Gustave Aimard
The Smuggler Chief: A Novel

CHAPTER XVII
THE ABDUCTION

After the infernal dance performed by the Indians round the tree of war, Tcharanguii, one of them, exhausted by fatigue, fell at the foot of the tree, in order to rest, and whether voluntarily or through excessive weariness, fell asleep. When he awoke, he found himself alone; his comrades had abandoned the camp.

Without loss of time, he set off to join a party of his friends, whom he knew had gone in the direction of the Cordilleras. He came up with the caravan, as we described in a previous chapter, at the moment when it was continuing its journey towards Valdivia, and the sudden impression produced on him by the sight of the two young ladies aroused in him an eager desire to seize them.

In all probability, the Indian had instantly followed the trail of the travellers, and so soon as they had established their bivouac in the wood, Tcharanguii had hastened off to warn his companions, exhorting them not to lose the magnificent opportunity that presented itself of massacring some thirty Spaniards – that is to say, deadly enemies.

As for the maidens, he had been very careful not to allude to them, through fear of arousing in the others the feelings which he experienced. Besides, it was far more simple that the rape should become the result of the fight, than the fight the result of the rape.

The Indians greeted Tcharanguii's project with great demonstrations of joy, and swore by common agreement the destruction of the caravan. We have seen what the consequences of the attack on the travellers' camp were for the Indians, who did not give up the struggle till they had made numerous victims, and their chief Tcharanguii had seized Doña Inez and Doña Maria de Soto-Mayor; that is to say, the Redskin had succeeded in obtaining what he desired.

A thrill of extraordinary pleasure coursed through the Indian's veins so soon as he had rendered it impossible for the two maidens to escape, by himself escorting the horses on which he had compelled them to mount. His eyes, sparkling with pleasure, turned from Maria to Inez, and could not dwell with greater complacency on one than on the other. He considered them both so lovely, that he was never weary of contemplating them with the frenzied admiration that Indians feel at the sight of Spanish women, whom they infinitely prefer to those of their tribe.

Now, in drawing our readers' attention to this peculiarity, we must add that, for their part, the Spaniards eagerly seek the good graces of the Indian squaws, in whom they find irresistible attractions. Is this one of the effects of a wise combination of Providence, desiring to accomplish the fusion of the two races in a complete fashion? No one knows; but what cannot be denied is, that there are few Spaniards in South America who have not Indian blood in their veins.

On this subject we may perhaps be allowed to leave for a moment the framework of this romance, in order to establish the enormous difference which exists at the present time between the situation of the aborigines of South America to the Spaniards, their conquerors, and that of the North American Indians toward the Yankees, their masters. It is a difference that is destined to weigh heavily in the balance of the destinies of the New World.

The Spaniards who rushed upon South America sword and fire in hand, who conquered those ill-fated countries amid the glare of arson and the despairing shrieks of the unhappy inhabitants, whom they killed with horrible sufferings, ended, however, though without suspecting it, in gradually becoming blended with them, by contracting marriages with Indian girls, while the natives chose squaws among the Spanish women.

Then, still following the incline down which they were gliding, they eventually recognised the intelligence and political influence of the various tribes they have conquered, but which they respect by dealing and trafficking with them.

Let us now see what has been the conduct of the English in North America. Disembarking on this portion of the New World, under the guidance of William Penn, they purchased the territories which they possess, and continually treated the Indians on equal terms, while having always words of peace on their lips. They succeeded in this way, and under the deceitful appearances of an entire good faith and perfect loyalty, in gradually becoming aggrandized, though they were not willing to regard the men whom they plundered as their equals, or lower the pride of their race so far as to mingle their blood with that of the Indians.

Even more. The English, impelled by that philanthropic spirit that distinguishes them, and to which we have already had occasion to refer, were too humane to shoot down the men whose wealth they coveted, and found it far more simple to inoculate them with all the vices of old Europe; above all, that of drunkenness, which brutalizes and decimates them.

What are the results of the opposite systems adopted by the two nations? North America is losing its aborigines with frightful rapidity, while South America, on the contrary, is covered with innumerable Indian tribes.

After the organic law of the world, which wishes that the old and exhausted blood of the ancient races should be renewed and regenerated by a young and vigorous blood, it is easy to foresee that, in spite of the present state of the great Republic of the United States, which strives to invade everything, and behaves with that shorthanded system peculiar to the English character, it is only a colossus with feet of clay, which has not and cannot find in itself the necessary vital strength to accomplish the task laid down for itself by this youthful Republic, formed of heterogeneous elements which come into collision and thwart each other at every step. Its blood, vitiated by a long servitude in Europe, would require to be completely rejuvenated.

