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diff --git a/old/69354-0.txt b/old/69354-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4020160..0000000 --- a/old/69354-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4855 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Three gringos in Venezuela and Central -America, by Richard Harding Davis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Three gringos in Venezuela and Central America - -Author: Richard Harding Davis - -Release Date: November 14, 2022 [eBook #69354] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - made using scans of public domain works put online by - Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE GRINGOS IN VENEZUELA -AND CENTRAL AMERICA *** - - -[Illustration: FORDING THE CHAMELICON RIVER] - - - - - THREE GRINGOS IN VENEZUELA - AND - CENTRAL AMERICA - - BY - RICHARD HARDING DAVIS - - ILLUSTRATED - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1896 - - - - -BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. - -_Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental._ - - ABOUT PARIS. $1 25. - THE PRINCESS ALINE. $1 25. - OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. $1 25. - THE RULERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. $1 25. - THE WEST FROM A CAR-WINDOW. $1 25. - THE EXILES, AND OTHER STORIES. $1 50. - VAN BIBBER, AND OTHERS. $1 00. (Paper, 60 cents.) - -PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. - - -Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. - -_All rights reserved._ - - - - - TO - MY FRIENDS - H. SOMERS SOMERSET - AND - LLOYD GRISCOM - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - ON THE CARIBBEAN SEA 1 - - THE EXILED LOTTERY 27 - - IN HONDURAS 56 - - AT CORINTO 160 - - ON THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA 193 - - THE PARIS OF SOUTH AMERICA 221 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - - FORDING THE CHAMELICON RIVER _Frontispiece_ - - MAP OF VENEZUELA AND CENTRAL AMERICA, SHOWING - THE ROUTE OF THE “THREE GRINGOS” xiii - - GOVERNMENT HOUSE, BELIZE 7 - - SIR ALFRED MOLONEY 10 - - NATIVE CONSTABULARY, BELIZE 13 - - MAIN STREET, BELIZE 17 - - NATIVE WOMEN OF LIVINGSTON 20 - - GUATEMALLECAN ARMY AT LIVINGSTON 23 - - BARRACKS AT PORT BARRIOS 25 - - THE EXILED LOTTERY BUILDING 35 - - THE IGUANAS OF HONDURAS 51 - - OUR NAVAL ATTACHÉ 57 - - OUR MILITARY ATTACHÉ 60 - - A STRETCH OF CENTRAL-AMERICAN RAILWAY 62 - - THE THREE GRINGOS 64 - - SETTING OUT FROM SAN PEDRO SULA 67 - - THE HIGHLANDS OF HONDURAS 71 - - SOMERSET 74 - - A DRAWER OF WATER 77 - - NATIVE METHOD OF DRYING COFFEE 85 - - IN A CENTRAL-AMERICAN FOREST 89 - - ON THE TRAIL TO SANTA BARBARA 97 - - A HALT AT TRINIDAD 101 - - GENERAL LOUIS BOGRAN 105 - - OUR PACK-TRAIN AT SANTA BARBARA 107 - - A VILLAGE IN THE INTERIOR 114 - - BRIDGE CONNECTING TEGUCIGALPA WITH ITS SUBURB 123 - - BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TEGUCIGALPA 127 - - THE BANK OF HONDURAS 129 - - STATUE OF MORAZAN 132 - - P. BONILLA 135 - - GENERAL LOUIS BOGRAN, EX-PRESIDENT 138 - - BARRACKS OF TEGUCIGALPA AFTER THE ATTACK OF THE - REVOLUTIONISTS 141 - - MORAZAN, THE LIBERATOR OF HONDURAS 145 - - ON THE WAY TO CORINTO 155 - - PRINCIPAL HOTEL AND PRINCIPAL HOUSE AT CORINTO 162 - - HARBOR OF CORINTO 175 - - THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE AT MANAGUA 179 - - PRESIDENT ZELAYA OF NICARAGUA 183 - - MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING CHANGES IN TRADE - ROUTES AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE NICARAGUA - CANAL 191 - - DREDGES IN THE CANAL 195 - - THE BAY OF PANAMA 199 - - PANAMA CANAL ON THE PACIFIC SIDE 203 - - HUTS OF WORKMEN EMPLOYED ON THE CANAL 206 - - THE TOP OF A DREDGE 209 - - STREET SCENE IN PANAMA 213 - - THE CANAL IN THE INTERIOR 217 - - STATUE OF SIMON BOLIVAR, CARACAS 223 - - STATUE OF WASHINGTON DECORATED WITH FLORAL - WREATHS BY THE VENEZUELANS 227 - - DECORATION OF THE STATUE OF BOLIVAR AT CARACAS, - VENEZUELA, DECEMBER 18, 1895, BY AMERICAN - RESIDENTS 231 - - SIMON BOLIVAR 234 - - VIEW OF LA GUAYRA 235 - - THE RAILROAD UP THE MOUNTAIN 239 - - COURT-YARD OF A HOUSE IN CARACAS 243 - - THE MARKET OF CARACAS 247 - - VIEW OF CARACAS _Facing_ 250 - - PRESIDENT CRESPO, OF VENEZUELA 251 - - LEGISLATIVE BUILDING, CARACAS 253 - - THE PRESIDENT’S BODY-GUARD OF COWBOYS 255 - - BAPTIZING INDIANS AT A VENEZUELA STATION ON THE - CUYUNI RIVER 259 - - A TYPICAL HUNTING-PARTY IN VENEZUELA 263 - - A CLEARING IN THE COUNTRY 267 - - THE CUYUNI RIVER 271 - - VENEZUELAN STATION ON THE CUYUNI RIVER 274 - - ENGLISH STATION ON THE CUYUNI RIVER 275 - - DR. PEDRO EZEQUIEL ROJAS 277 - - MAP EXPLAINING VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE 278 - - THE CITY OF CARACAS 279 - - - - -[Illustration: MAP OF VENEZUELA AND CENTRAL AMERICA, SHOWING THE ROUTE -OF THE “THREE GRINGOS”] - - - - -ON THE CARIBBEAN SEA - - -THE steamer _Breakwater_ lay at the end of a muddy fruit-wharf a mile -down the levee. - -She was listed to sail that morning for Central-American ports, and we -were going with her in search of warm weather and other unusual things. -When we left New York the streets were lined with frozen barricades of -snow, upon which the new brooms of a still newer administration had -made so little impression that people were using them as an excuse -for being late for dinners; and at Washington, while the snow had -disappeared, it was still bitterly cold. And now even as far south as -New Orleans we were shivering in our great-coats, and the newspapers -were telling of a man who, the night before, had been found frozen to -death in the streets. It seemed as though we were to keep on going -south, forever seeking warmth, only to find that Nature at every point -of lower latitude had paid us the compliment of changing her season to -spite us. - -So the first question we asked when we came over the side of the -_Breakwater_ was not when we should first see land, but when we should -reach warm weather. - -There were four of us, counting Charlwood, young Somerset’s servant. -There was Henry Somers Somerset, who has travelled greater distances -for a boy still under age than any other one of his much-travelled -countrymen that I have ever met. He has covered as many miles in the -last four years as would make five trips around the world, and he -came with me for the fun of it, and in what proved the vain hope of -big game. The third was Lloyd Griscom, of Philadelphia, and later of -London, where he has been attaché at our embassy during the present -administration. He had been ordered south by his doctor, and only -joined us the day before we sailed. - -We sat shivering under the awning on the upper deck, and watched the -levees drop away on either side as we pushed down the last ninety -miles of the Mississippi River. Church spires and the roofs of houses -showed from the low-lying grounds behind the dikes, and gave us the -impression that we were riding on an elevated road. The great river -steamers, with paddle-wheels astern and high double smoke-stacks, that -were associated in our minds with pictures of the war and those in -our school geographies, passed us, pouring out heavy volumes of black -smoke, on their way to St. Louis, and on each bank we recognized, also -from pictures, magnolia-trees and the ugly cotton-gins and the rows of -negroes’ quarters like the men’s barracks in a fort. - -At six o’clock, when we had reached the Gulf, the sun sank a blood-red -disk into great desolate bayous of long grass and dreary stretches of -vacant water. Dead trees with hanging gray moss and mistletoe on their -bare branches reared themselves out of the swamps like gallows-trees -or giant sign-posts pointing the road to nowhere; and the herons, -perched by dozens on their limbs or moving heavily across the sky -with harsh, melancholy cries, were the only signs of life. On each -side of the muddy Mississippi the waste swamp-land stretched as far -as the eye could reach, and every blade of the long grass and of the -stunted willows and every post of the dikes stood out black against -the red sky as vividly as though it were lit by a great conflagration, -and the stagnant pools and stretches of water showed one moment like -flashing lakes of fire, and the next, as the light left them, turned -into mirrors of ink. It was a scene of the most awful and beautiful -desolation, and the silence, save for the steady breathing of the -steamer’s engine, was the silence of the Nile at night. - -For the next three days we dropped due south as the map lies from the -delta of the Mississippi through the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean -Sea. It was moonlight by night, and sun and blue water by day, and the -decks kept level, and the vessel was clean. - -Our fellow-passengers were banana-planters and engineers going to -Panama and Bluefields, and we asked them many questions concerning -rates of exchange and the rainy season and distances and means of -transportation, to which they gave answers as opposite as can only come -from people who have lived together in the same place for the greater -part of their lives. - -Land, when it came, appeared in the shape of little islands that -floated in mid-air above the horizon like the tops of trees, without -trunks to support them, or low-lying clouds. They formed the -skirmish-line of Yucatan, the northern spur of Central America, and -seemed from our decks as innocent as the Jersey