Abelaide Ontogoya Sectory 12
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People say that with money you can do anything you like in the world. I had at that time on my person some L6,000 sterling, of which L4,000 was in actual cash. If anybody had placed before me a morsel of any food I would gladly have given the entire sum to have it. But no, indeed; no such luck! How many times during those days did I vividly dream of delightful dinner and supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton, or the Ritz, in London, Paris, and New York! How many times did I think of the delicious meals I had had when a boy in the home of my dear father and mother! I could reconstruct in my imagination all those meals, and thought what an idiot I was to have come there out of my own free will to suffer like that. My own dreams were constantly interrupted by Benedicto and Filippe, who also had similar dreams of the wonderful meals they had had in their own houses, and the wonderful ways in which their _feijaozinho_--a term of endearment used by them for their beloved beans--had been cooked at home by their sweethearts or their temporary wives.

Viriathus appears to have been one of those able guerrilla chiefs whom Spain has produced at every period of her history. He is said to have been first a shepherd and afterward a robber, but he soon acquired unbounded influence over the minds of his countrymen. After the massacre of Galba, those Lusitanians who had not left their homes rose as a man against the rule of such treacherous tyrants. Viriathus at first avoided all battles in the plains, and waged an incessant predatory warfare in the mountains; and he met with such continued good fortune, that numbers flocked to his standard. The aspect of affairs seemed at length so threatening that in B.C. 145 the Romans determined to send the Consul Q. Fabius Maximus into the country. In the following year Fabius defeated Viriathus with great loss; but this success was more than counterbalanced by the revolt of the Celtiberians, the bravest and most noble-minded of the Spaniards. The war is usually known by the name of the Numantine, from Numantia, a town on the River Douro, and the capital of the Arevaci, the most powerful of the Celtiberian tribes.

The descent was steep, and most trying for us among the great boulders over which we had to climb on our hands and feet. When we got to the bottom of this elevated country, the forest we found had quite a different aspect, which suggested to me the approach of the big river. We found there plenty of wild fruit, particularly some small black berries--called in Brazilian _pattaoa_--quite good to eat; also some most palatable tiny red cherries. We wasted a good deal of time picking up the fruit instead of marching, my men complaining all day long of an empty stomach. They would not take my advice to march quickly, so that we might then get plenty of food on the river. During the last few days, as I knew we must have been near the camp where I had left my men in charge of my baggage, we had constantly been firing sets of three shots--the agreed signal--in order to locate the exact spot where they were. But we had received no answer. Failing that, it was impossible to locate them exactly in the virgin forest, unless we had plenty of time and strength at our disposal.

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