"I don't much like the United States as a home,--not because it is a republic, for I believe that is the only just form of government, whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object to it simply because I wish to go south,--to some part of the tropical world, where one may equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune." "Is there such a place?" "There is." "Where, brother?" "Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus of Panama. As Cornish men we should adopt the specialty of our province, and become miners. The Andes mountains will give us that opportunity, where, instead of gray tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say you to South America?" "I like the thought of South America,--nothing would please me better than going there. But I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for the occupation you speak of. I had rather be a merchant than a miner." "Don't let that _penchant_ prevent you from selecting Peru as the scene of mercantile transactions. There are many Englishmen who have made fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow their example. We may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One thousand pounds each may give both of us a start,--you as a merchant of goods, I as a digger for gold. Peru is the place for either business. Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered celebrated by Pizarro?" "If you will it--I'm agreed." "Thither then let us go." In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward from the Land's End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao,--_en route_ first for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,--vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks. CHAPTER II. THE BROTHERS ABROAD. This book is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years--after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco--would have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid. Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner's life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest,--the "montaña," as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving "city" of Gran Pará.