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Francis Bret Harte
The Lost Galleon and Other Tales
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066065911
Table of Contents
Second Review of the Grand Army
Relieving Guard—March 4th, 1864
THE LOST GALLEON.*
In sixteen hundred and forty-one,
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cottons and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.
Due she was and over-due,
Galleon, merchandise and crew,
Creeping along through rain and shine,
Through the tropics, under the Line.
The trains were waiting outside the walls,
The wives of sailors thronged the town,
The traders sat by their empty stalls,
And the viceroy himself came down.
The bells in the tower were all a-trip,
Te deums were on each Father's lip, The limes were ripening in the sun For the sick of the coming galleon. All in vain. Weeks passed away, And yet no galleon saw the bay. India goods advanced in price, The Governor missed his favorite spice, The Señoritas mourned for sandal, And the famous cottons of Coromandel. And some for an absent lover lost, And one for a husband—Donna Julia, Wife of the Captain, tempest-tossed, In circumstances so peculiar— Even the Fathers, unawares, Grumbled a little at their prayers, And all along the coast that year, Votive candles were scarce and dear. Never a tear bedims the eye That time and patience will not dry; Never a lip is curved with pain That can't be kissed into smiles again. And these same truths, as far as I know, Obtained on the coast of Mexico More than two hundred years ago, In sixteen hundred and fifty-one— Ten years after the deed was done— And folks had forgotten the galleon. The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls, White as the teeth of the Indian girls; The traders sat by their full bazaars; The mules with many a weary load, And oxen, dragging their creaking cars, Came and went on the mountain road. Where was the galleon all this while— Wrecked on some lonely coral isle? Burnt by the roving sea marauders, Or sailing north under secret orders? Had she found the Anian passage famed, By lying Moldonado claimed, And sailed through the sixty-fifth degree Direct to the North Atlantic sea? Or had she found the "River of Kings," Of which De Fonté told such strange things In sixteen-forty? Never a sign, East, or West, or under the Line, They saw of the missing galleon; Never a sail, or plank, or chip, They found of the long-lost treasure ship, Or enough to build a tale upon. But when she was lost, and where and how, Are the facts we're coming to just now. Take, if you please, the chart of that day, Published at Madrid—por el Rey— Look for a spot in the old South Sea, The hundred and eightieth degree Longitude, west of Madrid: there, Under the equatorial glare, Just where the East and West are one, You 'll find the missing galleon; You 'll find the San Gregorio, yet Riding the seas, with sails all set, Fresh as upon the very day She sailed from Acapulco Bay. How did she get there? What strange spell Kept her two hundred years so well, Free from decay and mortal taint? What—but the prayers of a patron saint! A hundred leagues from Manila town, The San Gregorio's helm came down; Round she went on her heel, and not A cable's length from a galliot That rocked on the waters, just abreast Of the galleon's course, which was west-sou-west. Then said the galleon's Commandante, General Pedro Sobriente, (That was his rank on land and main, A regular custom of Old Spain:) "My pilot is dead of scurvy; may I ask the longitude, time, and day?" The first two given and compared, The third—the Commandante stared! "The first of June? I make it second." Said the stranger, "Then you 've wrongly reckoned; I make it first: as you came this way, You should have lost—d'ye see—a day— Lost a day, as you plainly see, On the hundred