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To cross the Andes on mule-back along the regular routes is a feat comparable to the feats of the energetic tourists who by thousands traverse the mule trails in out-of-the-way nooks of Switzerland.
He was equally at home in the clubs of London and the Continent, the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, and the selector's shanties in the Never-Never country. He had shot big game in Siam, pearled in the Paumotus, visited Tolstoy, seen the Passion Play, and crossed the Andes on mule-back; while he was a living directory of the fever holes of West Africa.
He contrived, however, to make occasional excursions in the neighbourhood, with an eye to the mining business on which he had come. About the beginning of October he set out for Bogota, the capital of Columbia or New Granada. The distance was about 1200 miles, through a very difficult region, and it was performed entirely upon mule-back after the fashion of the country.
He dries his Cacao-nibs in the sun, and, if he be a well-to-do and careful man, on a stage with wheels, which can be run into a little shed on the slightest shower of rain; picks them over and over, separating the better quality from the worse; and at last sends them down on mule-back to the sea, to be sold in London as Trinidad cocoa, or perhaps sold in Paris to the chocolate makers, who convert them into chocolate, Menier or other, by mixing them with sugar and vanilla, both, possibly, from this very island.
The ordinary fibre trunk is good for rail and steamer travel, but it is absolutely unpractical for mule-back or canoe. The fibre sample case could be developed into a container particularly fitted for exploration. The fibre should be soaked in hot paraffin and then hot- calendered or hot-pressed. This case could then be covered with waterproof canvas with throat opening like a duffel-bag.
His fellow-servant Manuel, also on mule-back, is following not far behind, but in his attitude or demeanour there is nothing to tell of the captive. If at times he looks gloomy, it is when he reflects upon his black treason and infamous ingratitude. Perhaps he has repented, or deems the prospect not so cheerful as expected. After all, what will be his reward?
During this stay, too, I made an expedition to Minas, the gold mine country, a long journey on mule-back, through the magnificent monotony of the virgin forest. One of the mines I went to see, called Gongo-Soco, was worked by the labour of four hundred slaves, and owned by an English company who made an enormous profit out of it.
He called out to the driver and a man on mule-back, who were the only attendants: "Whither are you going, brothers? What cart is this? What have you got in it? What flags are those?"
Rhémy either on foot or mule-back; thus there was no hope for Mercédès there. I went swinging down the steep and winding path, my heart chanting a psalm to the mountains.
The reference to the "jack-rabbit line" could mean nothing else than the mule-back system of transport that prevailed between Coralio and the capital. The hint that the "boodle" was "six figures short" made the condition of the national treasury lamentably clear. Also it was convincingly true that the ingoing party its way now made a pacific one would need the "spondulicks."
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