"Wait one moment," said Burly Bill, "this is getting interesting, but my meerschaum wants to be loaded."

"Now," he added, a few minutes after, "just fire away, my friend."

CHAPTER XXIII--A MARVELLOUS LAKE IN A MARVELLOUS LAND--LA PAZ

"Mebbe," said Rodrigo, "if you knew the down-south Bolivians as well as I do, you would not respect them a great deal. Fact is, boys, there is little to respect them for.

"Brave? Well, if you can call slaves brave, then they're about as bully's they make 'em.

"I have mentioned the inland sea called Lake t.i.ticaca. Ah, boys, you must see this fresh-water ocean for yourselves! and if ever you get married, why, take my advice and go and spend your honeymoon there.

"Me married, did you say, Mr. Bill? It strikes me, sir, I know a trick worth several of that. Been in love as often as I've got toes and fingers, and mebbe teeth, but no tying up for life, I'm too old a starling to be tamed.

"But think, _amigo mio_, of a lake situated in a grand mountain-land, the level of its waters just thirteen thousand feet above the blue Pacific.

"Surrounded by the wildest scenery you can imagine. The wildest, ay, boys, and the most romantic.

"You have one beautiful lake or loch in your Britain--and I have travelled all over that land of the free,--I mean Loch Ness, and the surrounding mountains and glens are magnificent; but, bless my b.u.t.tons, boys, you wouldn't have room in Britain for such a lake as the mighty t.i.ticaca. It would occupy all your English Midlands, and you'd have to give the farmers a free pa.s.sage to Australia."

"How do you travel on this lake?" said d.i.c.k Temple.

"Ah!" continued Rodrigo, "I can answer that; and here lies another marvel. For at this enormous height above the ocean-level, steamboats, ply up and down. No, not built there, but in sections sent from America, and I believe even from England. The labour of dragging these sections over the mountain-chains may easily be guessed.

"The steamers are neither so large nor so fine as your Clyde boats, but there is a lot of honest comfort in them after all.

"And terrible storms sometimes sweep down from the lofty Cordilleras, and then the lake is all a chaos of broken water and waves even houses high. If caught in such storms, ordinary boats are speedily sunk, and lucky are even the steamers if shelter is handy.

"Well, what would this world be, I wonder, if it were always all sunshine. We should soon get well tired of it, I guess, and want to go somewhere else--to murky England, for example."

Rodrigo blew volumes of smoke before he continued his desultory yarn.

"Do you know, boys, what I saw when in your Britain, south of the Tweed?

I saw men calling themselves sportsmen chasing poor little hares with harriers, and following unfortunate stags with buck-hounds. I saw them hunt the fox too, men and women in a drove, and I called them in my own mind cowards all. Brutality and cowardice in every face, and there wasn't a farmer in the flock of stag-hunting Jockies and Jennies who could muster courage enough to face a puma or even an old baboon with a supple stick in its hand. Pah!

"But among the hills and forests around this Lake t.i.ticaca is the paradise of the hunter who has a bit of sand and grit in his substance, and is not afraid to walk a whole mile away from a cow's tail.

"No, there are no dangerous Indians that ever I came across among the mountains and glens; but as you never know what may happen, you've got to keep your cartridges free from damp.

"What kind of game? Well, I was going to say pretty much of all sorts.

We haven't got giraffes nor elephants, it is true, nor do we miss them much.

"But there are fish in the lake and beasts on the sh.o.r.e, and rod and gun will get but little holiday, I a.s.sure you, lads, if you elect to travel in that strange land.

"I hardly know very much about the fish. They say that the lake is bottomless, and that not only is it swarming with fish, wherever there is a bank, but that terrible animals or beasts have been seen on its deep-blue surface; creatures so fearful in aspect that even their sudden appearance has turned gray the hairs of those who beheld them.

"But I calculate that this is all Indian gammon or superst.i.tion.

"As for me, I've been always more at home in the woods and forests, and on the mountain's brow.

