Strange though it may seem, and to show the small value which was placed on human life in those rough times, the tragedy narrated in the previous chapter was forgotten in a few days by most of us, until about two weeks afterwards, while a number of us were sitting around the camp fire smoking our pipes before turning in for the night, big Tom Dixon referred to the affair and remarked that it was a big price to pay for a drink.

“You’re right, Tom,” said Alec McLeod, “and many a hundred lives have been lost up these mountains from that same cause. I well remember when we were making the old Sacremonta Railway up in California I saw a similar occurrence. It was this way:

“One evening, after a difficult piece of work had been done, our superintendent sent us a couple of cases of whiskey, ‘to wet the job’ as he called it. Among our party was a young strapping fellow, he had been an athlete in the old country, clean in speech and actions, a man every inch of him, to whom the taste of drink was unknown, but whether through forgetfulness or bravado, this day he was persuaded to take some whisky. Not being used to it he was soon under its deadly influence, and ere an hour had passed the man had become a changed creature, and was boasting and bragging of his feats in the old country, and offering to run or jump with any man in the camp. We all knew it was the whisky, and not the man that was talking, and so took no notice of what he was saying. But he would not let the matter drop, and to make matters worse near to our camp there was a great chasm in the mountain about twelve feet wide. The surface for about fifty yards on either side was quite flat. The chasm was fully three hundred feet deep, and he offered to bet anybody ten dollars that he could jump across the chasm, and no man in the camp would dare to follow him.

“‘Don’t be a fool,’ cried some of the men. ‘You’d find yourself in pieces at the bottom of it, if you tried fooling around that place.’

“But the drink was in, and the wit was out.

“‘I’ll bet you ten dollars you can’t,’ said one of the foremen, himself half muddled with drink.

“‘Done!’ he cried, and before we could stop him he darted off. We sat spell-bound gazing after him. He took the leap splendidly and landed quite two feet clear on the other side. A loud shout of praise went up from his mates, but ere it had left their lips it gave place to a cry of horror, for, as he landed, his leg seemed to give way beneath him, and he fell backwards, head first, down that awful chasm of death, a victim to that terrible drink which is always a curse to all who touch it.

“I shall never forget it, never as long as I live, he added, for he was as splendid a specimen of man as I have ever seen.”

“Aye, lads!” said big Tom Dixon, after we had puffed away in silence for a few seconds, “I have been a good many years at this work in various parts of the world, and I’ve seen hundreds of splendid fellows come to sad and terrible deaths through the self same drink that you and I are such fools to indulge in. The sky pilots (parsons) would have an easy job if the devil lost his bosom friend, alcohol. I have seen such things happen through it as would make your hair stand on end if you had been there with me.”

“Did your hair stand up, Tom?” asked one of the men jocularly.

For reply Tom raised his cap. He had been scalped.

“Yes,” he said, “it was lifted.”

“Tell us the story, Tom,” we all cried together, “fire away.”

“All right mates,” Tom answered, “and I hope it’ll be a lesson to some of you.

“Away back in the sixties I was working on a new line up the Rocky Mountains in California. It was as rough a bit of country as could be found, and we had a lot of trouble with the Indians. There was hardly a day passed without some poor fellow being picked off with their arrows.

“We had with us a number of peaceful Indians working on the line, and all things seemed to be going on well. However, one Saturday, after finishing a section of the line, a few of the head bosses came up to see it, and signified their satisfaction by sending a few cases of whisky to be distributed among the white and Indian labourers. There were about forty-five white men and one hundred and sixty Indians. We also received one month’s pay the same day, so that all were well furnished with the wherewithal for a jovial time. The white men, who were well used to drinking whiskey, soon disposed of their lot, and then some of the unruly ones suggested going over to the Indian camp and buying some more from the Indians, who were in general very temperate in the use of liquor. This was agreed to by most of the men, but some of the wiser ones did their best to dissuade them from doing this, but the majority carried the day and off they went, and I amongst them, worse luck.