This bastard nation, without father or country, whose ancestors do not exist, and which has a pretension to be regenerating, will suddenly and eternally collapse, when, in its fury for possession, it has devoured all the so-called Spanish republics on the seaboard, and dashes against the wide chests of those men of bronze who are called the Moluchos.

In order to regenerate peoples, a nation must itself possess the regenerating virtues; but it has been said for a long time, with great truth, that the republicans of North America possessed all the vices of the old world without one of its virtues. Besides, the puerile debates, insensate utopias, and absurd follies of these honourable citizens gave us, many years ago, the measure of their strength. The future will decide the question and say whether we are deceived in the severe but impartial judgment which we pass on them. But to return to Tcharanguii, from whom this long digression has carried us away.

The young Indian chief, on getting possession of his two captives, had at the outset the idea of conveying them among his tribe, and afterwards decide which of the two he would select as his squaw; but on reflecting upon the distance which separated the Cordillera from the territory of the Jaos, and not wishing to confide such a precious booty to the warriors who had fought with him, he resolved to get ahead of his comrades, who were proceeding to the north, and conduct General Soto-Mayor's two daughters to Schymi-Tou, the Sayotkatta of Garakouaïti, who in his quality of High Priest of the Sun, would be enabled to conceal them from all eyes up to the day when Tcharanguii came to ask for an account of the deposit he had made with him.

It was, therefore, towards Garakouaïti that the ravisher was proceeding. The two unhappy girls, violently separated from their parents and friends, whom they never hoped to see again, had fallen into a state of prostration which almost deprived them of a consciousness of the frightful position in which the fatal issue of the fight had placed them. Surrendered without defence to the will of a savage, who might at any moment display the utmost violence toward them, they had no human succour to await. They were, therefore, compelled to leave their fate to God, and resign themselves in a Christian spirit to the harsh trials which He inflicted on them.

Employing our privilege of narrator, we will precede the Indian chief, and sketch the character of the country he had to pass through before reaching the city which was his destination. We will at the same time give a description which will enable the reader to form an idea of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, while Tcharanguii is hurrying to arrive, and displaying a certain respect to his prisoners, and lavishing on them attentions which might seem surprising on the part of a man like the formidable chief of the Jaos. What were the reasons that induced Tcharanguii to act in this way? – we may probably know hereafter.

The Cordillera of the Andes, that immense backbone of the American continent, which it traverses through its whole length from north to south, has several peaks forming immense llanos on which tribes reside at an elevation where in Europe all vegetation ceases.

After passing through the Parumo of San Juan Bautista and entering the templada region, which extends for about sixty leagues, the traveller finds himself in face of a virgin forest which is no less than eighty leagues in depth, and some twenty odd in width.

The most practised pen is powerless to describe the unnumbered marvels to be found in that inextricable vegetation called a virgin forest, which is at once strange and fascinating, majestic, and imposing. The most fanciful imagination recoils before this prodigious fecundity of an elementary nature, which is necessarily born again from its own destruction with every new strength and vigour.

Lianas running from tree to tree and from branch to branch, plunge here and there into the soil to rise again further on skywards, and form by crossing and interlacing an almost impassable barrier, as if jealous Nature wished to conceal from profane eyes the secret mysteries of these forests, in whose shadows the footsteps of men have only echoed at rare intervals and never with impunity. Trees of all ages and species grow without order or symmetry, as if they had been sown haphazard like grains of wheat in a furrow. Some, slight and tall, count but a few years, and the ends of their branches are covered by the wide and grand foliage of others whose haughty crowns have seen centuries pass.

Beneath the foliage sweetly murmur pure and limpid streams, which escape from fissures in the rocks, and after a thousand windings are lost in some lake or unknown river, whose free waters have as yet only reflected on their calm mirror the arcana of the solitude. Here are found, pell-mell and in a picturesque disorder, all the magnificent products of tropical regions – the mahogany, the ebony, the satinwood, the oak, the maple, the mimosa, with its silvery frondage, and the tamarind, thrusting out in all directions its branches covered with flowers, fruit, and leaves, which form a dome impenetrable by the sunbeams.

From the vast and unexplored depths of these forests issue at times inexplicable sounds – ferocious howls, mocking cries, mingled with shrill whistles, joyous strains full of harmony, or expressions of fury, rage and terror from the formidable guests that people them.

After resolutely entering this chaos, and struggling hand to hand with this untended and savage nature, the traveller succeeds, axe in hand, in cutting step by step a path impossible of description. At one moment he crawls like a reptile on the detritus of leaves, dead wood, and birds' deposits, piled up for centuries; at another, he leaps from branch to branch at the top of the trees, and travels, so to speak, in the air.

But woe to the man who neglects to have his eye constantly open to all that surrounds him, and his ear strained, for he has to fear, in addition to the obstacles of the vegetation, the venomous bites of snakes disturbed in their retreat, and the no less dangerous teeth of ferocious animals. He must also carefully watch the course of the rivers and streams which he comes across, and settle the position of the sun by day, and guide himself at night by the Southern Cross; for once lost in a virgin forest it is impossible to get out of it; it is a labyrinth of which Ariadne's thread would be powerless to find the issue.

At last when the traveller has succeeded in surmounting the dangers we have described and a thousand others no less terrible which we have passed over in silence, he finds himself in front of an Indian city. That is to say, he is before one of those mysterious cities into which no European has ever penetrated, whose exact position is ever unknown, and which since the conquest have served as the refuge of the Araucanian civilization.

The fabulous tales told by some travellers about the incalculable riches contained in these cities have inflamed the greed and avarice of a great number of adventurers, who, at various periods, have attempted to find the lost road to these queens of the llanos and Pampas of the Cordillera. Others merely impelled by the irresistible attractions which extraordinary enterprises offer to, vagabond imaginations, have also started, during the last fifty years, in search of the Indian cities, but, up to the present day, success has not crowned a single one of these expeditions.

Some of the travellers have returned disenchanted and half killed by this journey toward the unknown; a certain number left their bodies at the base of precipices or in the quebradas to serve as food for birds of prey; and, lastly, others, more unhappy still, have disappeared without leaving a trace, and no one has ever known what became of them.

We, in consequence of circumstances too lengthy to repeat here, but which we may possibly narrate some day, have involuntarily inhabited one of these impenetrable cities, and, more fortunate than our predecessors, we succeeded in escaping through a thousand perils, all miraculously avoided. The description we are about to give is therefore scrupulously exact, and will not admit of doubt, since we speak from personal knowledge.

Garakouaïti, the city which appears before us, when we have at last crossed the virgin forest, extends from north to south in the form of a rectangle. A wide stream, over which are thrown several stone bridges of incredible lightness and elegance, passes through its entire length. At each corner of the square an enormous block of rock, cut perpendicularly on the side facing the country, serves as an almost impregnable fortification. These four citadels are also connected together by a wall, twenty feet thick at the top, and forty high, which inside the town forms an incline whose base is sixty feet in width. This wall is built of the bricks of the country, which are about a yard long, and called adobes, and surrounds the town. A wide deep ditch doubles the height of the walls.

Two gates alone offer entrance to the city: they are flanked by turrets, exactly like a mediæval castle; and what supports our comparison is, that an extremely narrow and light bridge of planks, which can be removed upon the slightest alarm, is the sole communication between the gate and the exterior.

The houses are low, and have terraced roofs connected with each other: they are light, and built of reeds and canaverales covered with cement, owing to the earthquakes so frequent in these countries; but they are large, airy, and have numerous windows. They are all one storey high, and their front is covered with a varnish of dazzling whiteness.

The narrow streets, which intersect each other at right angles, converge upon an immense square, situated in the centre of the city, and bearing the name of Ikarepantou (the square of the sun). It is probable that it was in honour of the sun that the Indians designed this square, whence all the streets of the city radiate, for it is impossible to imagine a more correct representation of the planet which they venerate, than this symmetrical arrangement.

Four magnificent palaces stand in the direction of the four cardinal points, and on the western side is the great temple of Chemiin-Sona, surrounded by an infinite number of carved gold and silver columns. The appearance, of this building is most beautiful: it is reached by a flight of twenty steps, each made of a single marble slab ten yards long; the walls are excessively lofty, and the roof, like that of the other buildings, is terraced, for the Indians, who are well versed in the art of constructing subterranean vaults, are ignorant of the formation of domes.

