Gustave Aimard - The Smuggler Chief - A Novel

The present is the most powerful story which Gustave Aimard has yet written. While there is enough of startling incident and hairbreadth escapes to satisfy the greatest craver after sensation, the plot is carefully elaborated, and great attention is paid to developing the character of the heroines. If there has been any fault in the author's previous works, it is that the ladies introduced are too subordinate; but in the present tale, the primary interest hinges upon them, and they are the most prominent characters. For this reason I am inclined to believe that the "Smuggler Chief" will become a greater favourite with readers than any of its predecessors.

America, a land not yet thoroughly explored, and whose immense savannahs and gloomy virgin forests conceal so many mysterious secrets and unknown dramas, sees at this moment all eyes fixed upon her, for everyone is eager to know the strange customs of the semi-civilized Indians and the semi-savage Europeans who people the vast solitudes of that continent; for in the age of transformation in which we live, they alone have remained stationary, contending inch by inch against the civilization which invades and drives them back on all sides, and guarding with a religious obstinacy the faith, manners, and customs of their fathers – curious manners, full of interest, which require to be studied carefully and closely to be understood.

It is to America, then, that we invite the reader to accompany us. But he need not feel alarmed at the length of the voyage, for he can make it while comfortably seated in his easy chair by the fireside.

The story we propose to tell has its scene laid at Valparaíso – a Chilian city as regards the soil on which it is built, but English and French, European or American, through the strange composite of its population, which, is formed of people from all countries, who have introduced every possible language and brought with them every variety of trade.

Valparaíso! the name echoes in the ear like the soft sweet notes of a love strain!

Valparaíso! the city of Paradise – the vast depôt of the whole world. A coquettish, smiling, and frolicsome city, slothfully reclining, like a thoughtless Indian maid, at the base of three mountains and at the end of a glorious bay, dipping the tips of her roseate feet in the azure waters of the Pacific, and hiding her broad brilliant forehead in the tempest-swollen clouds which float along from the crests of the Cordilleras to make her a splendid diadem.

This city, the advanced sentinel of Transatlantic civilization, is the first land which the traveller discovers after doubling Cape Horn, of melancholy and ill-omened memory.

When at sunrise of a fine spring morning a vessel sails round the lighthouse point situated at the extremity of the Playa-Aucha, this charming oasis is perceived, half veiled by a transparent mist, only allowing the white houses and lofty edifices to be distinguished in a vague and fantastic way that conduces to reverie.

The atmosphere, impregnated with the sharp scents from the beach and the sweet emanations of the trees and flowers, deliciously expands the chest, and in a second causes the mariner, who comes back to life and hope, to forget the three months of suffering and incessant danger whose long hours have passed for him minute by minute, ere he reached this long-desired haven.

On August 25th, 1833, two men were seated in a posada situated in the Calle San Agostino, and kept by a Frenchman of the name of Crevel, long established in the country, at a table on which stood two glasses and a nearly empty bottle of aguardiente of Pisco, and were eagerly conversing in a low voice about a matter which seemed to interest them in the highest degree.

One of these men, about twenty-five years of age, wore a characteristic costume of the guasos, a name by which the inhabitants of the interior are designated; a wide poncho of llama wool, striped with different brilliant colours, covered his shoulders and surrounded his bare neck with an elegant and strangely-designed Indian embroidery. Long boots of dyed wool were fastened above his knees by silk cords, and armed at the heels with enormous silver spurs, whose wheels, large as saucers, compelled him to walk on tiptoe whenever he felt an inclination to leave his saddle for a moment – which, however, very rarely happened, for the life of a guaso consists in perpetual horse exercise.

He wore under his poncho a belt containing a pair of pistols, whose heavy butts could be distinguished under the folds each time that a hurried movement on the part of the young man evidenced the fire which he introduced into the conversation.

Between his legs rested a rifle richly damascened with silver, and the carved boss of a knife handle peeping out of the top of his right boot.

Lastly, to complete this accoutrement, a splendid Guayaquil straw hat, adorned with an eagle's plume, was lying on a table near the one which he occupied.

In spite of the young man's swarthy face, his long black hair falling in disorder on his shoulders, and the haughtiness of his features, it was easy to recognise by an examination of his features the type of the European under the exterior of the American; his eyes full of vivacity which announced boldness and intelligence, his frank and limpid glance, and his sarcastic lips, surmounted by a fine and coquettishly turned up black moustache, revealed a French origin.

In truth, this individual, who was no other than Leon Delbès, the most daring smuggler on the Chilian coast, was born at Bayonne, which city he left after the loss of an enormous fortune which he inherited from his father, and settled in South America, where in a short time he acquired an immense reputation for skill and courage, which extended from Talcahueno to Copiapó.

His comrade, who appeared to be a man of five-and-thirty years of age, formed the most perfect contrast with him.

He wore the same costume as Delbès, but there the resemblance ended.

He was tall and well built, and his thin, muscular limbs displayed a far from ordinary strength. He had a wide, receding forehead, and his black eyes, close to his long, bent nose, gave him a vague resemblance to a bird of prey. His projecting cheek bones, his large mouth, lined with white, sharp teeth, and his thin pinched-up lips, imparted to his face an indescribable expression of cruelty; a forest of greasy hair was imprisoned in a red and yellow silk handkerchief which covered his head, and whose points fell upon his back. He had an olive complexion, peculiar to individuals of the Indian race to which he belonged.

This man was well known to the inhabitants of Valparaíso, who experienced for him a hatred thoroughly justified by the acts of ferocity of which he had been guilty under various circumstances; and as no one knew his real name, it had grown into a custom to designate him by the name of the Vaquero, owing to his great skill in lassoing wild bulls on the Pampas.

"The fiend twist the necks of those accursed English captains!" the Frenchman exclaimed, as he passionately smote the table: "it is easy to see that they are heretics."

"Yes," the other replied; "they are thieves – a whole cargo of raw silver, which we had such difficulty in passing, and which cost us the lives of two men."

"It is my fault," Leon continued, with an oath. "I am an ass. We have made a long voyage for nothing, and I ought to have expected it, for with the English it is impossible to gain one's livelihood. I am sure that we should have done our business famously at Copiapó, and we were only eight leagues from there."

"That's true," said the half-breed; "and I cannot think how the mad idea occurred to us of coming, with thirty loaded mules, from Chanoccillo to Valparaíso."