University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III
EXODUS

BUT my career in Ecuador had its political, as well as its commercial side, in order to trace which I must hark back to my Salinas days.

One day, shortly after Alfaro started his revolution, I happened to be in Guaranda on business. It was market-day, and the plaza was full of Indians selling everything from saddles to lard, including codfish glue and gents' neckwear. Suddenly there was a great tearing down of awnings, and a general stampede. It took me some time to discover that the Pretender's invading army was to be seen coming along a valley eight or ten miles away.

The populace disappeared and the troops were called out. The latter proceeded to the edge of the town, lay down, and opened fire. I followed to see the fun. They were shooting with their sights at fifty yards, and a number of them were using eight mm. cartridges in an eleven mm. rifle. I took pity on them, showed them something about the rudiments of marksmanship, and so involuntarily became associated with the Government Forces in the bloody civil war which followed.

I may mention that while in Quito some months later, when it was all over, and Alfaro was President, I learned from the official statistics that ten million rounds of ammunition were used up, while the only casualty was a man who was kicked by a mule. Those unacquainted

with that type of warfare should not be surprised, for the fact was that if the noise and smoke of the rifles of the defending force did not scare away the attackers before they came within extreme range, they, the defenders, either evacuated the town or changed their clothes and marched out with a brass band to meet the invaders, shouting "Viva Alfaro." That was exactly what happened in Guaranda. When the defenders saw that the Revolutionary column kept coming on they soon gave up firing, long before the enemy could have become aware of their desperate resistance.

The defence melted away, and the officers who had been feverishly directing the fire swapped their swords for no more harmful instruments than piccolos and drums. As Alfaro's army marched in to the music of the defenders' band, I stood and watched the show. The officers, who had surely been as heavily coated in dust as the rank and file a few minutes before, sparkled in their scintillating uniforms, neither they nor their sleek horses showing any wear and tear from the long, dusty trails. In violent contrast were the "common soldiers," an un-uniformed, hatless, bootless, ragged rabble; some of the more fortunate had picked up animals on the road—horses, mules and donkeys, some of which had no skin on their backs, while others had frying-pans and other utensils slung around their necks, clashing like cymbals as they walked. Some of the less fortunate animals carried two, or even three men; there were even donkeys with two riders facing ahead and one astern. Quite half the army had rifles, while the rest were following in their wake in the hope of a good square meal.

A few days after I had returned to Salinas (for I was still working there at the time) a party of some twenty picked officers on horseback arrived at my mountain home to arrest me, bringing with them a warrant.

But I was waiting for them, for one of my Indians had warned me of their approach. When I showed myself at the door of my hut with my Winchester, they halted about fifty yards away and saluted. One of them dismounted and came over to me. With profuse apologies for disturbing me, he handed me the warrant. There is no necessity for me to relate what I told them. The result was satisfactory, for the party rode off at once, only too glad to see the last of Salinas.

Shortly afterwards the invading army began commandeering horses from the Córdovez ranches. So "Papa" made me captain of thirty or forty Columbian horse wranglers, one of the toughest crowds I ever saw. Thanks to the fearless devotion to duty of my command, our reputation soon spread abroad, until nobody wearing a uniform of any description dared show his face within the limits of the Córdovez property. Of our many adventures among the rock-bound fastnesses above the clouds I have no time to speak. One of our greatest successes was when we rounded up a party of horse-thieves and stampeded them in the dark until they piled themselves up on a barbed-wire entanglement which we had erected for the occasion.

When there was no more fun to be had, I resigned my Captaincy and went back to Salinas, much to the disappointment of my Pastuzos (as the natives of Pasto in Colombia are called) who wanted me to return with them to their home town; they would make me a Colonel, start a Revolution, and run me for President. I am afraid I missed a career when I declined, for those fellows would have followed me anywhere.

Naturally my efforts resulted in my being unpopular with Alfaro's Lieutenants in general, and the Governor of Guaranda in particular. As a matter of fact, before I left Salinas for the last time, old Córdovez used this

as an argument in favour of my leaving the country, not that I cared much for that kind of pressure.

Next I come to the point where I arrived at Riobamba after leaving the Salt Mine to look after itself.

