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Updated: May 13, 2025
We were at this time mounting an excessively steep and narrow path, with a tremendous precipice on one side, down which it made me giddy to look: had I not had the most perfect confidence in my sillero, I should infinitely have preferred to walk. I begged him, indeed, to let me get off; but he always answered, "You are no weight; it makes not the slightest difference to me.
At the foot of the precipice, I should have said, rushed a fierce torrent, roaring and foaming down the side of the mountain. Presently I saw the sillero buttress himself, as it were, firmly with the iron-shod stick with which he supported his steps. Again the Spaniard dug his spurs into his side, asking him what he was doing, and, with a fearful oath, shouted to him to go on.
In a short time Manoel said that he observed the marks of footsteps ahead. "They are those of a sillero carrying some person. We shall soon overtake them." Manoel, in his eagerness, soon distanced the other peon and Mr Laffan, whose anxiety made him stop to ascertain whether our attendants were coming.
There was something in the tone of his voice, or the appearance of the man, which evidently the sagacious animal did not like. Soon after an orderly appeared, conducting a sillero and two peons the sillero was a fine strong-built man in a loose dress. The captain told them that he meant to start next morning at daybreak to go across the mountains, and that they must reach Ibaque in five days.
We also saw numerous birds perched on the trees, or flitting among their branches many of the most brilliant plumage, such as I had never before seen in the neighbourhood of Popayan. I generally kept ahead with my sillero, who led the way. One of the peons following carried the chief load; then came Mr Laffan; Domingo and the rest of the people with the animals bringing up the rear.
I shut my eyes. It seemed like some terrible dream. The Spanish captain was gone, though his voice still sounded in my ear. Manoel stopped. "He has met the fate he deserved," he said. "But the sillero will see you, and suppose you will inform against him." Manoel answered with a low laugh. "He is my brother, and knows that the secret is safe in my keeping. Can I trust you?
My sillero, though an Indian, was called Manoel; being, as he said, a baptised Christian. As I was anxious to gain information, which he seemed willing to impart, I was tempted to break through the plan which had been agreed on, and to speak a few words of Spanish, so that I might ask questions.
Although neither Mr Laffan nor I intended to make use of our silleros unless in case of necessity, we thought it prudent to take them with us, that we might keep up our character as English travellers. The sillero who had been engaged to carry me was a well-informed fellow, as I judged from his remarks to Domingo; of course, he did not address me.
His fidelity to his brother sillero would have been paramount to every other consideration. Manoel was advancing as he spoke, but when I looked round the sillero had disappeared, though I afterwards caught a glimpse of him bounding up the rocks on the left, having hurled his chair over the cliff.
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