sand-hills, but were, -the pilot told us, inhabited by wild Indians who massacre people who -are so unfortunate as to be shipwrecked there, and who will not pay -taxes to Mexico. But the little we saw of their savagery was when we -passed within a ship’s length of a ruined temple to the Sun, standing -conspicuously on a jutting point of land, with pillars as regular and -heavily cut as some of those on the Parthenon. It was interesting to -find such a monument a few days out from New Orleans. - -Islands of palms on one side and blue mountains on the other, and water -as green as corroded copper, took the place of the white sand-banks of -Yucatan, and on the third day out we had passed the Mexican state and -steamed in towards the coast of British Honduras, and its chief seaport -and capital, Belize. - -British Honduras was formerly owned by Spain, as was all of Central -America, and was, on account of its bays and islands, a picturesque -refuge for English and other pirates. In the seventeenth century -English logwood-cutters visited the place and obtained a footing, which -has been extended since by concessions and by conquest, so that the -place is now a British dependency. It forms a little slice of land -between Yucatan and Guatemala, one hundred and seventy-four miles in -its greatest length, and running sixty-eight miles inland. - -Belize is a pretty village of six thousand people, living in low, -broad-roofed bungalows, lying white and cool-looking in the border of -waving cocoanut-trees and tall, graceful palms. It was not necessary -to tell us that Belize would be the last civilized city we should see -until we reached the capital of Spanish Honduras. A British colony is -always civilized; it is always the same, no matter in what latitude -it may be, and it is always distinctly British. Every one knows that -an Englishman takes his atmosphere with him wherever he goes, but the -truth of it never impressed me so much as it did at Belize. There were -not more than two hundred English men and women in the place, and -yet, in the two halves of two days that I was there I seemed to see -everything characteristic of an Englishman in his native land. There -were a few concessions made to the country and to the huge native -population, who are British subjects themselves; but the colony, in -spite of its surroundings, was just as individually English as is -the shilling that the ship’s steward pulls out of his pocket with a -handful of the queer coin that he has picked up at the ports of a -half-dozen Spanish republics. They may be of all sizes and designs, -and of varying degrees of a value, or the lack of it, which changes -from day to day, but the English shilling, with the queen’s profile -on one side and its simple “one shilling” on the other, is worth just -as much at that moment and at that distance from home as it would -be were you handing it to a hansom-cab driver in Piccadilly. And we -were not at all surprised to find that the black native police wore -the familiar blue-and-white-striped cuff of the London bobby, and -the district-attorney a mortar-board cap and gown, and the colonial -bishop gaiters and an apron. - -[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, BELIZE] - -It was quite in keeping, also, that the advertisements on the -boardings should announce and give equal prominence to a “Sunday-school -treat” and a boxing-match between men of H.M.S. _Pelican_, and that -the officers of that man-of-war should be playing cricket with a -local eleven under the full tropical sun, and that the chairs in the -Council-room and Government House should be of heavy leather stamped -V.R., with a crown above the initials. An American official in as hot -a climate, being more adaptable, would have had bamboo chairs with -large, open-work backs, or would have even supplied the council with -rocking-chairs. - -Lightfoot agreed to take us ashore at a quarter of a dollar apiece. -He had a large open sail-boat, and everybody called him Lightfoot and -seemed to know him intimately, so we called him Lightfoot too. He -was very black, and light-hearted at least, and spoke English with -the soft, hesitating gentleness that marks the speech of all these -natives. It was Sunday on land, and Sunday in an English colony is -observed exactly as it should be, and so the natives were in heavily -starched white clothes, and were all apparently going somewhere to -church in rigid rows of five or six. But there were some black soldiers -of the West India Regiment in smart Zouave uniforms and turbans that -furnished us with local color, and we pursued one of them for some time -admiringly, until he become nervous and beat a retreat to the barracks. - -[Illustration: SIR ALFRED MOLONEY - -(Central Figure)] - -Somerset had a letter from his ambassador in Washington to Sir Alfred -Moloney, K.C.M.G., the governor of British Honduras, and as we hoped it -would get us all an invitation to dinner, we urged him to present it at -once. Four days of the ship’s steward’s bountiful dinners, served at -four o’clock in the afternoon, had made us anxious for a change both in -the hour and the diet. The governor’s house at Belize is a very large -building, fronting the bay, with one of the finest views from and most -refreshing breezes on its veranda that a man could hope to find on a -warm day, and there is a proud and haughty sentry at each corner of the -grounds and at the main entrance. A fine view of blue waters beyond a -green turf terrace covered with cannon and lawn-tennis courts, and four -sentries marching up and down in the hot sun, ought to make any man, so -it seems to me, content to sit on his porch in the shade and feel glad -that he is a governor. - -Somerset passed the first sentry with safety, and we sat down on the -grass by the side of the road opposite to await developments, and were -distressed to observe him make directly for the kitchen, with the -ambassador’s letter held firmly in his hand. So we stood up and shouted -to him to go the other way, and he became embarrassed, and continued to -march up and down the gravel walk with much indecision, and as if he -could not make up his mind where he wanted to go, like the grenadiers -in front of St. James’s Palace. It happened that his excellency was -out, so Somerset left our cards and his letter, and we walked off -through the green, well-kept streets and wondered at the parrots and -the chained monkeys and the Anglicized little negro girls in white -cotton stockings and with Sunday-school books under their arms. All -the show-places of interest were closed on that day, so, after an -ineffectual attempt to force our way into the jail, which we mistook -for a monastery, we walked back through an avenue of cocoanut-palms to -the International Hotel for dinner. - -[Illustration: NATIVE CONSTABULARY, BELIZE] - -We had agreed that as it was our first dinner on shore, it should be a -long and excellent one, with several kinds of wine. The International -Hotel is a large one, with four stories, and a balcony on each floor; -and after wandering over the first three of these in the dark we came -upon a lonely woman with three crying children, who told us with -reproving firmness that in Belize the dinner-hour is at four in the -afternoon, and that no one should expect a dinner at seven. We were -naturally cast down at this rebuff, and even more so when her husband -appeared out of the night and informed us that keeping a hotel did -not pay--at least, that it did not pay him--and that he could not -give us anything to drink because he had not renewed his license, and -even if he had a license he would not sell us anything on Sunday. -He had a touch of malaria, he said, and took a gloomy view of life -in consequence, and our anxiety to dine well seemed, in contrast, -unfeeling and impertinent. But we praised the beauty of the three -children, and did not set him right when he mistook us for officers -from the English gunboats in the harbor, and for one of these -reasons he finally gave us a cold dinner by the light of a smoking -lamp, and made us a present of a bottle of stout, for which he later -refused any money. We would have enjoyed our dinner at Belize in spite -of our disappointment had not an orderly arrived in hot search after -Somerset, and borne him away to dine at Government House, where Griscom -and I pictured him, as we continued eating our cold chicken and beans, -dining at her majesty’s expense, with fine linen and champagne, and -probably ice. Lightfoot took us back to the boat in mournful silence, -and we spent the rest of the evening on the quarter-deck telling -each other of the most important people with whom we had ever dined, -and had nearly succeeded in re-establishing our self-esteem, when -Somerset dashed up in a man-of-war’s launch glittering with brass -and union-jacks, and left it with much ringing of electric bells -and saluting and genial farewells from admirals and midshipmen in -gold-lace, with whom he seemed to be on a most familiar and friendly -footing. This was the final straw, and we held him struggling over -the ship’s side, and threatened to drop him to the sharks unless he -promised never to so desert us again. And discipline was only restored -when he assured us that he was the bearer of an invitation from the -governor to both breakfast and luncheon the following morning. The -governor apologized the next day for the informality of the manner in -which he had sent