



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]



[Illustration: "BRAWN... DASHED ON TO THE RESCUE"]




                             In Far Bolivia

                     A Story of a Strange Wild Land


                                   BY

                        DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.

 Author of "'Twixt School and College" "The Hermit Hunter of the Wilds"

             "The Naval Cadet" "Kidnapped by Cannibals" &c.




               _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. FINNEMORE, R.I._




                        BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED

                      LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY

                                  1901




                                   TO

                         MARIE CONNOR LEIGHTON

                         (NOVELIST AND CRITIC)

                         THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED

                           EVERY KINDLY WISH

                                   BY

                               THE AUTHOR




                                PREFACE


Every book should tell its own story without the aid of "preface" or
"introduction".  But as in this tale I have broken fresh ground, it is
but right and just to my reader, as well as to myself, to mention
prefatorially that, as far as descriptions go, both of the natives and
the scenery of Bolivia and the mighty Amazon, my story is strictly
accurate.

I trust that Chapter XXIII, giving facts about social life in La Paz and
Bolivia, with an account of that most marvellous of all sheets of fresh
water in the known world, Lake Titicaca, will be found of general
interest.

But vast stretches of this strange wild land of Bolivia are a closed
book to the world, for they have never yet been explored; nor do we know
aught of the tribes of savages who dwell therein, as far removed from
civilization and from the benign influence of Christianity as if they
were inhabitants of another planet.  I have ventured to send my heroes
to this land of the great unknown, and have at the same time endeavoured
to avoid everything that might border on sensationalism.

In conclusion, my boys, if spared I hope to take you out with me again
to Bolivia in another book, and together we may have stranger adventures
than any I have yet told.

THE AUTHOR.




                                  ----




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER I--ON THE BANKS OF THE GREAT AMAZON
    CHAPTER II--STRANGE ADVENTURES IN THE FOREST--LOST!
    CHAPTER III--BURNLEY HALL, OLD AND NEW
    CHAPTER IV--AWAY DOWN THE RIVER
    CHAPTER V--A DAY IN THE FOREST WILDS
    CHAPTER VI--"NOT ONE SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD SHED"
    CHAPTER VII--"A COLD HAND SEEMED TO CLUTCH HER HEART"
    CHAPTER VIII--FIERCELY AND WILDLY BOTH SIDES FOUGHT
    CHAPTER IX--THAT TREE IN THE FOREST GLADE
    CHAPTER X--BENEE MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY
    CHAPTER XI--ALL ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS
    CHAPTER XII--BENEE ENTRENCHED--SAVAGE REVELS IN THE FOREST
    CHAPTER XIII--THE MARCH TO THE LOVELESS LAND
    CHAPTER XIV--THE HOME OF THE CANNIBAL--BENEE'S ROMANCE
    CHAPTER XV--SHOOKS-GEE'S STORY--A CANNIBAL QUEEN
    CHAPTER XVI--ON THE BANKS OF A BEAUTIFUL RIVER
    CHAPTER XVII--BILL AND HIS BOATS
    CHAPTER XVIII--AS IF STRUCK BY A DUM-DUM BULLET
    CHAPTER XIX--STRUGGLING ONWARDS UP-STREAM
    CHAPTER XX--THE PAGAN PAYNEES WERE THIRSTING FOR BLOOD
    CHAPTER XXI--THE FOREST IS SHEETED IN FLAMES
    CHAPTER XXII--EVENINGS BY THE CAMP FIRE
    CHAPTER XXIII--A MARVELLOUS LAKE IN A MARVELLOUS LAND--LA PAZ
    CHAPTER XXIV--BENEE'S STORY--THE YOUNG CANNIBAL QUEEN
    CHAPTER XXV--BENEE'S MOTHER TO THE FRONT
    CHAPTER XXVI--THE PALE-FACE QUEEN HAS FLED
    CHAPTER XXVII--THE FIGHT AT THE FORT
    CHAPTER XXVIII--THE DREAM AND THE TERROR!
    CHAPTER XXIX--EASTWARD HO!  FOR MERRIE ENGLAND

                                  ----




                             ILLUSTRATIONS

"Brawn... dashed on to the rescue"...... _Frontispiece_

"Brawn sprang at once upon his man"

"She... held her at arm's-length"

"Fire low, lads... don't waste a shot!"