"I'm not going to boast, boys, but I've climbed the highest hills of the Cordilleras, where I have had no companion save the condor.

"You Europeans call the eagle the bird of Jove. If that is so, I want to ask them where the condor comes in.

"Why, your golden eagle of Scottish wilds isn't a circ.u.mstance to the condor of the Andes. He is no more to be compared to this great forest vulture than a spring chicken is to a Christmas turkey.

"But the condor is only one of a thousand wild birds of prey, or of song, found in the Andean regions or giant Cordilleras.

"And at lower alt.i.tude we find the llamas, the guanacos, and herds of wild vicunas.

"You may come across the puma and the jaguar also, and be sorry you've met.

"Then there are goats, foxes, and wild dogs, as well as the viscacha and the chinchilla, to say nothing of deer.

"But on the great lake itself, apart from all thought of fish, you need never go without a jolly good dinner if the rarest of water-fowl will please you. Ducks and geese galore, and other species too many to name."

"That is a land, and that is a lake," said d.i.c.k musingly, "that I should dearly like to visit. Yes, and to dwell in or on for a time.

"I suppose labour is cheap?" he added enquiringly.

"I guess," returned Rodrigo, "that if you wanted to erect a wooden hut on some high and healthy promontory overlooking the lake--and this would be your best holt--you would have to learn the use of axe and adze and saw, and learn also how to drive a nail or two without doubling it over your thumb and hitting the wrong nail on the head."

"Well, anyhow," said d.i.c.k, "I shall dream to-night of your great inland ocean, of your Lake t.i.ticaca, and in my dreams I shall imagine I am already there. I suppose the woods are alive with beautiful birds?"

"Yes," said Rodrigo, "and with splendid moths and b.u.t.terflies also; so let these have a place in your dreams as well. Throw in chattering monkeys too, and beautiful parrots that love to mock every sound they hear around them. Let there be evergreen trees draped in garments of climbing flowers, roaring torrents, wild foaming rivers, that during storms roll down before them, from the flooded mountains, ma.s.sive tree trunks, and boulders houses high."

"You are quite poetic!"

"But I am not done yet. People your paradise with strangely beautiful lizards that creep and crawl everywhere, looking like living flowers, and arrayed in colours that rival the tints of the rainbow. Lizards--ay, and snakes; but bless you, boys, these are very innocent, objecting to nothing except to having their tails trodden on."

"Well, no creature cares for treatment like that," said Roland. "If you and I go to this land of beauty, d.i.c.k, we must make a point of not treading on snakes' tails."

"But, boys, there are fortunes in this land of ours also. Fortunes to be had for the digging."

"Copper?"

"Yes, and gold as well!"

Rodrigo paused to roll and light another cigarette. I have never seen anyone do so more deftly. He seemed to take an acute delight in the process. He held the snow-white tissue-paper lovingly in his grasp, while with his forefinger and thumb he apportioned to it just the right quant.i.ty of yellow fragrant Virginia leaf, then twisting it tenderly, gently, he conveyed it to his lips.

Said d.i.c.k now, "I have often heard of the wondrous city of La Paz, and to me it has always seemed a sort of semi-mythical town--a South American Timbuctoo."

"Ah, lad, it is far from being mythical! On the contrary, it is very real, and so are everything and everybody in it.

"I could not, however, call it, speaking conscientiously, a gem of a place, though it might be made so. But you see, boys, there is a deal of Spanish or Portuguese blood in the veins of the real whites here--though, mind you, three-fourths of the population are Indians of almost every Bolivian race. Well, the motto of the dark-eyed whites seems to be Manana (p.r.o.nounce Mah-nyah-nah), which signifies 'to-morrow', you know. Consequently, with the very best intentions in the world, they hardly ever finish anything they begin. Some of the streets are decently paved, but every now and then you come to a slough of despond. Many of the houses are almost palatial, but they stand side by side with, and are jostled by, the vile mud-huts of the native population. They have a cathedral and a bazaar, but neither is finished yet.