The reasons which had drawn the English across the sea to found a small
colony within the last ten years are not so easily described, and will
never perhaps be recorded in history books. Granted facility of
travel, peace, good trade, and so on, there was besides a kind of
dissatisfaction among the English with the older countries and the
enormous accumulations of carved stone, stained glass, and rich brown
painting which they offered to the tourist. The movement in search of
something new was of course infinitely small, affecting only a handful
of well-to-do people. It began by a few schoolmasters serving their
passage out to South America as the pursers of tramp steamers. They
returned in time for the summer term, when their stories of the
splendours and hardships of life at sea, the humours of sea-captains,
the wonders of night and dawn, and the marvels of the place delighted
outsiders, and sometimes found their way into print. The country itself
taxed all their powers of description, for they said it was much bigger
than Italy, and really nobler than Greece. Again, they declared that the
natives were strangely beautiful, very big in stature, dark, passionate,
and quick to seize the knife. The place seemed new and full of new forms
of beauty, in proof of which they showed handkerchiefs which the women
had worn round their heads, and primitive carvings coloured bright
greens and blues.
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