who knew nothing of it. I warrant you, I showed that gentleman the door, with a dose of cudgel given with a good will.
Monipodio
But how is it possible for us to gain a fortune honestly?
Quinola My master is in love. Now love forces a man to do as many foolish things as wise things. We two have first of all to protect our protector. My master is a philosopher who cannot keep accounts—
Monipodio Oh! ”

“ Quinola Monipodio, please to remember that men like us must not be astonished at anything. Leave that to smaller people. The king has given us the ship, but without a doubloon to go and get her. We arrived here, therefore, with those two faithful companions of genius, hunger and thirst. A poor man who discovers a valuable idea has always seemed to me like a crumb of bread in a fish-pond; every fish takes a bite at him. We are likely to reach the goal of glory naked and dying. ”

“ Fontanares
What kind of a man is this Don Ramon?
Monipodio
He is an ass.
Quinola
Is he envious?
Monipodio As three rejected play-writers. He makes himself out to be a wonderful man.
Quinola
But does any one believe him?
Monipodio They look upon him as an oracle. He scribbles off his treatises, explaining that the snow is white because it falls from heaven, and he maintains, in contradiction to Galileo, that the earth does not move.
Quinola
Do you not plainly see, senor, that I must rid you of this
philosopher? (To Monipodio) You come with me; you must be my servant. ”

“ Sometimes it is forgotten that when the British government secured the cultivation of the cinchona tree in Ceylon and India, the quinine industry was not entirely transplanted from Peru and Bolivia. Annually from 250,000 to 325,000 kilograms, or 715,000 pounds, of cinchona bark are shipped through the ports of Mollendo and Arica. In the eastern Andine region 6,000,000 trees are said to be under culture, there being a large number of the groves on the broken mountain-sides at altitudes of 3,200 to 6,500 feet. ”

“ As a poet, if a foreigner may be allowed to express an opinion, for which he has no native authority to adduce, Quintana may be said to be more eloquent than poetical. As Quintilian said of Lucan, both also natives of Spain, "ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis annumerandus." Quintana's eloquence consists in earnestness more than in flights of fancy. His favourite subjects were the glories of his country; and his patriotic odes, in which he endeavoured to incite his countrymen to imitate the examples of their forefathers, have been pronounced his best compositions. ”

“ About four in the afternoon, during a partial cessation of the sleet and rain which had been incessant for so many days, melting the snow on the mountains and swelling the rivers, Quentin found himself posted as an advanced sentinel in front of the line of out-picquets, near the road leading from Lugo to Nogales. Dark clouds enveloped the mighty range of mountains in the distance, but from their summits it was known, by the intelligence of scouts, that the enemy was descending in force. ”

“ He moved a little way toward the open trail, stopped, came back, stood his rifle against a tree.
For a while he was busy with his sharp Spanish clasp knife, whittling and fitting together two peeled twigs. A cross was the ultimate result. Then he placed Clinch's hands palm to palm upon his chest, lay the cross on his breast, and shined the result with complacency.
Then Quintana took off his hat.
"L'ami Mike," he said, "you were a man! ... Adios!"
* * * * *
Quintana put on his hat. The path was free. The world lay open before
Jose Quintana once more; — the world, his hunting ground. ”

“ I asked Razàka the reason of such repugnance to the proper remedies, and he replied: ‘Simply ignorance, foolishness, and superstition.’ While some few refused the quinine as being too bitter, and others because they were afraid it might bewitch them, the majority declined to take it because it was too powerful! They said they knew very well that the white man’s medicine would cure them, for it was powerful; but it would not only cure them, it would also quite destroy all the virtue of their own medicine. ”

“ Marie
If he should become a duke, grandee of Spain, and wealthy?
Lothundiaz If! If! If! Do you take me for an imbecile? These ifs are the horses that drag to the hospital all these sham world-discoverers.
Fontanares But here are the letters in which the king grants to me the use of a ship.
Quinola Now open your eyes! My master is at once a man of genius and a handsome youth; genius dulls a man and makes him of no use in a home, I grant you; but the handsome youth is there still; what more is needed by a girl for happiness? ”

“ But let us hasten to add that Quiquendone has neither industry nor commerce, and that it does very well without them. Its barley-sugar and whipped cream are consumed on the spot; none is exported. In short, the Quiquendonians have no need of anybody. Their desires are limited, their existence is a modest one; they are calm, moderate, phlegmatic—in a word, they are Flemings; such as are still to be met with sometimes between the Scheldt and the North Sea.
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH THE BURGOMASTER VAN TRICASSE AND THE COUNSELLOR NIKLAUSSE CONSULT ABOUT THE AFFAIRS OF THE TOWN.
“You think so?” ”

