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

Going ashore in the same boat with the Goulds, DonJose Avellanos was very silent. Even in the Gould carriagehe did not open his lips for a long time. The mules trottedslowly away from the wharf between the extended handsof the beggars, who for that day seemed to have abandonedin a body the portals of churches. Charles Gould sat on theback seat and looked away upon the plain. A multitude ofbooths made of green boughs, of rushes, of odd pieces ofplank eked out with bits of canvas had been erected all overit for the sale of cana, of dulces, of fruit, of cigars. Over littleheaps of glowing charcoal Indian women, squatting onmats, cooked food in black earthen pots, and boiled the waterfor the mate gourds, which they offered in soft, caressingvoices to the country people. A racecourse had been stakedout for the vaqueros; and away to the left, from where thecrowd was massed thickly about a huge temporary erection,like a circus tent of wood with a conical grass roof, came theresonant twanging of harp strings, the sharp ping of guitars,with the grave drumming throb of an Indian gombo pulsatingsteadily through the shrill choruses of the dancers.Charles Gould said presently—‘All this piece of land belongs now to the Railway Company.There will be no more popular feasts held here.’Mrs. Gould was rather sorry to think so. She took thisopportunity to mention how she had just obtained from SirJohn the promise that the house occupied by Giorgio Violashould not be interfered with. She declared she couldnever understand why the survey engineers ever talked ofdemolishing that old building. It was not in the way of the