And at once it appeared to me that other sounds were mingling with them-sounds that suggested the presence of human beings. I walked forward to the edge of the table-like platform on which the venta was built and halting there stood listening to these mysterious conversations of nature. Nothing appeared awake around me save the voices of the _sierras_, that never sleep-with the sound of distant waterfalls, as they rushed through vast ravines, keeping up, as it were, an eternal dialogue between the highest summits of the mountains and the deepest gulfs that yawned around their bases. Other travellers, along with the people of the hostelry inside, with the domestics and muleteers out of doors, were still slumbering profoundly, and an imposing silence reigned over the mountain platform on which the venta stood. Without making any noise to disturb him, I converted my coverlet into a cloak-that is, I folded my serape around my shoulders, and walked forth from the inn. Our conversation here ended, for we had arrived at the inn where we intended to pass the night-the _Venta de la Sierra Madre_.Įarly on the following morning, before any one had yet arisen, I left my chamber-in a corner of which, rolled in his ample _manga_, Captain Castanos was still soundly asleep. He can tell you more about Morelos than any other living man: since he was _aide-de-camp_ to the General through all his campaigns, and served him faithfully up to the hour of his death." But if my good friend, Don Cornelio Lantejas, is still living at Tepic, when we arrive there, I shall put you in communication with him. "Ah! I understand you," said the captain, "and I am sorry that I cannot satisfy your desires: since, during the war I was mostly engaged in the northern provinces, and had no opportunity of knowing much of Morelos personally. In other words, I want to hear those more private and particular details of Morelos' life which the historians have not given." "You are narrating history to me, while I want only chronicles.
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"Hum! I know all that already," said I, interrupting my fellow-traveller. Of these he won twenty-two and though he lost the other four, each time he retreated with honour-" "In the single year of 1811, he fought no less than twenty-six battles with the Spaniards. "Ah! Morelos? he was a great soldier," replied the ex-captain of guerilleros.
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"Can you give me any information regarding Morelos?" I asked of Captain Castanos, as we were journeying along the route between Tepic and Guadalaxara. But what I desired was a more personal and intimate knowledge of this remarkable man, who from being the humble curate of an obscure village in Oajaca, became in a few short months the victorious leader of a well-appointed army, and master of all the southern provinces of New Spain. His public career having become historic, was, of course, known to every one who chose to read of him. Of all the leaders of the Mexican revolution, there was none in whose history I felt so much interest as in the _priest-soldier_, Morelos-or, as he is familiarly styled in Mexican annals, the "illustrious Morelos"-and yet there was none of whose private life I could obtain so few details.
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From time to time as we travelled together, he was good enough to give me an account of some of the more noted actions of the prolonged and sanguinary war of the Independence and, among other narratives, one which especially interested me was the famed battle of the _Puente de Calderon_, where the Captain himself had fought during the whole length of a summer's day! Nevertheless the result is excellent, the book is very readable, and it makes a good audiobook.ĭuring one of many journeyings through the remote provinces of the Mexican republic, it was my fortune to encounter an old revolutionary officer, in the person of Captain Castanos. To make matters worse practically every page of the copy used had been defaced by a rubber stamp of a previous owner, which made a day's work for the transcriber to clean up. The type-setting in this book was not very good, and it seems likely that Routledge used the type from an earlier edition. Reid, having fought in the Mexican-American War of the 1850s, and having written books about the subject, would have wanted to make this excellent book available to an English-speaking readership, and his translation was published in 1861 with the title "A Hero In Spite Of Himself." The edition used was published by Routledge in 1890, some years after the author's death, with the title "The Tiger Hunter," which is what Costal was, though the tigers referred to were actually jaguars.
THE TIGER HUNTER FREE
_ Strictly speaking this book is a free translation by Reid (1818-1883) of an earlier (1851) book by the Frenchman Luis de Bellemare (pseudonym of Gabriel Ferry, 1809-1852), "Costal l'Indien." The subject is the 1811-1812 Mexican War of Independence from Spain. Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England