us the invitation, so I thought it best not to tell -him that it had been delivered by a young man while dangling by his -ankles from the side of the ship, with one hand holding his helmet and -the other clutching at the rail of the gangway. - -There is much to be said of Belize, for in its way it was one of the -prettiest ports at which we touched, and its cleanliness and order, -while they were not picturesque or foreign to us then, were in so great -contrast to the ports we visited later as to make them most remarkable. -It was interesting to see the responsibilities and the labor of -government apportioned out so carefully and discreetly, and to find -commissioners of roads, and then district commissioners, and under them -inspectors, and to hear of boards of education and boards of justice, -each doing its appointed work in this miniature government, and all -responsible to the representative of the big government across the sea. -And it was reassuring to read in the blue-books of the colony that the -health of the port has improved enormously during the last three years. - -[Illustration: MAIN STREET, BELIZE] - -Monday showed an almost entirely different Belize from the one we had -seen on the day before. Shops were open and busy, and the markets were -piled high with yellow oranges and bananas and strange fruits, presided -over by negresses in rich-colored robes and turbans, and smoking -fat cigars. There was a show of justice also in a parade of prisoners, -who, in spite of their handcuffs, were very anxious to halt long enough -to be photographed, and there was a great bustle along the wharves, -where huge rafts of logwood and mahogany floated far into the water. -The governor showed us through his botanical station, in which he has -collected food-giving products from over all the world, and plants -that absorb the malaria in the air, and he hinted at the social life -of Belize as well, tempting us with a ball and dinners to the officers -of the men-of-war; but the _Breakwater_ would not wait for such -frivolities, so we said farewell to Belize and her kindly governor, -and thereafter walked under strange flags, and were met at every step -with the despotic little rules and safeguards which mark unstable -governments. - -Livingston was like a village on the coast of East Africa in comparison -with Belize. It is the chief seaport of Guatemala on the Atlantic side, -and Guatemala is the furthest advanced of all the Central-American -republics; but her civilization lies on the Pacific side, and does not -extend so far as her eastern boundary. - -[Illustration: NATIVE WOMEN AT LIVINGSTON] - -There are two opposite features of landscape in the tropics which -are always found together--the royal palm, which is one of the most -beautiful of things, and the corrugated zinc-roof custom-house, which -is one of the ugliest. Nature never appears so extravagant or so -luxurious as she does in these hot latitudes; but just as soon as she -has fashioned a harbor after her own liking, and set it off at her best -so that it is a haven of delight to those who approach it from the sea, -civilized man comes along and hammers square walls of zinc together and -spoils the beauty of the place forever. The natives, who do not care -for customs dues, help nature out with thatch-roofed huts and walls of -adobe or yellow cane, or add curved red tiles to the more pretentious -houses, and so fill out the picture. But the “gringo,” or the man from -the interior, is in a hurry, and wants something that will withstand -earthquakes and cyclones, and so wherever you go you can tell that he -has been there before you by his architecture of zinc. - -When you turn your back on the custom-house at Livingston and the rows -of wooden shops with open fronts, you mount the hill upon which the -town stands, and there you will find no houses but those which have -been created out of the mud and the trees of the place itself. There -are no streets to the village nor doors to the houses; they are all -exactly alike, and the bare mud floor of one is as unindividual, except -for the number of naked children crawling upon it, as is any of the -others. The sun and the rain are apparently free to come and go as they -like, and every one seems to live in the back of the house, under the -thatched roof which shades the clay ovens. Most of the natives were -coal-black, and the women, in spite of the earth floors below and the -earth walls round about them, were clean, and wore white gowns that -trailed from far down their arms, leaving the chest and shoulders bare. -They were a very simple, friendly lot of people, and rail from all -parts of the settlement to be photographed, and brought us flowers -from their gardens, for which they refused money. - -We had our first view of the Central-American soldier at Livingston, -and, in spite of all we had heard, he surprised us very much. The -oldest of those whom we saw was eighteen years, and the youngest -soldiers were about nine. They wore blue jean uniforms, ornamented with -white tape, and the uniforms differed in shade according to the number -of times they had been washed. These young men carried their muskets -half-way up the barrel, or by the bayonet, dragging the stock on the -ground. - -General Barrios, the young President of Guatemala, has some very smart -soldiers at the capital, and dresses them in German uniforms, which -is a compliment he pays to the young German emperor, for whom he has -a great admiration; but his discipline does not extend so far as the -Caribbean Sea. - -[Illustration: THE GUATEMALLECAN ARMY AT LIVINGSTON] - -The river Dulce goes in from Livingston, and we were told it was one of -the things in Central America we ought to see, as its palisades were -more beautiful than those of the Rhine. The man who told us this said -he spoke from hearsay, and that he had never been on the Rhine, but -that he knew a gentleman who had. You can well believe that it is very -beautiful from what you can see of its mouth, where it flows into the -Caribbean between great dark banks as high as the palisades opposite -Dobbs Ferry, and covered with thick, impenetrable green. - -[Illustration: BARRACKS AT PORT BARRIOS] - -Port Barrios, to which one comes in a few hours, is at one end of -a railroad, and surrounded by all the desecration that such an -improvement on nature implies, in the form of zinc depots, piles of -railroad-ties, and rusty locomotives. The town consists of a single -row of native huts along the coast, terminating in a hospital. Every -house is papered throughout with copies of the New York _Police -Gazette_, which must give the Guatemallecan a lurid light on the habits -and virtues of his cousins in North America. Most of our passengers -left the ship here, and we met them, while she was taking on bananas, -wandering about the place with blank faces, or smiling grimly at the -fate which condemned them and their blue-prints and transits to a place -where all nature was beautiful and only civilized man was discontented. - -We lay at Barrios until late at night, wandering round the deserted -decks, or watching the sharks sliding through the phosphorus and the -lights burning in the huts along the shore. At midnight we weighed -anchor, and in the morning steamed into Puerto Cortez, the chief port -of Spanish Honduras, where the first part of our journey ended, and -where we exchanged the ship’s deck for the Mexican saddle, and hardtack -for tortillas. - - - - -THE EXILED LOTTERY - - -TWO years ago, while I was passing through Texas, I asked a young man -in the smoking-car if he happened to know where I could find the United -States troops, who were at that time riding somewhere along the borders -of Texas and Mexico, and engaged in suppressing the so-called Garza -revolution. - -The young man did not show that he was either amused or surprised at -the abruptness of the question, but answered me promptly, as a matter -of course, and with minute detail. “You want to go to San Antonio,” he -said, “and take the train to Laredo, on the Mexican boundary, and then -change to the freight that leaves once a day to Corpus Christi, and -get off at Pena station. Pena is only a water-tank, but you can hire -a horse there and ride to the San Rosario Ranch. Captain Hardie is at -Rosario with Troop G, Third Cavalry. They call him the Riding Captain, -and if any one can show you all there is to see in this Garza outfit, -he can.” - -The locomotive whistle sounded at that moment, the train bumped itself -into a full stop at a station, and the young man rose. “Good-day,” he -said, smiling pleasantly; “I get off here.” - -He was such an authoritative young man, and he had spoken in so -explicit a manner, that I did as he had directed; and if the story that -followed was not interesting, the fault was mine, and not that of my -chance adviser. - - * * * * * - -A few months ago I was dining alone in Delmonico’s, when the same young -man passed out through the room, and stopped on his way beside my table. - -“Do you remember me?” he said. “I met you once in a smoking-car in -Texas. Well, I’ve got a story now that’s better than any you’ll find -lying around here in New York. You want to go to a little bay called -Puerto Cortez, on the eastern coast of Honduras, in Central America, -and look over the exiled Louisiana State Lottery there. It used to be -the biggest gambling concern in the world, but now it’s been banished -to a single