“The Indians were having a great corroboree when our chaps arrived, but did not appear to have been drinking much, they were received very coolly and shown very plainly that their room was of more value than their company. However, they sold our chaps a few bottles of whiskey, and told them to go back to their own camp. This angered some of the rougher of our men, and one of them, half muddled with drink, struck one of the Indians full in the face with his hand.

“In an instant the Indian had buried his knife up to the hilt in the man’s throat, killing him instantly, but before he could withdraw it, he was shot dead by another of the white men. Then each man sprang to his feet, and at each other’s throats, knives and revolvers were drawn and a scene ensued that God forbid I should ever witness or take part in again. At the first onset the light was put out and knives and revolvers used indiscriminately. A few minutes after the row had started I received an awful blow on the side of the head, which stunned me at once. On coming to, I found two redskins lying on the top of me, dead, they had both been shot. The fight was still going on at the other side of the big tent. Slowly I crawled from under the two dead men, and in doing so I felt something wet touch my face, and found to my horror it was my own scalp the dead Indian grasped—he had been shot just after scalping me. I cut through the tent, and, covered with blood and fainting from weakness, made my way over to our camp. There was no one there, and I just managed to creep into a corner when I collapsed with the awful pain in my head. When I came to, one of my mates was bathing my head and face. He told me that when the six men that remained in our camp heard the shots and shouts, two of them ran down to the lower settlement for assistance. The other four, well armed, had hidden themselves to watch and, if possible, succour any of their mates who managed to get back to their own camp. After a while they saw me creeping along, covered with blood and stumbling every few yards, making for our tent. They waited for me to get a little nearer before they left their hiding place to come to my assistance. Suddenly they espied two other forms creeping after me, and not being sure if they were friends or foes, they lay quite still for a few moments to make sure. All at once the two forms sprang towards me with knives uplifted to slay me, when they were shot dead by my mates, who then carried me to the place where they had been hiding.

“‘How goes the row, Tom?’ they asked, when I opened my eyes.

“‘I think all our chaps are done for, mates,’ I answered, ‘and we must keep away from our tent lads, I am afraid the Indians will rush it after the fight.’

“The shots now began to clear off, and we knew that many a life had paid dear for the drink that night.

“Just after I was carried into safety, we heard a rush of feet from the Indian tent, and about ten or twelve Indians rushed over to our tents, flourishing axes and knives, while some had revolvers. They had just got within ten feet of the entrance when a perfect volley of shots rang out from a spot just to the right of the tent, and every Indian fell riddled with bullets. It was the relief party of whites who had come to our assistance.

“After seeing that this lot of redskins were dead, they made a rush for the Indian quarters, and on getting lights a terrible sight met their view. There was not a single man in the tent with a spark of life in him, and every white man was scalped; and the bodies stripped of arms, money and fearfully mutilated; just near the door there were a heap of bodies, five of our men and thirteen redskins. Poor Seth Walker, as good a mate as ever worked, was almost slashed to pieces. He had five Indians lying on the top of him. These apparently had been shot by Old Dan Creegan, for his body was close to, and partly on them, with his head split open by a tomahawk. It was just like a slaughter house, and God forbid that I should ever see such another sight. In and around that tent there were thirty-seven dead white men and sixty dead Indians.

“A body of troops was sent in to the district to search for the runaways, but none were ever found. They had made off into the back territories, where they could not be followed.

“Now mates,” he added, “all that terrible loss of life was caused through drink. And now hear me boys, I swear, so help me God, I will never touch another drop of liquor as long as I live.”

“Hear, hear,” said several of the men, and whether it was the effect of the gruesome stories, or the tragedy, I don’t know, but the men of that gang, during the time I was with them, were certainly much more sober than they usually were.

Now about one mile to the south of our station, and on the middle ridge of the Cordilleras there is one of the most interesting relics, belonging to the Incas Indians, and I had not been in that district long before my friend the old chief told me the history of it, and also went with me when I went to see it. It was called, he said, the Ancient Council Chamber, and was used for that purpose in their glorious past, long years before the Spanish robbers came to Peru. The place is a level and circular patch about half a mile across, while the peaks around it are very steep. From the ground to about sixty feet up the side, all around, there are steps, or seats, cut out of the solid rock, like the gallery in a circus. Each seat is about twenty-four inches wide and eighteen inches high, all apparently having been cut by hand.