When I arrived there I was faced by two things—my unpopularity with the Córdovez family, and my unpopularity with the Government. My relations with "Papa" were considerably strained, so much so that I took my empty trunk and stayed at a "hotel" (a worse dwelling-place than my hut in Salinas). As for the Government, it was then that I realized that I was constantly exposed to the risk of being molested by some of the hordes of independent and quite unreliable minor officials of state as a result of my having dabbled in politics with such distinction.

So I sat down to think it over, and made the decision that led me into the heart of the unknown world that lies behind the Andes. I resolved then and there that, instead of returning to Guayaquil and shipping for the States, I would go up to Quito, cross the eastern cordillera into the valley of the River Napo, make my way down that river to the Marañon, and so on down the Amazon to Pará, whence a steamer would take me to New York. I had finished with Ecuador.

So I rode out of Riobamba on a hired mount along the desert trail which leads to Ambato, from which the carretera starts for Quito. Through the boulder-strewn valley of Riobamba I went, the dumping-ground of Sangai, Cotopaxi and Tungarahua, from which steam and smoke still continue to spout. I stayed the night at Ambato where I shared a room, in the approved Ecuadorian fashion, with a man and his wife.

In those days, before the light railway from Guayaquil to Quito was built, a stage-coach ran from Ambato to the Capital along the carretera, on which were built, at

ten-mile intervals, relay stations. The coaches themselves were built along the lines of the old Deadwood Coach and were pulled by six mules, four wheelers with a pair of leaders. Three had been broken in to harness, while three were fresh from the ranch, the latter being hitched up blindfold. Everybody mounted, while the muleteers stood by to give us a good send-off. The two drivers climbed to their seats and the word was given. The ponchos were snatched away from the wild mules' heads, the drivers cracked their whips, stamped and whistled, and the stable-hands standing round hurled rocks at the leaders. We shot away like an arrow from a bow. Except for a few bad stretches, the animals kept at a run for the whole ten miles, until we reached the first station. Then the whole comedy was played over again, and so on until we made Quito at the end of a tumultuous day.

One of the first things I did on my arrival was to call upon our Minister, Mr. J. D. Tillman, a typical member of our fine diplomatic service. I was carrying a letter of introduction from the Hon. Warner Miller, and Mr. Tillman did everything he could for me, not only then, but afterwards. Among many other things he introduced me to President Alfaro, whom he requested to furnish me with a passport which would see me safely beyond the jurisdiction of the Republic. For Mr. Tillman's courteous assistance I have always been grateful.

Here I may mention that the American population of Quito consisted, apart from the Minister himself and his wife, of a certain Mr. Solomon Sturman, the owner of a small general store, but reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in the city, and the source from which the Government obtained most of its ready cash, and a Mr. Budzikowski, a boiler-maker from Poland via New

York, who mended watches in a shop he had in the main street.

Sturman must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and had muscles on him like an ox. The first time I was in his store, he rolled up his sleeve and asked me what I thought would happen to the man whom he hit. Next day I learned that the Government had lent him a permanent guard of four soldiers with fixed bayonets to escort him between his store and the hotel where he took his meals, on account of his being threatened by a hundred-pound Italian shopkeeper whom he had once robbed.

After a few gay months, I became tired of waiting to put my resolution into practice, and one day applied for my passport at the Palacio. I was duly presented with a magnificent document, and returned to Mr. Tillman's office to say "Good-bye" and write my farewell letter home.

I have the letter still. I append a few quotations from it, as showing how little the happy-go-lucky boy who wrote it knew what he was attempting. It is the best possible insight into my state of mind on that last day in Quito.

I am in the office of Mr. Tillman, the American Minister, and am writing the last communication you will receive until you see me at home. My Expedition is ready, and I start to-morrow on foot for the Napo forests, about six hundred miles, with the Indians who carry my equipment. I expect to encamp upon the Napo River, a small creek, (sic) and a tributary of the Marañon River, which enters the Amazon about three thousand miles from its mouth, for about one month, in order to build my canoes for the 4,000 mile trip. I take absolutely no money with me, except sufficient for my journey from Pará to New York; my small fortune I have invested in machetes, beads, and trinkets for the Indians.

It will be useless to write me on receipt of this letter, as I will be upon the way down the Napo, shooting the rapids at the rate of 150 miles a day (sic) in a dugout and bounding down toward the great Amazon where I will embark in a steamboat for Pará. I will arrive in Pará sometime in March or in April, but perhaps sooner so don't fail to send me the necessary papers at once. If I show up at the American Consul's office without a hair-cut or shave for half a year he will throw me out....