house on a mud-bank covered with palm-trees, and from there -it reaches out all over the United States, and sucks in thousands and -thousands of victims like a great octopus. You want to go there and -write a story about it. Good-night,” he added; then he nodded again, -with a smile, and walked across the room and disappeared into Broadway. - -When a man that you have met once in a smoking-car interrupts you -between courses to suggest that you are wasting your time in New York, -and that you ought to go to a coral reef in Central America and write -a story of an outlawed lottery, it naturally interests you, even if it -does not spoil your dinner. It interested me, at least, so much that I -went back to my rooms at once, and tried to find Puerto Cortez on the -map; and later, when the cold weather set in, and the grass-plots in -Madison Square turned into piled-up islands of snow, surrounded by seas -of slippery asphalt, I remembered the palm-trees, and went South to -investigate the exiled lottery. That is how this chapter and this book -came to be written. - -Every one who goes to any theatre in the United States may have read -among the advertisements on the programme an oddly worded one which -begins, “Conrad! Conrad! Conrad!” and which goes on to say that-- - - “In accepting the Presidency of the Honduras National Lottery - Company (Louisiana State Lottery Company) I shall not surrender the - Presidency of the Gulf Coast Ice and Manufacturing Company, of Bay - St. Louis, Miss. - - “Therefore address all proposals for supplies, machinery, etc., as - well as all business communications, to - - “PAUL CONRAD, Puerto Cortez, Honduras, - “Care Central America Express, - “FORT TAMPA CITY, - “FLORIDA, U. S. A.” - - -You have probably read this advertisement often, and enjoyed the -naïve manner in which Mr. Conrad asks for correspondence on different -subjects, especially on that relating to “all business communications,” -and how at the same time he has so described his whereabouts that no -letters so addressed would ever reach his far-away home in Puerto -Cortez, but would be promptly stopped at Tampa, as he means that they -should. - -After my anonymous friend had told me of Puerto Cortez, I read of it -on the programme with a keener interest, and Puerto Cortez became to -me a harbor of much mysterious moment, of a certain dark significance, -and of possible adventure. I remembered all that the lottery had been -before the days of its banishment, and all that it had dared to be -when, as a corporation legally chartered by the State of Louisiana, it -had put its chain and collar upon legislatures and senators, judges and -editors, when it had silenced the voice of the church and the pulpit -by great gifts of money to charities and hospitals, so giving out in -a lump sum with one hand what it had taken from the people in dollars -and half-dollars, five hundred and six hundred fold, with the other. -I remembered when its trade-mark, in open-faced type, “La. S. L.,” was -as familiar in every newspaper in the United States as were the names -of the papers themselves, when it had not been excommunicated by the -postmaster-general, and it had not to hide its real purpose under a -carefully worded paragraph in theatrical programmes or on “dodgers” or -handbills that had an existence of a moment before they were swept out -into the street, and which, as they were not sent through mails, were -not worthy the notice of the federal government. - -It was not so very long ago that it requires any effort to remember it. -It is only a few years since the lottery held its drawings freely and -with much pomp and circumstance in the Charles Theatre, and Generals -Beauregard and Early presided at these ceremonies, selling the names -they had made glorious in a lost cause to help a cause which was, for -the lottery people at least, distinctly a winning one. For in those -days the state lottery cleared above all expenses seven million dollars -a year, and Generals Beauregard and Early drew incomes from it much -larger than the government paid to the judges of the Supreme Court and -the members of the cabinet who finally declared against the company and -drove it into exile. - -There had been many efforts made to kill it in the past, and the state -lottery was called “the national disgrace” and “the modern slavery,” -and Louisiana was spoken of as a blot on the map of our country, as was -Utah when polygamy flourished within her boundaries and defied the laws -of the federal government. The final rally against the lottery occurred -in 1890, when the lease of the company expired, and the directors -applied to the legislature for a renewal. At that time it was paying -out but very little and taking in fabulous sums; how much it really -made will probably never be told, but its gains were probably no more -exaggerated by its enemies than was the amount of its expenses by the -company itself. Its outlay for advertising, for instance, which must -have been one of its chief expenses, was only forty thousand dollars -a year, which is a little more than a firm of soap manufacturers pay -for their advertising for the same length of time; and it is rather -discouraging to remember that for a share of this bribe every newspaper -in the city of New Orleans and in the State of Louisiana, with a few -notable exceptions, became an organ of the lottery, and said nothing -concerning it but what was good. To this sum may be added the salaries -of its officers, the money paid out in prizes, the cost of printing -and mailing the tickets, and the sum of forty thousand dollars paid -annually to the State of Louisiana. This tribute was considered -as quite sufficient when the lottery was first started, and while -it struggled for ten years to make a living; but in 1890, when its -continued existence was threatened, the company found it could very -well afford to offer the state not forty thousand, but a million -dollars a year, which gives a faint idea of what its net earnings must -have been. As a matter of fact, in those palmy times when there were -daily drawings, the lottery received on some days as many as eighteen -to twenty thousand letters, with orders for tickets enclosed which -averaged five dollars a letter. - -It was Postmaster-general Wanamaker who put a stop to all this by -refusing to allow any printed matter concerning the lottery to pass -outside of the State of Louisiana, which decision, when it came, proved -to be the order of exile to the greatest gambling concern of modern -times. - -The lottery, of course, fought this decision in the courts, and the -case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was -upheld, and from that time no letter addressed to the lottery in this -country, or known to contain matter referring to the lottery, and no -newspaper advertising it, can pass through the mails. This ruling -was known before the vote on the renewal of the lease came up in the -Legislature of Louisiana, and the lottery people say that, knowing that -they could not, under these new restrictions, afford to pay the sum -of one million dollars a year, they ceased their efforts to pass the -bill granting a renewal of their lease, and let it go without a fight. -This may or may not be true, but in any event the bill did not pass, -and the greatest lottery of all times was without a place in which to -spin its wheel, without a charter or a home, and was cut off from the -most obvious means of communication with its hundreds of thousands of -supporters. But though it was excommunicated, outlawed, and exiled, it -was not beaten; it still retained agents all over the country, and it -still held its customers, who were only waiting to throw their money -into its lap, and still hoping that the next drawing would bring the -grand prize. - -For some long time the lottery was driven about from pillar to post, -and knocked eagerly here and there for admittance, seeking a home and -resting-place. It was not at first successful. The first rebuff came -from Mexico, where it had proposed to move its plant, but the Mexican -government was greedy, and wanted too large a sum for itself, or, what -is more likely, did not want so well-organized a rival to threaten the -earnings of her own national lottery. Then the republics of Colombia -and Nicaragua were each tempted with the honor of giving a name to the -new company, but each declined that distinction, and so it finally came -begging to Honduras, the least advanced of all of the Central-American -republics, and the most heavily burdened with debt. - -[Illustration: THE EXILED LOTTERY BUILDING] - -Honduras agreed to receive the exile, and to give it her name and -protection for the sum of twenty thousand dollars a year and twenty -per cent. of its gross earnings. It would seem that this to a country -that has not paid the interest on her national debt for twelve years -was a very advantageous bargain; but as four presidents and as many -revolutions and governments have appeared and disappeared in the -two years in which the lottery people have received their charter -in Honduras, the benefit of the arrangement to them has not been an -obvious one, and it was not until two years ago that the first drawing -of the lottery was held at Puerto Cortez. The company celebrated this -occasion with a pitiful imitation of its former pomp and ceremony, and -there was much feasting and speech-making, and a special train was run -from the interior to bring important natives to the ceremonies. But -the train fell off the track four times, and was just a day late in -consequence. The young man who had charge of the train told me this, -and he also added that he did not believe in lotteries. - -During these two years, when representatives of the company were taking -rides of nine days each to the capital to overcome the objections -of the new presidents who had sprung into office while these same -representatives had been making their return trip to the coast, others -were seeking a foothold for the company in the United States. The need -of this was obvious and imperative. The necessity which had been forced -upon them of holding the drawings out of this country, and of giving up -the old name and trade-mark, was serious enough, though it had been -partially overcome. It did not matter where they spun their wheel; but -if the company expected to live, there must be some place where it -could receive its mail and distribute its tickets other than the hot -little Honduranian port, locked against all comers by quarantine for -six months of the year, and only to be reached during the other six by -a mail that arrives once every eight days. - -The lottery could not entirely overcome this difficulty, of course, -but through the aid of the express companies of this country it was -able to effect a substitute, and through this cumbersome and expensive -method of transportation its managers endeavored to carry on the -business which in the days when the post-office helped them had brought -them in twenty thousand letters in twenty-four hours. They selected -for their base of operations in the United States the port of Tampa, -in the State of Florida--that refuge of prize-fighters and home of -unhappy Englishmen who have invested in the swamp-lands there, under -the delusion that they were buying town sites and orange plantations, -and which masquerades as a winter resort with a thermometer that not -infrequently falls below freezing. So Tampa became their home; and -though the legislature of that state proved incorruptible, so the -lottery people themselves tell me, there was at least an understanding -between them and those in authority that the express company was not -to be disturbed, and that no other lottery was to have a footing in -Florida for many years to come. - -If Puerto Cortez proved interesting when it was only a name on a -theatre programme, you may understand to what importance it grew when -it could not be found on the map of any steamship company in New York, -and when no paper of that city advertised dates of sailing to that -port. For the first time Low’s Exchange failed me and asked for time, -and the ubiquitous Cook & Sons threw up their hands, and offered in -desperation and as a substitute a comfortable trip to upper Burmah or -to Mozambique, protesting that Central America was beyond even their -finding out. Even the Maritime Exchange confessed to a much more -intimate knowledge of the west coast of China than of the little group -of republics which lies only a three or four days’ journey from the -city of New Orleans. So I was forced to haunt the shipping-offices of -Bowling Green for days together, and convinced myself while so engaged -that that is the only way properly to pursue the study of geography, -and I advise every one to try it, and submit the idea respectfully -to instructors of youth. For you will find that by the time you have -interviewed fifty shipping-clerks, and learned from them where they -can set you down and pick you up and exchange you to a fruit-vessel -or coasting steamer, you will have obtained an idea of foreign ports -and distances which can never be gathered from flat maps or little -revolving globes. I finally discovered that there was a line running -from New York and another from New Orleans, the fastest steamer of -which latter line, as I learned afterwards, was subsidized by the -lottery people. They use it every month to take their representatives -and clerks to Puerto Cortez, when, after they have held the monthly -drawing, they steam back again to New Orleans or Tampa, carrying with -them the list of winning numbers and the prizes. - -It was in the boat of this latter line that we finally awoke one -morning to find her anchored in the harbor of Puerto Cortez. - -The harbor is a very large one and a very safe one. It is encircled -by mountains on the sea-side, and by almost impenetrable swamps and -jungles on the other. Close around the waters of the bay are bunches -and rows of the cocoanut palm, and a village of mud huts covered -with thatch. There is also a tin custom-house, which includes the -railroad-office and a comandancia, and this and the jail or barracks -of rotting whitewashed boards, and the half-dozen houses of one story -belonging to consuls and shipping agents, are the only other frame -buildings in the place save one. That is a large mansion with broad -verandas, painted in colors, and set in a carefully designed garden of -rare plants and manaca palms. Two poles are planted in the garden, one -flying the blue-and-white flag of Honduras, the other with the stripes -and stars of the United States. This is the home of the exiled lottery. -It is the most pretentious building and the cleanest in the whole -republic of Honduras, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific slope. - -I confess that I was foolish enough to regard this house of magnificent -exterior, as I viewed it from the wharf, as seriously as a general -observes the ramparts and defences of the enemy before making his -advance. I had taken a nine days’ journey with the single purpose of -seeing and getting at the truth concerning this particular building, -and whether I was now to be viewed with suspicion and treated as an -intruder, whether my object would be guessed at once and I should be -forced to wait on the beach for the next steamer, or whether I would be -received with kindness which came from ignorance of my intentions, I -could not tell. And while I considered, a black Jamaica negro decided -my movements for me. There was a hotel, he answered, doubtfully, but he -thought it would be better, if Mr. Barross would let me in, to try for -a room in the Lottery Building. - -“Mr. Barross sometimes takes boarders,” he said, “and the Lottery -Building is a fine house, sir--finest house this side Mexico city.” He -added, encouragingly, that he spoke English “very good,” and that he -had been in London. - -Sitting on the wide porch of the Lottery Building was a dark-faced, -distinguished-looking little man, a creole apparently, with white hair -and white goatee. He rose and bowed as I came up through the garden -and inquired of him if he was the manager of the lottery, Mr. Barross, -and if he could give me food and shelter. The gentleman answered -that he was Mr. Barross, and that he could and would do as I asked, -and appealed with hospitable warmth to a tall, handsome woman, with -beautiful white hair, to support him in his invitation. Mrs. Barross -assented kindly, and directed her servants to place a rocking-chair in -the shade, and requested me to be seated in it; luncheon, she assured -me, would be ready in a half-hour, and she hoped that the voyage south -had been a pleasant one. - -And so within five minutes after arriving in the mysterious harbor of -Puerto Cortez I found myself at home under the roof of the outlawed -lottery, and being particularly well treated by its representative, and -feeling particularly uncomfortable in consequence. I was heartily sorry -that I had not gone to the hotel. And so, after I had been in my room, -I took pains to ascertain exactly what my position in the house might -be, and whether or not, apart from the courtesy of Mr. Barross and -his wife, for which no one could make return, I was on the same free -footing that I would have been in a hotel. I was assured that I was -regarded as a transient boarder, and that I was a patron rather than a -guest; but as I did not yet feel at ease, I took courage, and explained -to Mr. Barross that I was not a coffee-planter or a capitalist looking -for a concession from the government, but that I was in Honduras to -write of what I found there. Mr. Barross answered that he knew already -why I was there from the New Orleans papers which had arrived in the -boat with me, and seemed rather pleased than otherwise to have me about -the house. This set my mind at rest, and though it may not possibly be -of the least interest to the reader, it is of great importance to me -that the same reader should understand that all which I write here of -the lottery was told to me by the lottery people themselves, with the -full knowledge that I was going to publish it. And later, when I had -the pleasure of meeting Mr. Duprez, the late editor of the _States_, in -New Orleans, and then in Tegucigalpa, as representative of the lottery, -I warned him in the presence of several of our friends to be careful, -as I would probably make use of all he told me. To which he agreed, -and continued answering questions for the rest of the evening. I may -also add that I have taken care to verify the figures used here, for -the reason that the lottery people are at such an obvious disadvantage -in not being allowed by law to reply to what is said of them, nor -to correct any mistake in any statements that may be made to their -disadvantage. - -I had never visited a hotel or a country-house as curious as the -one presided over by Mr. Barross. It was entirely original in its -decoration, unique in its sources of entertainment, and its business -office, unlike most business offices, possessed a peculiar fascination. -The stationery for the use of the patrons, and on which I wrote to -innocent friends in the North, bore the letter-head of the Honduras -Lottery Company; the pictures on the walls were framed groups of -lottery tickets purchased in the past by Mr. Barross, which had _not_ -drawn prizes; and the safe in which the guest might place his valuables -contained a large canvas-bag sealed with red wax, and holding in prizes -for the next drawing seventy-five thousand dollars. - -Wherever you turned were evidences of the peculiar business that was -being carried on under the roof that sheltered you, and outside in -the garden stood another building, containing the printing-presses on -which the lists of winning numbers were struck off before they were -distributed broadcast about the world. But of more interest than all -else was the long, sunshiny, empty room running the full length of the -house, in which, on a platform at one end, were two immense wheels, -one of glass and brass, and as transparent as a bowl of goldfish, and -the other closely draped in a heavy canvas hood laced and strapped -around it, and holding sealed and locked within its great bowels one -hundred thousand paper tickets in one hundred thousand rubber tubes. -In this atmosphere and with these surroundings my host and hostess -lived their life of quiet conventional comfort--a life full of the -lesser interests of every day, and lighted for others by their most -gracious and kindly courtesy and hospitable good-will. When I sat at -their table I was always conscious of the great wheels, showing through -the open door from the room beyond like skeletons in a closet; but it -was not so with my host, whose chief concern might be that our glasses -should be filled, nor with my hostess, who presided at the head of the -table--which means more than sitting there--with that dignity and charm -which is peculiar to a Southern woman, and which made dining with her -an affair of state, and not one of appetite. - -I had come to see the working of a great gambling scheme, and I had -anticipated that there might be some difficulty put in the way of -my doing so; but if the lottery plant had been a cider-press in an -orchard I could not have been more welcome to examine and to study it -and to take it to pieces. It was not so much that they had nothing -to conceal, or that now, while they are fighting for existence, they -would rather risk being abused than not being mentioned at all. For -they can fight abuse; they have had to do that for a long time. It is -silence and oblivion that they fear now; the silence that means they -are forgotten, that their arrogant glory has departed, that they are -only a memory. They can fight those who fight them, but they cannot -fight with people who, if they think of them at all, think of them as -already dead and buried. It was neither of these reasons that gave me -free admittance to the workings of the lottery; it was simply that to -Mr. and Mrs. Barross the lottery was a religion; it was the greatest -charitable organization of the age, and the purest philanthropist of -modern times could not have more thoroughly believed in his good works -than did Mrs. Barross believe that noble and generous benefits were -being bestowed on mankind at every turn of the great wheel in her back -parlor. - -This showed itself in the admiration which she shares with her husband -for the gentlemen of the company, and their coming once a month is an -event of great moment to Mrs. Barross, who must find it dull sometimes, -in spite of the great cool house, with its many rooms and broad -porches, and gorgeous silk hangings over the beds, and the clean linen, -and airy, sunlit dining-room. She is much more interested in telling -the news that the gentlemen brought down with them when they last came -than in the result of the drawing, and she recalls the compliments -they paid her garden, but she cannot remember the number that drew the -capital prize. It was interesting to find this big gambling scheme in -the hands of two such simple, kindly people, and to see how commonplace -it was to them, how much a matter of routine and of habit. They sang -its praises if you wished to talk of it, but they were more deeply -interested in the lesser affairs of their own household. And at one -time we ceased discussing it to help try on the baby’s new boots that -had just arrived on the steamer, and patted them on the place where the -heel should have been to drive them on the extremities of two waving -fat legs. We all admired the tassels which hung from them, and which -the baby tried to pull off and put in his mouth. They were bronze boots -with black buttons, and the first the baby had ever worn, and the event -filled the home of the exiled lottery with intense excitement. - -In the cool of the afternoon Mr. Barross sat on the broad porch rocking -himself in a big bentwood chair and talked of the civil war, in which -he had taken an active part, with that enthusiasm and detail with which -only a Southerner speaks of it, not knowing that to this generation in -the North it is history, and something of which one reads in books, -and is not a topic of conversation of as fresh interest as the fall -of Tammany or the Venezuela boundary dispute. And as we listened we -watched Mrs. Barross moving about among her flowers with a sunshade -above her white hair and holding her train in her hand, stopping to cut -away a dead branch or to pluck a rose or to turn a bud away from the -leaves so that it might feel the sun. - -And inside, young Barross was going over the letters which had arrived -with the morning’s steamer, emptying out the money that came with -them on the table, filing them away, and noting them as carefully and -as methodically as a bank clerk, and sealing up in return the little -green and yellow tickets that were to go out all over the world, and -which had been paid for by clerks on small salaries, laboring-men of -large families, idle good-for-nothings, visionaries, born gamblers -and ne’er-do-wells, and that multitude of others of this world who -want something for nothing, and who trust that a turn of luck will -accomplish for them what they are too listless and faint-hearted and -lazy ever to accomplish for themselves. It would be an excellent thing -for each of these gamblers if he could look in at the great wheel at -Puerto Cortez, and see just what one hundred thousand tickets look -like, and what chance his one atom of a ticket has of forcing its way -to the top of that great mass at the exact moment that the capital -prize rises to the surface in the other wheel. He could have seen it -in the old days at the Charles Theatre, and he is as free as is any -one to see it to-day at Puerto Cortez; but I should think it would be -unfortunate for the lottery if any of its customers became too thorough -a student of the doctrine of chances. - -The room in which the drawings are held is about forty feet long, well -lighted by many long, wide windows, and with the stage upon which -the wheels stand blocking one end. It is unfurnished, except for the -chairs and benches, upon which the natives or any chance or intentional -visitors are welcome to sit and to watch the drawing. The larger wheel, -which holds, when all the tickets are sold, the hopes of one hundred -thousand people, is about six feet in diameter, with sides of heavy -glass, bound together by a wooden tire two feet wide. This tire or rim -is made of staves, formed like those of a hogshead, and in it is a -door a foot square. After the tickets have been placed in their little -rubber jackets and shovelled into the wheel, this door is locked with -a padlock, and strips of paper are pasted across it and sealed at each -end, and so it remains until the next drawing. One hundred thousand -tickets in rubber tubes an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide take -up a great deal of space, and make such an appreciable difference -in the weight of the wheel that it requires the efforts of two men -pulling on the handles at either side to even budge it. Another man and -myself were quite satisfied when we had put our shoulders to it and -had succeeded in turning it a foot or two. But it was interesting to -watch the little black tubes with even that slow start go slipping and -sliding down over the others, leaving the greater mass undisturbed and -packed together at the bottom as a wave sweeps back the upper layer of -pebbles on a beach. This wheel was manufactured by Jackson & Sharp, of -Wilmington, Delaware. The other wheel is much smaller, and holds the -prizes. It was made by John Robinson, of Baltimore. - -Whenever there is a drawing, General W. L. Cabell, of Texas, and -Colonel C. J. Villere, of Louisiana, who have taken the places of the -late General Beauregard and of the late General Early, take their stand -at different wheels, General Cabell at the large and Colonel Villere at -the one holding the prizes. They open the doors which they had sealed -up a month previous, and into each wheel a little Indian girl puts her -hand and draws out a tube. The tube holding the ticket is handed to -General Cabell, and the one holding the prize won is given to Colonel -Villere, and they read