16 The Wine-Dark Sea by O'Brian Patrick

Author:O'Brian, Patrick [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Retail
ISBN: 9780007429424
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The road to Lima ran between great irrigated mud-walled fields of sugar-cane, cotton, alfalfa, Indian corn, and past carob-groves, with here and there bananas, oranges and lemons in all their variety; and where the sides of the valley rose, some distant vines. At times it followed the deep-cut bank of the Rimac, now a fine great roaring torrent from the snows that could be seen a great way off, and here were palms, strangely interspersed with fine great willows of a kind Stephen had not seen before. Few birds, apart from an elegant tern that patrolled the quieter side-pools of the river, and few flowers: this was the dry season of the year, and except where the innumerable irrigation-channels flowed nothing but a grey wiry grass was to be seen.

There was a good deal of traffic: casks and bales travelling up from the port or down to it in ox- or mule-drawn wagons that brought the Spain of his youth vividly to mind – the same high-crested yokes, the same crimson, brass-studded harness, the same ponderous creaking wheels. Some few horsemen, some people sitting on asses, more going by foot: short, strong Indians with grave or expressionless copper faces, sometimes bowed under enormous burdens; some rare Spaniards; many black Africans; and every possible combination of the three, together with additions from visiting ships. All these people called out a greeting as they passed, or told him that ‘it was dry, dry, intolerably dry’; all except the Indians, who went by mute, unsmiling.

It was Stephen’s custom, particularly when he was walking in a flat country, to turn his face to the zenith every furlong or so, in order not to miss birds soaring above the ordinary range of vision. When he had been walking for an hour he did this again after a longer pause than usual and to his infinite delight he saw no less than twelve condors wheeling and wheeling high in the pale sky between him and Lima. He walked a few paces more, sat on a mile-stone and fixed them with his pocket-glass. No possibility of error: enormous birds: not perhaps as wide as the wandering albatross but more massive by far – a different kind of flight, a different use of the air entirely. Perfect flight, perfect curves: never a movement of those great wings. Round and round, rising and falling, rising and rising still until at the top of their spiral they glided away in a long straight line towards the north-east.

He walked on with a smile of pure happiness on his face; and presently, just after he had passed a posada where carts and wagons stood under the shade of carob-trees while their drivers drank and rested, he felt his smile return of its own accord: there on the road ahead was a tall black horse carrying a taller, blacker rider at a fine easy trot towards Callao. At the same moment the trot changed to a brisk canter, and a yard from Stephen Sam leapt from the saddle, his own smile still broader.

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