Darwin Slept Here - Eric N. Simons [64]
We drove through town and found a hostel with a nice view of the river. The Argentine owner had studied journalism for a year at San Francisco State University and invited us over to his riverfront house for pisco sours. He told us that he’d love to show us around, but he was leaving for Tibet in a day and had to pack.
I questioned him briefly about Darwin’s visit, without much luck, so I switched to Valdivian history. “Where did all the apple orchards go?” I asked him. Darwin, in addition to labeling Valdivia one big orchard, had penciled an intriguing side note in the margin of his diary: “apple story.” I wondered whether he meant something specific that had happened to him? A local legend about apples? The Chilean version of Johnny Appleseed? Like the cows on the beach, though, we seemed destined to be stymied in our quest for explanations.
“What apple orchards?” Lionel the hostel owner asked.
“There used to be apple trees everywhere here,” I said. “That’s what Darwin wrote.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you can ask at the museum?”
The next morning, I woke up early and went downstairs and found Josh already standing at the door. “I can’t wait to go out,” he said morosely as he stared out at the rain. We sat down for breakfast while the rain drummed on the roof. “We used to have days like this in Santa Barbara,” Josh said, “and no one would leave their house. No one would go to class. We would just take a rain day.” He pulled his tea mug closer to him and wrapped his hands around it. He looked up at me, determination written in his clutching embrace of the tea.
“I’m just going to have a leisurely breakfast,” he continued.
“OK,” I said. I was just as determined that we were going to go ask about apples at the museum. Eventually, I felt, this constantly getting referred to someone else would pay off. But there was no point in starting an argument. Yet.
After another hour, Josh ran out of tea, and defiance, and we set off for the museum, a converted mansion with downstairs rooms devoted to the more famous personalities in Valdivia’s lengthy history. The most outsized of these personalities seemed to be Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane, a Scottish lord whose gold-tipped cane rested national-archive-style on a plush red velvet pillow. Cochrane had led an assault on the Spanish stronghold at Valdivia as part of the Chilean war of independence.
“This port is well known from Lord Cochrane’s gallant attack when in the service of La Patria,” Darwin wrote upon arriving. Cochrane and his troops pillaged Valdivia, and the new Chilean government punished the town for its Spanish loyalties by not rebuilding. By the time Darwin visited, it had shrunk in size and its economy was stagnant. A number of escaped English convicts from Australia had recently landed in Valdivia and were welcomed with open arms. (Darwin noted that they all were married within a week of arriving). “The fact of their being such notorious rogues appears to have weighed nothing in the Governors opinion,” Darwin wrote, “in comparison with the advantage of having some good workmen.” Lithographs from 1835 showed a church plaza and a few scattered houses overwhelmed by a thick band of forest. The once-impregnable forts seized by Cochrane were rotting into the ocean. Darwin visited one called Niebla, where the cannons appeared in such bad shape that they would probably disintegrate after one shot.
The museum was empty and quiet. The only other person was a museum guard who stood outside, under an awning, watching the rain. His desire for society did not extend to telling