Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Tiger Hunter, by Captain Mayne Reid.
________________________________________________________________________Strictly speaking this book is a free translation by Reid (1818-1883) ofan earlier (1851) book by the Frenchman Luis de Bellemare (pseudonym ofGabriel Ferry, 1809-1852), "Costal l'Indien." The subject is the1811-1812 Mexican War of Independence from Spain. Reid, having foughtin the Mexican-American War of the 1850s, and having written books aboutthe subject, would have wanted to make this excellent book available toan English-speaking readership, and his translation was published in1861 with the title "A Hero In Spite Of Himself." The edition used waspublished by Routledge in 1890, some years after the author's death,with the title "The Tiger Hunter," which is what Costal was, though thetigers referred to were actually jaguars.
The type-setting in this book was not very good, and it seems likelythat Routledge used the type from an earlier edition. To make mattersworse practically every page of the copy used had been defaced by arubber stamp of a previous owner, which made a day's work for thetranscriber to clean up. Nevertheless the result is excellent, the bookis very readable, and it makes a good audiobook.
________________________________________________________________________THE TIGER HUNTER, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.
PROLOGUE.
During one of many journeyings through the remote provinces of theMexican republic, it was my fortune to encounter an old revolutionaryofficer, in the person of Captain Castanos. From time to time as wetravelled together, he was good enough to give me an account of some ofthe more noted actions of the prolonged and sanguinary war of theIndependence; and, among other narratives, one which especiallyinterested me was the famed battle of the _Puente de Calderon_, wherethe Captain himself had fought during the whole length of a summer'sday!
Of all the leaders of the Mexican revolution, there was none in whosehistory I felt so much interest as in the _priest-soldier_, Morelos--or,as he is familiarly styled in Mexican annals, the "illustriousMorelos"--and yet there was none of whose private life I could obtain sofew details. His public career having become historic, was, of course,known to every one who chose to read of him. But what I desired was amore personal and intimate knowledge of this remarkable man, who frombeing the humble curate of an obscure village in Oajaca, became in a fewshort months the victorious leader of a well-appointed army, and masterof all the southern provinces of New Spain.
"Can you give me any information regarding Morelos?" I asked of CaptainCastanos, as we were journeying along the route between Tepic andGuadalaxara.
"Ah! Morelos? he was a great soldier," replied the ex-captain ofguerilleros. "In the single year of 1811, he fought no less thantwenty-six battles with the Spaniards. Of these he won twenty-two; andthough he lost the other four, each time he retreated with honour--"
"Hum! I know all that already," said I, interrupting myfellow-traveller. "You are narrating history to me, while I want onlychronicles. In other words, I want to hear those more private andparticular details of Morelos' life which the historians have notgiven."
"Ah! I understand you," said the captain, "and I am sorry that I cannotsatisfy your desires: since, during the war I was mostly engaged in thenorthern provinces, and had no opportunity of knowing much of Morelospersonally. But if my good friend, Don Cornelio Lantejas, is stillliving at Tepic, when we arrive there, I shall put you in communicationwith him. He can tell you more about Morelos than any other living man:since he was _aide-de-camp_ to the General through all his campaigns,and served him faithfully up to the hour of his death."
Our conversation here ended, for we had arrived at the inn where weintended to pass the night--the _Venta de la Sierra Madre_.
Early on the following morning, before any one had yet arisen, I left mychamber--in a corner of which, rolled in his ample _manga_, CaptainCastanos was still soundly asleep. Without making any noise to disturbhim, I converted my coverlet into a cloak--that is, I folded my serapearound my shoulders, and walked forth from the inn. Other travellers,along with the people of the hostelry inside, with the domestics andmuleteers out of doors, were still slumbering profoundly, and animposing silence reigned over the mountain platform on which the ventastood.
Nothing appeared awake around me save the voices of the _sierras_, thatnever sleep--with the sound of distant waterfalls, as they rushedthrough vast ravines, keeping up, as it were, an eternal dialoguebetween the highest summits of the mountains and the deepest gulfs thatyawned around their bases.
I walked forward to the edge of the table-like platform on which theventa was built; and halting there stood listening to these mysteriousconversations of nature. And at once it appeared to me that othersounds were mingling with them--sounds that suggested the presence ofhuman beings. At first they appeared like the intonations of a hunter'shorn--but of so harsh and hoarse a character, that I could scarcelybelieve them to be produced by such an instrument. As a profoundsilence succeeded, I began to think my senses had been deceiving me; butonce more the same rude melody broke upon my ears, in a tone that, takenin connexion with the place where I listened to it, impressed me with anidea of the supernatural. It had something of the character of thosehorns used by the shepherds of the Swiss valleys; and it seemed toascend out of the bottom of a deep ravine that yawned far beneath myfeet.