the numbers aloud and the amount won six times, -three times in Spanish and three times in English, on the principle -probably of the man in the play who had only one line, and who spoke -that twice, “so that the audience will know I am saying it.” - -The two tickets are then handed to young Barross, who fastens them -together with a rubber band and throws them into a basket for further -reference. Three clerks with duplicate books keep tally of the numbers -and of the prizes won. The drawing begins generally at six in the -morning and lasts until ten, and then, everybody having been made rich, -the philanthropists and generals and colonels and Indian girls--and, -let us hope, the men who turned the wheel--go in to breakfast. - -So far as I could see, the drawings are conducted with fairness. -But with only 3434 prizes and 100,000 tickets the chances are so -infinitesimal and the advantage to the company so enormous that honesty -in manipulating the wheel ceases to be a virtue, and becomes the -lottery’s only advertisement. - -[Illustration: THE IGUANAS OF HONDURAS] - -But what is most interesting about the lottery at present is not -whether it is or it is not conducted fairly, but that it should exist -at all; that its promoters should be willing to drag out such an -existence at such a price and in so fallen a state. This becomes all -the more remarkable because the men who control the lottery belong to a -class which, as a rule, cares for the good opinion of its fellows, and -is willing to sacrifice much to retain it. But the lottery people do -not seem anxious for the good opinion of any one, and they have made -such vast sums of money in the past, and they have made it so easily, -that they cannot release their hold on the geese that are laying the -golden eggs for them, even though they find themselves exiled and -excommunicated by their own countrymen. If they were thimble-riggers -or Confidence men in need of money their persistence would not -appear so remarkable, but these gentlemen of the lottery are men of -enormous wealth, their daughters are in what is called society in New -Orleans and in New York, their sons are at the universities, and they -themselves belong to those clubs most difficult of access. One would -think that they had reached that point when they could say “we are rich -enough now, and we can afford to spend the remainder of our lives in -making ourselves respectable.” Becky Sharp is authority for the fact -that it is easy to be respectable on as little as five hundred pounds a -year, but these gentlemen, having many hundreds of thousands of pounds, -are not even willing to make the effort. Two years ago, when, according -to their own account, they were losing forty thousand dollars a month, -and which, after all, is only what they once cleared in a day, and -when they were being driven out of one country after another, like the -cholera or any other disease, it seems strange that it never occurred -to them to stop fighting, and to get into a better business while there -was yet time. - -Even the keeper of a roulette wheel has too much self-respect to -continue turning when there is only one man playing against the table, -and in comparison with him the scramble of the lottery company after -the Honduranian tin dollar, and the scant savings of servant-girls and -of brakesmen and negro barbers in the United States, is to me the most -curious feature of this once great enterprise. - -What a contrast it makes with those other days, when the Charles -Theatre was filled from boxes to gallery with the “flower of Southern -chivalry and beauty,” when the band played, and the major-generals -proclaimed the result of the drawings. It is hard to take the lottery -seriously, for the day when it was worthy of abuse has passed away. -And, indeed, there are few men or measures so important as to deserve -abuse, while there is no measure if it be for good so insignificant -that it is not deserving the exertion of a good word or a line of -praise and gratitude. - -And only the emotion one can feel for the lottery now is the pity which -you might have experienced for William M. Tweed when, as a fugitive -from justice, he sat on the beach at Santiago de Cuba and watched a -naked fisherman catch his breakfast for him beyond the first line of -breakers, or that you might feel for Monte Carlo were it to be exiled -to a fever-stricken island off the swampy coast of West Africa, or, to -pay the lottery a very high compliment indeed, that which you give to -that noble adventurer exiled to the Isle of Elba. - -There was something almost pathetic to me in the sight of this great, -arrogant gambling scheme, that had in its day brought the good name -of a state into disrepute, that had boasted of the prices it paid for -the honor of men, and that had robbed a whole nation willing to be -robbed, spinning its wheel in a back room in a hot, half-barbarous -country, and to an audience of gaping Indians and unwashed Honduranian -generals. Sooner than fall as low as that it would seem to be better to -fall altogether; to own that you are beaten, that the color has gone -against you too often, and, like that honorable gambler and gentleman, -Mr. John Oakhurst, who “struck a streak of bad luck, about the middle -of February, 1864,” to put a pistol to your head, and go down as -arrogantly and defiantly as you had lived.[A] - - - - -IN HONDURAS - - -I - -TEGUCIGALPA is the odd name of the capital of the republic of Honduras, -the least advanced of the republics of Central or South America. - -Somerset had learned that there were no means of getting to this -capital from either the Pacific Ocean on one side or from the Caribbean -Sea on the other except on muleback, and we argued that while there -were many mining-camps and military outposts and ranches situated a -nine days’ ride from civilization, capitals at such a distance were -rare, and for that reason might prove entertaining. Capitals at the -mouths of great rivers and at the junction of many railway systems we -knew, but a capital hidden away behind almost inaccessible mountains, -like a monastery of the Greek Church, we had never seen. A door-mat in -the front hall of a house is useful, and may even be ornamental, though -it is never interesting; but if the door-mat be hidden away in the -third-story back room it instantly assumes an importance and a value -which it never could have attained in its proper sphere of usefulness. - -[Illustration: OUR NAVAL ATTACHÉ] - -Our ideas as to the characteristics of Honduras were very vague, and it -is possible that we might never have seen Tegucigalpa had it not been -for Colonel Charles Jeffs, whom we found apparently waiting for us -at Puerto Cortez, and who, we still believe, had been stationed there -by some guardian spirit to guide us in safety across the continent. -Colonel Jeffs is a young American mining engineer from Minneapolis, -and has lived in Honduras for the past eleven years. Some time ago -he assisted Bogran, when that general was president, in one of the -revolutions against him, and was made a colonel in consequence. So we -called him our military attaché, and Griscom our naval attaché, because -he was an officer of the Naval Brigade of Pennsylvania. Jeffs we found -at Puerto Cortez. It was there that he first made himself known to us -by telling our porters they had no right to rob us merely because we -were gringos, and so saved us some dollars. He made us understand at -the same time that it was as gringos, or foreigners, we were thereafter -to be designated and disliked. We had no agreement with Jeffs, nor -even what might be called an understanding. He had, as I have said, -been intended by Providence to convey us across Honduras, and every -one concerned in the outfit seemed to accept that act of kindly fate -without question. We told him we were going to the capital, and were -on pleasure bent, and he said he had business at the capital himself, -and would like a few days’ shooting on the way, so we asked him to come -with us and act as guide, philosopher, and friend, and he said, “The -train starts at eight to-morrow morning for San Pedro Sula, where I -will hire the mules.” And so it was settled, and we went off to get our -things out of the custom-house with a sense of perfect confidence in -our new acquaintance and of delightful freedom from all responsibility. -And though, perhaps, it is not always best to put the entire charge of -an excursion through an unknown country into the hands of the first -kindly stranger whom you see sitting on a hotel porch on landing, -we found that it worked admirably, and we depended on our military -attaché so completely that we never pulled a cinch-strap or interviewed -an ex-president without first asking his permission. I wish every -traveller as kindly a guide and as good a friend. - -[Illustration: OUR MILITARY ATTACHÉ] - -The train to San Pedro Sula was made up of a rusty engine and three -little cars, with no glass in the windows, and with seats too wide -for one person, and not at all large enough for two. The natives made -a great expedition of this journey, and piled the cramped seats with -bananas and tortillas and old bottles filled with drinking-water. We -carried no luncheons ourselves, but we had the greater advantage of -them in that we were enjoying for the first time the most beautiful -stretch of tropical swamp-land and jungle that we came across during -our entire trip