Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
Having meanwhile reflected that I was not in an English drawing-room, that this wretched woman could have me stripped whether I would or no, and that refusal to comply with her wishes might cost me my life, I asked Gondocori why the queen wanted me to undress. "Will it satisfy her if I meet her half-way strip to the waist?
Mamcuna had never married because, as she said, there was no man in the country fit to mate with a daughter of the Incas; but as Gondocori and some others thought, the man did not exist with whom she would consent to share her power. The Pachatupec braves were fine horsemen and expert with the lasso and the spear and very fine archers.
The blood seems to be freezing in my veins, my beard is a block of ice, icicles are forming on my eyelids. If this goes on a gleam of light! Thank Heaven, the mist is lifting, just enough to enable me to see Gondocori and the guide. They are quite white. It is snowing, yet so softly as not to be felt, and as the fog melts the flakes fall faster. "Let us go on," says Gondocori.
I shall do nothing of the sort No, don't say that; say that English gentlemen I mean pale-face medicine-men from over the seas, never undress in the presence of ladies; their religion forbids it." Gondocori was about to remonstrate again when the queen interposed and insisted on knowing what I said.
"I will do my best, and as I have seen a good deal of practical surgery, helped to dress wounds and set broken limbs, and can let blood, you may truthfully say that I have some slight knowledge of the healing art. But as for treating a sick woman However, I leave it to you, Gondocori. If you choose to introduce me to her Majesty as a medicine-man I will act the part to the best of my ability."
Gondocori follows, and as I seize one hand he finds and grasps the other, and we pull out of the drift the negro's apparently lifeless body. "He is dead," says the cacique. "I don't think so. Raise him up, and let the sun shine on him." I take out my pocket-flask and pour a few drops of aguardiente down his throat.
Gondocori made fast the canoe to a tree, and we stepped ashore. We are on the summit of a spur which stands out like a bastion from the imposing mass of the Cordillera, through the very heart of which runs the mysterious waterway we have just traversed.
"You may put on your clothes; the inspection is over," said Gondocori. "I am glad it has passed off so well. I was rather afraid, though, when she began to pinch you." "Afraid of what?" "Well, the queen is rather curious about skin and color and that, and does curious things sometimes.
Mamcuna then motioned us to draw nearer, and when we were within easy speaking distance she said something to Gondocori that sounded like a question or a command, on which he made a long and, as I judged from the vigor of his gesture and the earnestness of his manner, an eloquent speech.
In reply to the questions which I put, through Gondocori, the queen said that she suffered from headache, nausea, and sleeplessness, and that, whereas only a few years ago she was lithe, active, and gay, she was now heavy, indolent, and melancholy, adding that she had suffered much at the hands of the late court medicine-man, who did not understand her case at all, and that to punish him for his ignorance and presumption she made him swallow a jarful of his own physic, from the effects of which he shortly afterward expired in great agony.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking