Manchurian Books

This box was about as big as a cigar case,
and if what was in it was all Torres possessed he would nowhere have
been considered a wealthy man. He had a few of all the coins of the
neighboring States--ten double-condors in gold of the United States
of Colombia, worth about a hundred francs; Brazilian reis, worth
about as much; golden sols of Peru, worth, say, double; some Chilian
escudos, worth fifty francs or more, and some smaller coins; but the
lot would not amount to more than five hundred francs, and Torres
would have been somewhat embarrassed had he been asked how or where
he had got them. One thing was certain, that for some months, after
having suddenly abandoned the trade of the slave hunter, which he
carried on in the province of Para, Torres had ascended the basin of
the Amazon, crossed the Brazilian frontier, and come into Peruvian
territory. To such a man the necessaries of life were but few;
expenses he had none--nothing for his lodging, nothing for his
clothes. The forest provided his food, which in the backwoods cost
him naught.


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