Читать книгу Pelican Pool. A Novel онлайн

3 страница из 46

A belt of greener timber stands out bravely from the faded vegetation to mark the river on its passage to the sea. To the parching waterholes the pelican comes at dawn to fish and to pout his breast: snowy spoonbills and divers splash in the lonely shallows. The alligator comes up to sun himself; the turtle bubbles from the hot mud; and the quick striped fishes play at hide and seek among the languid weeds. The kingfisher busies himself along the bank, and with evening the ducks push their triangles about the sky.

The conquest of this northern land will bring the fall of one of savagery's last fortresses. Already the outposts of South and East press in. The ramparts are crumbling, and soon the gates must tumble to a victor who never yet has been denied. The white man has turned here his covetous gaze. Vainly the burning winds and angry rains shall beat at the ashes of his first fires and shall scatter his first solitary bones. The silences shall not fright him, nor the lean places turn his purpose. Though he fall, yet will he come on again, for this foe is fashioned of stern stuff. In ones, in twos, already he toils over the face of the wilderness, seeking the kindlier ways for his herds: in ones, in twos, he passes about the hills and watercourses, wresting from their bosoms the objects of his avarice. Alike he invades the sternest and gentlest retreats, raising his shelters to mock at sun and storm. His long fences are breaking the distances, his beasts of burden trample the virgin waterholes, his iron houses defile the hermit vales. Not easily does he work his will. Lean and brown he becomes, and his women grow haggard before their time. But children patter upon the bitter places, and them the wilderness has less power to hurt.