I stepped forward to the extreme edge of the rock, and looked downwards.Again the hoarse cornet resounded in my ears; and this time so near,that I no longer doubted as to its proceeding from some human agency.In fact, the moment after, a man's form appeared ascending from below,along the narrow pathway that zigzagged up the face of the cliff.
I had scarce time to make this observation, when the man, suddenlyturning the angle of the rock, stood close by my side, where he haltedapparently to recover his breath.
His costume at once revealed to me that he was an Indian; though hisgarments, his tall stature, and haughty mien, lent to him an aspectaltogether different from that of most of the Indians I had hithertoencountered in Mexico. The proud air with which he bore himself, thefiery expression of his eye, his athletic limbs, and odd apparel, werenone of them in keeping with the abject mien which now characterises thedescendants of the ancient masters of Anahuac. In the grey light of themorning, I could see suspended from his shoulders the instrument thathad made the mysterious music--a large sea-shell--a long, slender,curved conch, that hung glistening under his arm.
Struck with the singular appearance of this man, I could not helpentering into conversation with him; though he appeared as if he wouldhave passed me without speaking a word.
"You are early abroad, friend?" I remarked.
"Yes, master," he replied; "early for a man as old as I am."
I could not help regarding this as a jest; for over the shoulders of theIndian fell immense masses of jet black hair, which seemed to givecontradiction to the statement of his being an old man.
I looked more narrowly into his countenance. His bronzed skin appearedto cling closely to his angular features, but there were none of thosedeep furrows that betray the presence of advanced age.
"How old are you?" I asked at length.
"That I cannot tell, cavallero," replied he. "I tried from the time Iwas able to distinguish the dry season from that of the rains to keep anaccount of my age; and I succeeded in doing so up till I was fifty.After that, for particular reasons, I did not care to know it, and so Ileft off counting."
"You say you are more than fifty years old?" and as I put this inquiry Iglanced at the long purple black tresses that hung over his shoulders.
"Nearly half as much more," was the reply. "You are looking at thecolour of my hair. There are ravens who have seen a
hundred seasons ofrain without having a feather whitened. Ah! what matters the course ofyears to me? A raven croaked upon the roof of my father's cabin when Iwas born, at the same instant that my father had traced upon the floorthe figure of one of these birds. Well, then! of course I shall live aslong as that raven lives. What use then to keep a reckoning of yearsthat cannot be numbered?"
"You think, then, that your life is in some way attached to that of theraven that perched on the paternal roof when you came into the world?"
"It is the belief of my ancestors, the Zapoteques, and it is also mine,"seriously responded the Indian.
It was not my desire to combat the superstitions of the Zapoteques; and,dropping the subject, I inquired from him his purpose in carrying theconch--whether it was for whiling away his time upon the journey, orwhether there was not also connected with it some other belief of hisancestors?
The Indian hesitated a moment before making reply.
"It is only a remembrance of my country," he said, after a shortsilence. "When I hear the echoes of the Sierra repeat the sounds of myshell, I can fancy myself among the mountains of Tehuantepec, where Iused to hunt the tiger--in pursuing my profession of _tigrero_. Or atother times I may fancy it to be the signals of the pearl-seekers in theGulf, when I followed the calling of a _buzo_ (diver); for I have huntedthe sea tigers who guard the banks of pearls under the water, as I havethose that ravage the herds of cattle upon the great savannas. But timepasses, cavallero; I must say good day to you. I have to reach thehacienda of Portezuelo by noon, and it's a long journey to make in thetime. _Puez, adios, cavallero_!"
So saying, the Indian strode off with that measured step peculiar to hisrace; and was soon lost to my sight, as he descended into the ravine onthe opposite side of the plateau.
As I returned towards the inn I could hear the prolonged notes of hismarine trumpet rising up out of the chasm, and reverberating afar offagainst the precipitous sides of the Sierra Madre.
"What the devil is all this row about?" inquired Captain RupertoCastanos, as he issued forth from the venta.
I recounted to him the interview I had just had; and the singularcommunications I had received from the Indian.
"It don't astonish me," said he; "the Zapoteques are still more paganthan Christian, and given to superstitious practices to a greater degreethan any other Indians in Mexico. Our Catholic _curas_ in theirvillages are there only for the name of the thing, and as a matter offormality. The business of the worthy padres among them must be aperfect sinecure. I fancy I understand what the fellow meant, wellenough. Whenever a Zapoteque woman is about to add one to the number oftheir community, the expectant father of the child assembles all hisrelations in his cabin; and, having traced out the figures of certainanimals on the floor, he rubs them out one after another in their turn.That which is being blotted out, at the precise moment when the child isborn, is called its _tona_. They believe that, ever after, the life ofthe newborn is connected in some mysterious manner with that of theanimal which is its _tona_; and that when the latter dies so will theformer! The child thus consecrated to the tona, while growing up, seeksout some animal of the kind, takes care of it, and pays respect to it,as the negroes of Africa do to their _fetish_."
