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He finally dismissed them with instructions to establish immediately a service of postal runners between the valley and the town of Juliaca on the Santa Rosa, Puno, Arequipa, and Mollendo railway; with further instructions to arrange for the establishment of a thoroughly trustworthy agent at Juliaca, whose sole business it should be to see that all letters for Europe and other parts of the world were duly stamped and posted upon receipt by him; and to the care of whom all letters for the valley might be addressed.
He would have exulted over my death, but I cannot say that I felt any satisfaction because he was dead. It only brought sad memories of the past. I sat on the broad balcony of the British consulate at Mollendo, looking out over the blue waters of the Pacific. The soft breeze from the south seas imparted the glow of health.
The spume of the sea fell over our forward deck in flecks, and the waves splashed at our bow. The harbor lights of Panama shone in a glow of sickly yellow. An officer stood by the hooded binnacle, watching our course by the faint glow of a tiny lamp. The bulldog engines, which I was working, were speeding us at 17 knots an hour and we were headed for Mollendo. We had no armament.
I met the Indian soldiers the next day, and the officer commanding was very indignant at his superior for not allowing him to go to the rocks at Mollendo and pick off the gunners from the battle ships, with flint lock rifles. I was a frequent visitor at the home of the Robinson family in Arequipa, with whom I had now become well acquainted.
I looked upon the mountains we were just leaving until they were a mere speck. I intended to perform one last service for Peru, for, however much I had suffered, it was my boyhood's home, the only home I had had since leaving my native shores. We were a week making the voyage from Mollendo to Panama. The weather was fine and the sea was smooth. I was in company with Hattie much of the time.
I told him I dreaded being taken into the interior, as we would be away from our friends, and begged him when we came to a certain grade along the line to increase the speed and I would jump off. I was familiar with that part of the country, knew I could secure a horse and go to Mollendo or Arequipa.
I was aboard the Huascar a few months afterward at Mollendo and she presented a most dilapidated appearance. Thus again was General Pierola frustrated, and by a British wooden vessel against a crack ironclad of Peru. Pierola escaped as usual, and the Huascar was turned over to the Peruvian government.
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