Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon

d p a j x h y y n o j y g g a y m e q y n f u q l n m v l y f g s u z m q I z t l b q q y u g s q e u b v n r c r e d g r u z b l r m x y u h q h p z d r r g c r o h e p q x u f I v v r

is strange assemblage of letters formed the concludin

ded into words. It seemed to have been written many years before, and time had already laid

ur iron safes-in either case the protection is the same. The combinations which they lead to can be counted by millions, and no calculator's life would suffice

At that period anti-slavery ideas had entered the minds of a few philanthropists, and more than a century had to elapse before the mass of the people grasped and applied them. That freedom was a right, that the very first of the natural ri

nomy the hour of general emancipation had been delayed, but the black had at this date the right to ransom himself, the children which were born to him were born free. The day was not

he slave hunters in fact belonged to the dregs of society, and we shall not be far wrong in assuming that the man with the cryptogram was a fitting comrade for his fellow "capitaes do mato." Torres-for that was his name-unlike the majority of his companions, was neither half-breed, Indian, nor negro. He was a white of Brazilian origin, and had received a better education than

had just passed the frontier, and was wandering in the fore

orching air of the tropics. He had a thick black beard, and eyes lost under contracting eyebrows, giving that swift but hard glance so characteristic of insolent natures. Clothed as backwoodsmen are generally clothed, not over elaborately, his garments bore witness to long and roughish

pursuit of the blacks. No firearms-neither gun nor revolver. In his belt only one of those weapons, more sword than hunting-knife, called a "manchetta," and in addition he had an "enchada,"

hing could distract his attention; neither the constant cry of the howling monkeys, which St. Hillaire has graphically compared to the ax of the woodman as he strikes the branches of the trees, nor the sharp jingle of the rings of the rattlesnake (not an aggressiv

or iron wood, with its somber bark, hard as the metal which it replaces in the weapon and utensil of the Indian savage. No. Lost in thought, the captain of the woods turned the curious paper again and again between his fing

in the solitude of the Peruvian forests could hear, and w

very way it will cost him something." And, scrutinizing the paper with greedy eyes, "At a conto (1) only for each word of this last sentence it will amount to a considerable sum, and it is this sentence which fixes the price. It

Torres began to

shed, and even live without doing anything! And what would it be, then, if all the words of this document were paid for at the same price? I

normous sum, and were already closing over the rol

he lives with his family!" Then seizing the paper and shaking it with terrible meaning: "Before to-morrow I will be in his presence; before to-morrow he will know that his honor and his life are contained in these lines. And when he wishes to see the cipher which permits him to read them, he-well, he will pa

rth about as much; golden sols of Peru, worth, say, double; some Chilian escudos, worth fifty francs or more, and some smaller coins; but the lot would not amount to more than five hundred francs, and Torres would have been somewhat embarrassed had he been asked how or where he had got them. One thing was certain, that for some months, after having suddenly abandoned the trade of the slave hunter, which he carried on in the province of Para, Torres had ascended

putting it into the pocket of his under-vest, thought to be extra careful, and placed it near him in a hollow o

with more or less accuracy, he could scarcely be supposed to conduct himself with military precision. He breakfasted or dined when he pleased or when he could; he slept when and where sleep overtook him. If his table was not always spread, his bed was always ready at the foot of some tree in the open forest. And in other respects Torres was

habit of drinking a drop or two of strong liquor, and of then smoking a pipe; the spirits, he said, ov

ly known under the name of "chica" in Peru, and more particularly under that of "caysuma" in the Upper Amazon, to whi

ture he shook the flask, and discovered, n

more," he sai

Brazil, of which the leaves belong to that old "petun" introduced into France by Nicot,

ers, and so, having filled his pipe, he struck a match and applied the flame to a piece of that stick substance which is the secretion of certain of the hymenoptera,

s are equal to three

rth three tho