John Clayton viaja a África para investigar sobre
los rumores de otra potencia europea reclutando británicos para recoger la goma
y el marfil. Viaja con su esposa en el Fuwalda. Lo que no anticipó es que la
tripulación sería demasiado agresiva… De Edgar
Rice Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes.
En vocabulario buscamos scour e
investigamos sobre Freetown.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small
sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination…
Tarzan, escrita por Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Paragraphs
… From the records of the Colonial Office and from
the dead man's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we
shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly
delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony
from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be
recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible
collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the
Aruwimi.
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to
a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered
on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects
by the officers of a friendly European power.
Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes
best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a
thousand victorious battlefields—a strong, virile man—mentally, morally, and
physically.
In stature he was above the average height; his eyes
were gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of perfect,
robust health influenced by his years of army training.
When he received this appointment he was both
delighted and shocked. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of a
well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service, and as a stepping
stone to posts of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the other hand,
he had been married to the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three months, and
it was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers and
isolation of tropical Africa that shocked him.
For her sake he would have refused the appointment,
but she would not have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept, and, indeed,
take her with him.
We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888,
John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they
chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their
final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his
wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared
from the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their
little vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was found upon
the shores of St. Helena which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone
down with all on board, and hence the search was stopped before it had scarce
begun.
The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons,
was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade in the far southern
Atlantic, their crews composed of the scum of the sea—unhanged murderers and
cutthroats of every race and every nation.
The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. Her
officers were dark bullies, hating and hated by their crew. The captain, while
a competent seaman, was a brute in his treatment of his men.
It was on the morning of the second day that the
first link was forged in what was destined to form a chain of circumstances
ending in a life for one then unborn such as has never been paralleled in the
history of man.
Two sailors were washing down the decks of the
Fuwalda, the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped to speak with
John Clayton and Lady Alice.
The men were working backwards toward the little
party who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and closer they came, until
one of them was directly behind the captain. In another moment he would have
passed by and this strange narrative would never have been recorded.
But just that instant the officer turned to leave
Lord and Lady Greystoke, and, as he did so, tripped against the sailor and
sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water-pail so that he was
drenched in its dirty contents.
For an instant the scene was ludicrous; but only for
an instant. With a volley of awful oaths, his face suffused with the scarlet of
mortification and rage, the captain regained his feet, and with a terrific blow
threw the sailor to the deck.
The man was small and rather old, so that the
brutality of the act was thus accentuated. The other seaman, however, was
neither old nor small—a huge bear of a man, with fierce black mustachios, and a
great bull neck set between massive shoulders.
As he saw his mate go down he crouched, and, with a
low roar, sprang upon the captain crushing him to his knees with a single
mighty blow… (Adapted from Tarzan of the Apes, de Edgar Rice Burroughs.)
Vocabulary
Scour: to move about
quickly especially in search.
Search teams scoured the area for
hours but were unable to locate him.
Scour: rastrear algo,
registrar.
Para saber
Freetown
es la capital de Sierra Leona. Fue
fundada por John Clarkson en 1.792.
La mayoría de la población habla el Krio
(una mezcla de inglés y criollo).
El Departamento
de Estado de los EEUU aconseja ejercer precaución extrema al viajar a Sierra Leona debido al nivel de crímenes
y los disturbios civiles. Crímenes violentos
ocurren frecuentemente en Freetown y la policía local no tiene
los recursos para lidiar con incidentes criminales serios. Se les prohíbe a los empleados del gobierno norteamericano viajar de noche fuera de Freetown.
Si decide viajar a Sierra Leona se aconseja no
resistir un intento de robo, no
hacer ostentación de riqueza, siempre
llevar una copia del pasaporte
dejando el original en lugar seguro, preparar
un plan de contingencia para situaciones de emergencia.
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