But in the end it did fill to the very brim, and always remained full.

The second reservoir, a dammed up valley, was just below the first; it served to break the fall from the higher to the lower level and receive the overflow from the crater.
A bursting of either of the reservoirs was quite out of the question; at any rate the abbe so assured me, and certainly the crater looked strong enough to hold all the water in the Andes, could it have been got therein, while the lower reservoir was so shallow--the out-flow and the loss by evaporation being equal to the in-take--that even if the banks were to give way no great harm could be done.
I mention these particulars because they have an important bearing on events that afterward befell, and on my own destiny.
Only a born engineer and organizer of untiring energy and illimitable patience could have performed so herculean a labor.

Balthazar was all this, and more.

He knew how to rule men despotically yet secure their love.

The Indians did his bidding without hesitation and wrought for him without pay.