Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
ly before dainty philters dispensed out of vessels of silver and porcelain.
Mrs. Gould knew the history of the San Tomé mine. Worked in the early days mostly by means of lashes on the backs of slaves, its yield had been paid for in its own weight of human bones. Whole tribes of Indians had perished in the exploitation; and then the mine was abandoned, since with this primitive method it had ceased to make a profitable return no matter how many corpses were thrown into its maw. Then it became forgotten. It was rediscovered after the war of independence. An English company obtained the right to work it, and found so rich a vein that neither the exactions of successive governments nor the periodical raids of recruiting officers upon the population of paid miners they had created could discourage their perseverance. But in the end, during the long turmoil of pronunciamentos that followed the death of the famous Guzman Bento, the native miners, incited to revolt by the emissaries sent out from the capital, had risen upon their English chiefs and murdered them to a man. The decree Of Confiscation which appeared immediately afterwards in the Diario Official, published in Sta. Marta, began with the words: "Justly incensed at the grinding oppression of foreigners actuated by sordid motives of gain rather than by love for a country where they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the mining population of San Tomé, etc. . . ." and ended with the declaration: "The chief of the state has resolved to exercise to the full his power of clemency. The mine, which by every law, international, human, and divine, reverts now to the government as
57
