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

merous Costaguana generals were always anxious to dineat his house. Presidents granted him audience with facility.He corresponded actively with his maternal uncle, DonJose Avellanos; but his letters—unless those expressing formallyhis dutiful affection—were seldom entrusted to theCostaguana Post Office. There the envelopes are opened, indiscriminately,with the frankness of a brazen and childishimpudence characteristic of some Spanish-American Governments.But it must be noted that at about the time ofthe re-opening of the San Tome mine the muleteer who hadbeen employed by Charles Gould in his preliminary travelson the Campo added his small train of animals to the thinstream of traffic carried over the mountain passes betweenthe Sta. Marta upland and the Valley of Sulaco. There areno travellers by that arduous and unsafe route unless undervery exceptional circumstances, and the state of inlandtrade did not visibly require additional transport facilities;but the man seemed to find his account in it. A few packageswere always found for him whenever he took the road.Very brown and wooden, in goatskin breeches with the hairoutside, he sat near the tail of his own smart mule, his greathat turned against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancyon his long face, humming day after day a love-song ina plaintive key, or, without a change of expression, lettingout a yell at his small tropilla in front. A round little guitarhung high up on his back; and there was a place scooped outartistically in the wood of one of his pack-saddles where atightly rolled piece of paper could be slipped in, the woodenplug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on again.