Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

OX THE PACIFIC COAST 321
confidence, having been sent to Europe last year
to purchase goods, returned with a quantity of un-
saleable trash and with forged invoices, Clarke took
himself off to England immediately after the smash,
and was bearing off also 7000 dollars from the cashbox
but ; Gutierrez missed the money, followed him
on board, and took it off his person in the sight of
many witnesses. In almost any other country he
would immediately have been incarcerated, but they
manage matters otherwise here. Icaza walks about
as ever and
Guayaquil holding his head as high :
as he is a scion of one of the noble houses of the
country, Gutierrez dare not proceed against him by
law, which would expose him to the risk of having a
knife stuck into him at the turning of some street
corner after nightfall. . . .
To Mr. Daniel Haubnry
GUAYAQUIL, Nov. 29, 1862.
Mv DEAR SIR- -Your last letter shows plainly
that you consider your correspondent both listless
and dilatory. He confesses to both, and can show
ample cause. If you knew how entirely
am ;
how
disabled I
I rarely can sit to a table to do anything
how I
but must write, eat, etc., in my hammock ;
cannot walk except for short distances, nor ride on
horseback without being in danger of falling from
an arm or a leg suddenly turning stiff, you would
surely not be surprised at my want of activity.
had never calculated on losing the use of my limbs,
and yet nothing was more likely to happen, if the
sort of life I led be considered. When alter loss
of health came wreck of fortune, simple though my
wants be and modest as were my aspirations,
Vol.. II Y
I
I felt