On the western side is a large seat cut into the shape of an arm-chair, this no doubt, being the seat of honour in that vast council chamber. Above the seats are the figures of birds, and beasts, cut into the solid rock. These are so gigantic that they can only be seen in all their beauty from the other side of the valley, and then it is both a beautiful and majestic sight, whilst overhead is the canopy of the blue sky. Looking at it, and thinking of the centuries that have passed since the days of Pizarro and his robber crew, it was not difficult, as the old chief sat beside me telling me their legends, to picture them in their pride and glory when Peru was a great nation, and to see once more that chamber filled with proud chiefs, met to do homage to their ruler, sitting so calm and stately in the great chair, as they passed before him to their seats and to assist him by their counsel in the government of their country. Strange though it may seem, they have amongst their legends one of the flood we read of in Bible history. But oppression and cruelty have done much to sap up their strength and pride, and has left them a happy-go-lucky, indolent and harmless race; the men are short in stature, strong and sturdy in limb, but no great lovers of work, this being so, and no doubt a remnant of their old pride makes their women the chief workers, more especially about their homes and in the fields.

The Indians who were with us were employed on the great tunnel at the top of the track, and they were engaged to wheel the debris out of the tunnel, as the Chinese were blasting and cutting. Now all Indians carry weights on their heads, but as a barrow of broken rock was too heavy for that, they were forced to adopt our method of wheeling it, but when empty, nothing would induce them to wheel the barrow back, no, they would turn it upside down and carry it on their heads, much to the amusement of the other workers.

One morning, before turn-to time, I strolled up the valley above our camp to get a nearer view of some of the magnificent waterfalls to be found among the snow-capped peaks. I had climbed up and down for some time, when I became very thirsty, and meeting one of the Gambetta Indian women carrying a skin of goat’s milk, I asked her for a drink. She at once gave me a horn full, which I drank eagerly and found very refreshing. Then I went back to the camp.

I offered a protest, and said I felt perfectly well. But it was no good—he packed me off. I rode on one of the mules to Chicla and caught the train leaving Chicla at one p.m., but before we left the station I began to feel very tired and weary, with severe pains in the muscles of my arms and legs.

When we stopped at San Bartolome to pick up passengers, three young English boys got on the train to go down to Lima. Their ages, as far as I could judge, were between seventeen and eighteen. The eldest was wrapped in a blanket, and his young mates were taking him to Lima Hospital. He had the Oroya fever and looked ghastly I got into conversation with the youngest, who told me they had only been three weeks in the country. They were apprentices on a Liverpool barque, and when they arrived in Callao some men there had persuaded them that they could get a pound a day on the Oroya Railway, and, as their food was very Lad, and very short, on the vessel, they had run away.

With tears in his eyes the young lad told me that Charlie had taken the fever two days after they had started work. The two lads had nursed him as well as they were able, but he grew worse, and the superintendent at last ordered them to take him to the hospital.

What a bitter experience for three young lads in a strange land.

Turning to his sick friend, the boy tried to cheer him up, saying:

“You will soon forget all this Charlie, when we get out to sea again. We shall be down before dark, and you’ll soon be all right when you get into a nice comfortable bed in the hospital.”

The poor sick lad smiled faintly.

“I am dying, Frank, dying,” he murmured, “far away from home, tell mother I am sorry we left the ship.”

And in a few minutes he died in their arms.

The two poor lads sobbed as though their hearts would break and asked me whatever could they do with Charlie. Poor fellows, it was a bitter lesson they were learning. Their position was indeed a sad one, but there were kind, tender hearts, and willing hands ready to help them in Lima.

As soon as we arrived there, the railway staff placed the body in the carpenter’s shop, and after the doctor had certified the cause of death, a coffin was made for it, then the railway authorities arranged for the burial at the English cemetery. The two others were looked after by the station-master himself until after the funeral and then he got them a berth in a ship bound for Liverpool, and in a few days they left the land that had brought them such bitter sorrow and pain.