The interior of the temple is relatively most simple. Long pieces of tapestry, worked with feathers of a thousand hues, and representing the entire history of the Indian religion, cover the walls. In the centre stands an isolated altar surmounted by a sun glistening with gold and precious stones, and supported by the sacred tortoise. By an ingenious artifice, the first beams of the rising sun fall on this splendid idol, and make it flash with the most brilliant colours, so that it appears to become animated, and really illumines all surrounding objects. In front of this altar stands the sacrificing table, which resembles the one we described when relating the ceremony which Leon Delbès witnessed in the Indian camp. We will state at once that human sacrifices are daily becoming rarer, and now only take place under entirely exceptional circumstances. The victims are selected from persons condemned to death, or prisoners of war.

At the end of the temple is a space closed by heavy curtains, to which the public are refused admission. These curtains conceal the entrance of a flight of steps leading to vast vaults that run underneath the temple, and to which the priests alone have the right to descend. The ground is covered with leaves and flowers, which are daily renewed.

On the south side of the square stands the Ulmen Faré, or Palace of the Chief. It is merely a succession of reception rooms, in which everybody has a right to appear, and of immense courtyards which serve for the martial exercises of the nation. A separate building, to which visitors are not admitted, is occupied by the chief's family, and the building serves as an arsenal and contains all the weapons of the nations, from Indian bows and arrows, sagaies, lances and shields, up to European sabres, swords, and muskets, which the Indians, after fearing them so greatly, have now learned to employ as well as ourselves, if not better.

On the same square is the famous Jouimion Faré, or Palace of the Vestals, where the Virgins of the Sun live and die. No man, the high priest excepted, is allowed to enter the interior of this building, which is reserved for the maidens devoted to the sun: a terrible death would immediately punish the daring man who attempted to transgress this law.

The life of the Indian virgins has many points of resemblance with that of the nuns who people European convents. They are immured, take an oath of perpetual chastity, and pledge themselves never to speak to a man, unless he be their father or brother, and in that case, are only allowed to converse with him through a paling in the presence of a third person, and must carefully hide their faces.

When they appear in public and are present at the religious festivals in the temple, they are veiled from head to foot. A vestal convicted of having allowed a man to see her face is condemned to death. In the interior of their abode, they occupy themselves with feminine tasks, and fervently perform the rites of their religion. The vows are voluntary: a maiden cannot be admitted among the Virgins of the Sun until the high priest has acquired the certainty that no one has forced her to take this determination, and that she is really following her vocation.

Lastly, the fourth palace, situate on the east side of the square, is the most splendid and at the same time most gloomy of all. It is the Houdaskon Faré, or Palace of the Genii, and serves as the residence of the Sayotkatta and piaies. It is impossible to express the mysterious, sad, and cold air of this residence, whose windows are covered with a trelliswork of osiers, so closely interwoven that it almost entirely obstructs the light of day.

A gloomy silence perpetually prevails in this enclosure, but at times, in the middle of the night, sleeping Indians are aroused in terror by strange clamours, which seem to issue from the interior of the Houdaskon Faré. What is the life of the men who inhabit it? – in what do they pass their time? No one knows. Woe to the imprudent man who, desirous of information on this point, might try to detect secrets of which he ought to be ignorant.

If the vow of chastity is imposed on the vestals it does not exist for the piaies; still few of these marry, and all abstain from any ostensible connexion with the other sex. The novitiate of the priests lasts ten years, and it is only at the expiration of that period, and after undergoing numberless trials, that the novices assume the title of piaies. Till then they can recall their determination, and embrace another profession; but such cases are extremely rare. It is true that, if they took advantage of the permission, they would be infallibly assassinated by the priests, through a fear of a part of their secrets being revealed to laymen. However, they are greatly respected by the Indians, by whom they continue to make themselves loved; and we may say that next to the Ulmen, the Sayotkatta is the most powerful man in the tribe.

Among peoples where religion is so formidable a lever, it is remarkable that the spiritual and temporal powers never clash; each knows how far his attributes extend, and follows the line traced for him without trying to encroach on the rights of the other. Thanks to this intelligent diplomacy, priests and chiefs work amicably together, and double each other's strength.

Now that we have made our readers acquainted with Garakouaïti, let us end this chapter by saying that Tcharanguii, according to his desires, found in the Sayotkatta Schymi-Tou a complacent ally, who promised him on his head to watch with scrupulous attention over the prisoners whom he undertook to hold in trust.

It is as well to add that Tcharanguii told the Sayotkatta that they were the daughters of one of the most powerful gentlemen in Chili, and that, in order to force him to make common cause with the chief of the Jaos, he had decided on taking one of them for his wife. And lastly, he added, that a magnificent present would amply reward him for the watch which he begged him to keep.