NOSTROMO A TALE OF THE SEABOARD
NOSTROMO
PART FIRST THE SILVER OF THE MINE
CHAPTER ONE
In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of
Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its
antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a
coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.
The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk
gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on
clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been
barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast gulf. Some
harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery
of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an
inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in
the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous
semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of
lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.
On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic
of Costaguana, the last spur of the coast range forms an insignificant
cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of
the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill
at the back can be made out faintly like a shadow on the sky.
On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist
floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. This is the peninsula
of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by
vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone
stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of
sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the
rainfall runs off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil
enough--it is said--to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were
blighted by a curse. The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of
consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is
deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the
neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains,
tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a
basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of
shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony
levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time
had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory
two wandering sailors--Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for
certain--talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three
stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin,
and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with
revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with
machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have
been from their camp-fire) was seen for the first time within memory of
man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the
stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles
off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A negro fisherman,
living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and
was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the
sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy,
incredulity, and awe.
The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian,
and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco
man--his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast,
being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but the two
gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be dwelling to this day
amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls
cannot tear themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the
discovered treasure. They are now rich and hungry and thirsty--a strange
theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched
flesh of defiant heretics, where a Christian would have renounced and
been released.
These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its
forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the sky on one side with the round
patch of blue haze blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the
other, mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears the name of
Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had been known to blow upon
its waters.
"1100157037"
PART FIRST THE SILVER OF THE MINE
CHAPTER ONE
In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of
Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its
antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a
coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.
The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk
gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on
clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been
barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast gulf. Some
harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery
of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an
inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in
the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous
semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of
lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.
On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic
of Costaguana, the last spur of the coast range forms an insignificant
cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of
the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill
at the back can be made out faintly like a shadow on the sky.
On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist
floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. This is the peninsula
of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by
vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone
stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of
sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the
rainfall runs off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil
enough--it is said--to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were
blighted by a curse. The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of
consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is
deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the
neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains,
tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a
basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of
shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony
levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time
had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory
two wandering sailors--Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for
certain--talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three
stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin,
and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with
revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with
machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have
been from their camp-fire) was seen for the first time within memory of
man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the
stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles
off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A negro fisherman,
living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and
was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the
sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy,
incredulity, and awe.
The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian,
and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco
man--his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast,
being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but the two
gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be dwelling to this day
amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls
cannot tear themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the
discovered treasure. They are now rich and hungry and thirsty--a strange
theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched
flesh of defiant heretics, where a Christian would have renounced and
been released.
These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its
forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the sky on one side with the round
patch of blue haze blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the
other, mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears the name of
Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had been known to blow upon
its waters.
NOSTROMO A TALE OF THE SEABOARD
NOSTROMO
PART FIRST THE SILVER OF THE MINE
CHAPTER ONE
In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of
Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its
antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a
coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.
The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk
gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on
clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been
barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast gulf. Some
harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery
of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an
inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in
the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous
semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of
lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.
On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic
of Costaguana, the last spur of the coast range forms an insignificant
cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of
the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill
at the back can be made out faintly like a shadow on the sky.
On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist
floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. This is the peninsula
of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by
vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone
stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of
sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the
rainfall runs off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil
enough--it is said--to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were
blighted by a curse. The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of
consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is
deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the
neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains,
tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a
basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of
shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony
levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time
had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory
two wandering sailors--Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for
certain--talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three
stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin,
and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with
revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with
machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have
been from their camp-fire) was seen for the first time within memory of
man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the
stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles
off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A negro fisherman,
living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and
was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the
sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy,
incredulity, and awe.
The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian,
and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco
man--his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast,
being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but the two
gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be dwelling to this day
amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls
cannot tear themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the
discovered treasure. They are now rich and hungry and thirsty--a strange
theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched
flesh of defiant heretics, where a Christian would have renounced and
been released.
These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its
forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the sky on one side with the round
patch of blue haze blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the
other, mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears the name of
Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had been known to blow upon
its waters.
PART FIRST THE SILVER OF THE MINE
CHAPTER ONE
In the time of Spanish rule, and for many years afterwards, the town of
Sulaco--the luxuriant beauty of the orange gardens bears witness to its
antiquity--had never been commercially anything more important than a
coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo.
The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk
gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on
clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been
barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its vast gulf. Some
harbours of the earth are made difficult of access by the treachery
of sunken rocks and the tempests of their shores. Sulaco had found an
inviolable sanctuary from the temptations of a trading world in
the solemn hush of the deep Golfo Placido as if within an enormous
semi-circular and unroofed temple open to the ocean, with its walls of
lofty mountains hung with the mourning draperies of cloud.
On one side of this broad curve in the straight seaboard of the Republic
of Costaguana, the last spur of the coast range forms an insignificant
cape whose name is Punta Mala. From the middle of the gulf the point of
the land itself is not visible at all; but the shoulder of a steep hill
at the back can be made out faintly like a shadow on the sky.
On the other side, what seems to be an isolated patch of blue mist
floats lightly on the glare of the horizon. This is the peninsula
of Azuera, a wild chaos of sharp rocks and stony levels cut about by
vertical ravines. It lies far out to sea like a rough head of stone
stretched from a green-clad coast at the end of a slender neck of
sand covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Utterly waterless, for the
rainfall runs off at once on all sides into the sea, it has not soil
enough--it is said--to grow a single blade of grass, as if it were
blighted by a curse. The poor, associating by an obscure instinct of
consolation the ideas of evil and wealth, will tell you that it is
deadly because of its forbidden treasures. The common folk of the
neighbourhood, peons of the estancias, vaqueros of the seaboard plains,
tame Indians coming miles to market with a bundle of sugar-cane or a
basket of maize worth about threepence, are well aware that heaps of
shining gold lie in the gloom of the deep precipices cleaving the stony
levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time
had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory
two wandering sailors--Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for
certain--talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three
stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin,
and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with
revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with
machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck of the peninsula.
On the second evening an upright spiral of smoke (it could only have
been from their camp-fire) was seen for the first time within memory of
man standing up faintly upon the sky above a razor-backed ridge on the
stony head. The crew of a coasting schooner, lying becalmed three miles
off the shore, stared at it with amazement till dark. A negro fisherman,
living in a lonely hut in a little bay near by, had seen the start and
was on the lookout for some sign. He called to his wife just as the
sun was about to set. They had watched the strange portent with envy,
incredulity, and awe.
The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian,
and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco
man--his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast,
being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but the two
gringos, spectral and alive, are believed to be dwelling to this day
amongst the rocks, under the fatal spell of their success. Their souls
cannot tear themselves away from their bodies mounting guard over the
discovered treasure. They are now rich and hungry and thirsty--a strange
theory of tenacious gringo ghosts suffering in their starved and parched
flesh of defiant heretics, where a Christian would have renounced and
been released.
These, then, are the legendary inhabitants of Azuera guarding its
forbidden wealth; and the shadow on the sky on one side with the round
patch of blue haze blurring the bright skirt of the horizon on the
other, mark the two outermost points of the bend which bears the name of
Golfo Placido, because never a strong wind had been known to blow upon
its waters.
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NOSTROMO A TALE OF THE SEABOARD
NOSTROMO A TALE OF THE SEABOARD
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012308481 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SAP |
| Publication date: | 04/18/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 454 KB |
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