                             IN FAR BOLIVIA




CHAPTER I--ON THE BANKS OF THE GREAT AMAZON


Miles upon miles from the banks of the mighty river, had you wandered
far away in the shade of the dark forest that clothed the valleys and
struggled high over the mountain-tops themselves, you would have heard
the roar and the boom of that great buzz-saw.

As early as six of a morning it would start, or soon after the sun, like
a huge red-hot shot, had leapt up from his bed in the glowing east
behind the greenery of the hills and woods primeval.

To a stranger coming from the south towards the Amazon--great queen of
all the rivers on earth--and not knowing he was on the borders of
civilization, the sound that the huge saw made would have been decidedly
alarming.

He would have stopped and listened, and listening, wondered.  No
menagerie of wild beasts could have sent forth a noise so loud, so
strange, so persistent! Harsh and low at times, as its great teeth tore
through the planks of timber, it would change presently into a dull but
dreadful _basso profundo_, such as might have been emitted by
antediluvian monsters in the agonies of death or torture, rising anon
into a shrill howl or shriek, then subsiding once again into a steady
grating roar, that seemed to shake the very earth.

Wild beasts in this black forest heard the sounds, and crept stealthily
away to hide themselves in their caves and dens; caymans or alligators
heard them too, as they basked in the morning sunshine by lakelet or
stream--heard them and crawled away into caves, or took to the water
with a sullen plunge that caused the finny inhabitants to dart away in
terror to every point of the compass.

"Up with the tree, lads.  Feed him home," cried Jake Solomons loudly but
cheerily.  "Our pet is hungry this morning.  I say, Bill, doesn't she
look a beauty.  Ever see such teeth, and how they shine, too, in the red
sunlight.  Guess you never did, Bill. I say, what chance would the
biggest 'gator that ever crawled have with Betsy here.  Why, if Betsy
got one tooth in his hide she'd have fifty before you could say
'Jerusalem', and that 'gator'd be cut in two. Tear away, Betsy!  Grind
and groan and growl, my lass!  Have your breakfast, my little pet; why,
your voice is sweetest music to my ear.  I say, Bill, don't the saw-dust
fly a few?  I should smile!

"But see," he continued, "yonder come the <DW54>s with our matutinal.
Girls and boys with baskets, and I can see the steam curling up under
Chloe's arm from the great flagon she is carrying!  Look how her white
eyes roll, and her white teeth shine as she smiles her six-inch smile!
Good girl is Chloe.  She knows we're hungry, and that we'll welcome her.
Wo, now, Betsy!  Let the water off, Bill.  Betsy has had her snack, and
so we'll have ours."

There was quietness now o'er hill and dell and forest-land.

And this tall Yankee, Jake Solomons, who was fully arrayed in cotton
shirt and trousers, his brown arms bare to the shoulder, stretched his
splendidly knit but spare form with a sort of a yawn.

"Heigho, Bill!" he said.  "I'm pining for breakfast.  Aren't you?"

"That I am," replied Burly Bill with his broadest grin.

Jake ran to the open side of the great saw-mill. Three or four strides
took him there.

"Ah!  Good-morning, Chloe, darling!  Morning, Keemo!  Morning, Kimo!"

"Mawning, sah!"  This was a chorus.

"All along dey blessed good-foh-nuffin boys I no come so queeck," said
Chloe.

"Stay, stay, Chloe," cried Jake, "never let your angry passions rise.
'Sides, Chloe, I calculate such language ain't half-proper.  But how
glittering your cheeks are, Chloe, how white your teeth!  There! you
smile again.  And that vermilion blouse sets off your dark complexion to
a nicety, and seems just made for it.  Chloe, I would kiss you, but the
fear of making Bill jealous holds me back."

Burly Bill shook with laughter.  Bill was well named the Burly.  Though
not so tall as Jake, his frame was immense, though perhaps there was a
little more adipose tissue about it than was necessary in a climate like
this.  But Bill's strength was wonderful. See him, axe in hand, at the
foot of a tree!  How the chips fly!  How set and determined the man's
face, while the great beads of sweat stand like pearls on his brow!

Burly Bill was a white man turned black.  You couldn't easily have
guessed his age.  Perhaps he was forty, but at twenty, when still in
England, Bill was supple and lithe, and had a skin as white as a
schoolboy's. But he had got stouter as the years rolled