“ Suddenly instinct resumed its function, and he struggled madly to get away from the edge of the sink-hole—fought his way, blindly, through tangled undergrowth toward the hard ridge. No human power could have blocked the frantic creature thrashing toward solid ground.
But there Quintana held him in his wiry grip.
"Fool! Mule! Crazee fellow! What you do, eh? For why you make jumps like rabbits! Eh? You expec' Quintana? Yes? Alors!"
Leverett, in a state of collapse, sagged back against an oak tree. Quintana's nervous grasp fell from his arms and they swung, dangling. ”

“ Under any circumstances, however, there can be no doubt that the climates of the Neilgherries, Anamallays, Pulneys, and probably Coorg, are admirably adapted to the production of quinine in these precious trees. On the other hand, it is possible that, under cultivation, the chinchonæ may be able to adapt themselves to conditions of climate differing as much from those of their native habitat even as the Mahabaleshwur hills, and that their cultivation is capable of far wider extension than I am now able to expect. ”

“ But I have no apprehension that such will be the result of the cultivation of these plants in other parts of the world. The demand for quinine will always be in excess of the supply from South America; and the result of chinchona cultivation in India and Java will have the effect of lowering the price, and bringing this inestimable febrifuge within the reach of a vast number of people who are now excluded from its use, without in any way injuring the trade of Peru and Ecuador. ”

“ Baikie, in his voyage up the Niger, attributed the return of his men alive to the habitual use of quinine; and the number of men whose lives it has saved in our naval service and in India will give a notion of the vast importance of a sufficient and cheap supply of the precious bark which yields it. India and other countries have been vainly searched for a substitute for quinine, and we may say with as much truth now as Laubert did in 1820—"This medicine, the most precious of all those known in the art of healing, is one of the greatest conquests made by man over the vegetable kingdom. ”

“ Cinchona, a genus of evergreen trees, includes thirty-six species, about a dozen of which are utilized. They are natives of the Andes, growing mostly between five thousand and eight thousand feet above the sea-level. It is the source of quinine, the most important drug in tropical medicine, and widely used throughout the world. Its cultivation is becoming quite extensive. ”

“ There were lights—pine-torches or candles—burning in all the houses, and, as he passed the windows, Quentin could perceive the dark-bearded faces, the striking figures, and varied costumes of the guerillas. Various groups of them thronged the little street, and a company of them were parading, under arms, before the largest house in the puebla.
"That is the posada, senor," said Quentin's guide. "There Don Baltasar resides; but we have come too late to speak with him, at least until his work is done."
"His work," repeated Quentin, inquiringly; "what is about to be done?" ”

“ More than once he feels one finger of his left hand caught in the stranger's grasp, then, as with a cry of triumph which rends the air with hideous mirth, super-human strength seems to possess the masked man. He picks up Quinton in his sinewy arms, whirls him once wildly above his head, and drops him over a rock, down a bank—a fall of only a few feet, on to thick undergrowth below. Then leaping back into his saddle, he gallops at full speed towards the jungle, while Quinton lies gasping and shaking, cut and bleeding. ”

“ As is well known, the civilized world is indebted for its increased supply of quinine to Mr. Charles Ledger, the naturalist. In a subsequent chapter I have given Mr. Ledger's interesting account of the manner in which he succeeded, after various adventures, in the course of which occurred the death of his faithful Indian servant, Manuel, in procuring a small quantity of Cinchona calisaya seed from Bolivia, part of which was sold to the British and part to the Dutch East India Governments. It is from the nurseries thus formed that the plantations of Java and Ceylon were stocked. ”

“ As perspectives appear lengthened, according to the number and variety of objects that intervene to the view, so life itself may appear to have been longer or shorter, according to the memory and character of events witnessed in its course. Described as a person of athletic form, yet unbowed by the burden of fourscore years, Quintana, as before observed, still survives, to receive the honour justly due to him for his honourable exertions through life, the remembrances of which may thus give him more pleasurable enjoyments, than can be supposed to fall to the lot of ordinary mortals. ”

“ Avaloros (to Fontanares)
Very well, my friend, you must come to see me.
(Monipodio secretly robs him of his purse.)
SCENE SEVENTEENTH Monipodio, Fontanares and Quinola.
Quinola (to Fontanares)
Are you making a good beginning here?
Monipodio
Don Fregose is jealous of you.
Quinola
Sarpi is bent on defeating your enterprise.
Monipodio You are posing as a giant before dwarfs who are in power! Before you put on these airs of pride, succeed! People who succeed make themselves small, slip into small openings and glide inward to the treasure. ”

“ As Quintana continued his encircling manœuvres Eve, apparently perplexed, walked out into the clear space, putting the concealed trap between her and Quintana, who now came stealthily toward her from the rear.
It was evident that he had reconnoitred sufficiently to satisfy himself that the girl was alone and that no trick, no ambuscade, threatened him.
And now, from behind a pine, and startlingly near her, came Quintana, moving with confident grace yet holding his rifle ready for any emergency.
Eve's horrified stare was natural; she had not realised that any man could wear so evil a smile. ”