Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

The heavy stonework of bridges and churches left by theconquerors proclaimed the disregard of human labour, thetribute-labour of vanished nations. The power of king andchurch was gone, but at the sight of some heavy ruinouspile overtopping from a knoll the low mud walls of a village,Don Pepe would interrupt the tale of his campaignsto exclaim—‘Poor Costaguana! Before, it was everything for the Padres,nothing for the people; and now it is everything forthose great politicos in Sta. Marta, for negroes and thieves.’Charles talked with the alcaldes, with the fiscales, withthe principal people in towns, and with the caballeros onthe estates. The commandantes of the districts offered himescorts—for he could show an authorization from the Sulacopolitical chief of the day. How much the document hadcost him in gold twenty-dollar pieces was a secret betweenhimself, a great man in the United States (who condescendedto answer the Sulaco mail with his own hand), and agreat man of another sort, with a dark olive complexionand shifty eyes, inhabiting then the Palace of the Intendenciain Sulaco, and who piqued himself on his culture andEuropeanism generally in a rather French style because hehad lived in Europe for some years—in exile, he said. However,it was pretty well known that just before this exile hehad incautiously gambled away all the cash in the CustomHouse of a small port where a friend in power had procuredfor him the post of subcollector. That youthful indiscretionhad, amongst other inconveniences, obliged him to earnhis living for a time as a cafe waiter in Madrid; but his tal-