"It is to be presumed, then, that the Indian father will make choiceonly of such animals as may be gifted with longevity?"
The captain made no reply to my suggestion, farther than to say that theZapoteque Indians were a brave race, easily disciplined, and out of whomexcellent soldiers had been made during the war of the Revolution.
After a hasty _desayuno_ at the venta, my travelling companion and Iresumed our journey; and, crossing the second great chain of the MexicanAndes, at the end of six days of fatiguing travel we reached the ancienttown of Tepic.
Here it was necessary for me to remain some time, awaiting the arrivalof important letters which I expected to receive from the capital ofMexico.
During the first week of my stay at Tepic, I saw but very little of myfellow-voyager--who was all the time busy with his own affairs, and mostpart of it absent from the little _fonda_ where we had taken up ourabode. What these affairs might be, God only knows; but I could nothelp thinking that the worthy ex-captain of guerilleros carried on hiscommercial transactions, as in past times he had his military ones--alittle after the partisan fashion, and not altogether in accordance withlegal rules.
After all, it was no affair of mine. What most concerned me, was thatwith all his running about he had not yet been able to meet with hisfriend, Don Cornelio Lantejas--whom no one in Tepic seemed to knowanything of--and I was beginning to suspect that the existence of thisindividual was as problematical as the business of the captain himself,when a lucky chance led to the discovery of the ex-aide-de-camp ofMorelos.
"Don Ruperto appears to have gone crazy," said Dona Faustina, ourhostess of the fonda, one morning as I seated myself to breakfast.
"Why, Dona Faustina?" I inquired.
"Because, Cavallero," replied she, evidently piqued at the captain'sdisregard of her hospitable board, "he is hardly ever here at mealtimes, and when he does show himself, it is so late that the _tortillasenchiladas_ are quite cold, and scarce fit to eat."
"Ah, senora!" replied I, by way of excusing the irregularity of thecaptain's habits, "that is not astonishing. An old soldier of theRevolution is not likely to be very punctual about his time of eating."
"That is no reason at all," rejoined the hostess. "We have here, forinstance, the good _presbitero_, Don Lucas de Alacuesta, who was aninsurgent officer through the whole campaign of the illustrious Morelos,and yet he is to-day a very model of regularity in his habits."
"What! an officer of Morelos, was he?"
"Certainly; all the world knows that."
"Do you chance to know another old officer of Morelos, who is said tolive here in Tepic, Don Cornelio Lantejas?"
"Never heard of him, Senor."
At this moment Don Ruperto's voice sounded outside, announcing hisreturn from one of his matutinal expeditions.
"To the devil with your tortillas and black beans!" cried he, rushinginto the room, and making answer to the reproaches of his hostess. "No,Dona Faustina--I have breakfasted already; and what is more, I shalldine to-day as a man should dine--with viands at discretion, and wine,as much as I can drink, of the best vintage of Xeres! I havebreakfasted to-day, good clerical fashion. Who with, do you think?"asked he, turning to me.
"Don Lucas de Alacuesta, perhaps?"
"Precisely; otherwise Don Cornelio Lantejas, who, on changing hisprofession, has made a slight alteration in his name; and who, but for alucky chance, I should never have found till the day of judgment, sincethe worthy _presbitero_ hardly ever stirs out from his house. Who wouldhave believed that an old soldier of the Independence should so changehis habits? In fact, however, we have had so many priests turnedofficers during the Revolution, that it is only natural one officershould become a priest, by way of compensation."
In continuation, Don Ruperto announced to me, that we were both invitedto dine with his old acquaintance; and further, that the latter hadpromised to place at my disposition such souvenirs of the illustriousMorelos as I desired to be made acquainted with.
I eagerly accepted the invitation; and in three hours after under theconduct of the captain, I entered the domicile of the worthy padre, DonLucas de Alacuesta. It was a large house, situated near the outskirtsof the town, with an extensive garden, enclosed by a high wall, renderedstill higher by a stockade of the organ cactus that grew along its top.
We found our host awaiting us--a thin little man, of some fifty years ofage, nimble in his movements, and extremely courteous and affable. Heappeared to be one who occupied himself, much less with the affairs ofhis parish, than with the cultivation of his garden, and thepreservation of entomological specimens--of which he possessed abountiful collection.
Nothing either in his speech or features, as in those of CaptainCastanos, recalled the
_ex-militario_, who had borne a conspicuous partin the long and bloody campaigns of the revolutionary war.
It is not necessary to give any details of the dinner--which was afterthe fashion of the Mexican _cuisine_, and excellent of its kind.Neither shall I repeat the conversation upon general topics; but enterat once upon those scenes described by the ex-aide-de-camp of Morelos,and that of which our drama has been constructed.