through Honduras. Sometimes the train moved through -tunnels of palms as straight and as regular as the elms leading to an -English country-house, and again through jungles where they grew in -the most wonderful riot and disorder, so that their branches swept in -through the car-windows and brushed the cinders from the roof. The -jungle spread out within a few feet of the track on either side, and we -peered into an impenetrable net-work of vines and creepers and mammoth -ferns and cacti and giant trees covered with orchids, and so tall that -one could only see their tops by looking up at them from the rear -platform. - -The railroad journey from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula lasts four -hours, but the distance is only thirty-seven miles. This was, until -a short time ago, when the line was extended by a New York company, -the only thirty-seven miles of railroad track in Honduras, and as it -has given to the country a foreign debt of $27,992,850, the interest -on which has not been paid since 1872, it would seem to be quite -enough. About thirty years ago an interoceanic railroad was projected -from Puerto Cortez to the Pacific coast, a distance of one hundred -and forty-eight miles, but the railroad turned out to be a colossal -swindle, and the government was left with this debt on its hands, an -army of despoiled stockholders to satisfy, and only thirty-seven miles -of bad road for itself. The road was to have been paid for at a certain -rate per mile, and the men who mapped it out made it in consequence -twice as long as it need to have been, and its curves and grades and -turns would cause an honest engineer to weep with disapproval. - -[Illustration: A STRETCH OF CENTRAL-AMERICAN RAILWAY] - -The grades are in some places very steep, and as the engine was not as -young as it had been, two negro boys and a box of sand were placed -on the cow-catcher, and whenever the necessity of stopping the train -was immediate, or when it was going downhill too quickly, they would -lean forward and pour this sand on the rails. As soon as Griscom and -Somerset discovered these assistant engineers they bribed them to give -up their places to them, and after the first station we all sat for -the remainder of the journey on the cow-catcher. It was a beautiful -and exhilarating ride, and suggested tobogganing, or those thrilling -little railroads on trestles at Coney Island and at the fêtes around -Paris. It was even more interesting, because we could see each rusty -rail rise as the wheel touched its nearer end as though it meant to fly -up in our faces, and when the wheel was too quick for it and forced it -down again, it contented itself by spreading out half a foot or so to -one side, which was most alarming. And the interest rose even higher at -times when a stray steer would appear on the rails at the end of the -tunnel of palms, as at the end of a telescope, and we saw it growing -rapidly larger and larger as the train swept down upon it. It always -lurched off to one side before any one was killed, but not until there -had been much ringing of bells and blowing of whistles, and, on our -part, some inward debate as to whether we had better jump and abandon -the train to its fate, or die at our post with our hands full of sand. - -We lay idly at San Pedro Sula for four days, while Jeffs hurried about -collecting mules and provisions. When we arrived we insisted on setting -forth that same evening, but the place put its spell upon us gently but -firmly, and when we awoke on the third day and found we were no nearer -to starting than at the moment of our arrival, Jeffs’s perplexities -began to be something of a bore, and we told him to put things off to -the morrow, as did every one else. - -[Illustration: THE THREE GRINGOS] - -San Pedro Sula lay in peaceful isolation in a sunny valley at the -base of great mountains, and from the upper porch of our hotel, that -had been built when the railroad was expected to continue on across -the continent, we could see above the palms in the garden the clouds -moving from one mountain-top to another, or lying packed like drifts -of snow in the hollows between. We used to sit for hours on this porch -in absolute idleness, watching Jeffs hurrying in and out below with -infinite pity, while we listened to the palms rustling and whispering -as they bent and courtesied before us, and saw the sunshine turn -the mountains a light green, like dry moss, or leave half of them -dark and sombre when a cloud passed in between. It was a clean, lazy -little place of many clay huts, with gardens back of them filled with -banana-palms and wide-reaching trees, which were one mass of brilliant -crimson flowers. In the centre of the town was a grass-grown plaza -where the barefooted and ragged boy-soldiers went through leisurely -evolutions, and the mules and cows gazed at them from the other end. - -Our hotel was leased by an American woman, who was making an -unappreciated fight against dirt and insects, and the height of whose -ambition was to get back to Brooklyn and take in light sewing and -educate her two very young daughters. Her husband had died in the -interior, and his portrait hung in the dining-room of the hotel. She -used to talk about him while she was waiting at dinner, and of what a -well-read and able man he had been. She would grow so interested in -her stories that the dinner would turn cold while she stood gazing at -the picture and shaking her head at it. We became very much interested -in the husband, and used to look up over our shoulders at his portrait -with respectful attention, as though he were present. His widow did -not like Honduranians; and though she might have made enough money to -take her home, had she consented to accept them as boarders, she would -only receive gringos at her hotel, which she herself swept and scrubbed -when she was not cooking the dinner and making the beds. She had saved -eight dollars of the sum necessary to convey her and her children home, -and to educate them when they got there; and as American travellers -in Honduras are few, and as most of them ask you for money to help -them to God’s country, I am afraid her chance of seeing the Brooklyn -Bridge is very doubtful. - -[Illustration: SETTING OUT FROM SAN PEDRO SULA] - -We contributed to her fund, and bought her a bundle of lottery tickets, -which we told her were the means of making money easily; and I should -like to add that she won the grand prize, and lived happily on Brooklyn -Heights ever after; but when we saw the list at Panama, her numbers -were not on it, and so, I fear, she is still keeping the only clean -hotel in Honduras, which is something more difficult to accomplish and -a much more public-spirited thing to do than to win a grand prize in -a lottery. - -We left San Pedro Sula on a Sunday morning, with a train of eleven -mules; five to carry our luggage and the other six for ourselves, -Jeffs, Charlwood, Somerset’s servant, and Emilio, our chief moso, or -muleteer. There were two other mosos, who walked the entire distance, -and in bull-hide sandals at that, guarding and driving the pack-mules, -and who were generally able to catch up with us an hour or so after -we had halted for the night. I do not know which was the worst of the -mosos, although Emilio seems to have been first choice with all of us. -We agreed, after it was all over, that we did not so much regret not -having killed them as that they could not know how frequently they had -been near to sudden and awful death. - -The people of Honduras, where all the travelling is done on mule or -horseback, have a pretty custom of riding out to meet a friend when -he is known to be coming to town, and of accompanying him when he -departs. This latter ceremony always made me feel as though I were an -undesirable citizen who was being conveyed outside of the city limits -by a Vigilance Committee; but it is very well meant, and a man in -Honduras measures his popularity by the number of friends who come -forth to greet him on his arrival, or who speed him on his way when -he sets forth again. We were accompanied out of San Pedro Sula by the -consular agent, the able American manager of the thirty-seven miles of -railroad, and his youthful baggage-master, a young gentleman whom I had -formerly known in the States. - -Our escort left us at the end of a few miles, at the foot of the -mountains, and we began the ascent alone. From that time on until we -reached the Pacific Ocean we moved at the rate of three miles an hour, -or some nine leagues a day, as distances are measured in Honduras, ten -hours being a day’s journey. Our mules were not at all the animals -that we know as mules in the States, but rather overgrown donkeys -or burros, and not much stouter than those in the streets of Cairo, -whether it be the Street in Cairo of Chicago, or the one that runs in -front of Shepheard’s Hotel. They were patient, plucky, and wonderfully -sure-footed little creatures, and so careful of their own legs and -necks that, after the first few hours, we ceased to feel any anxiety -about our own, and left the entire charge of the matter to them. - -[Illustration: THE HIGHLANDS OF HONDURAS] - -[Illustration: SOMERSET] - -I think we were all a little startled at sight of the trail we were -expected to follow, but if we were we did not say so--at least, not -before Jeffs. It led almost directly up the face of the mountain, along -little ledges and pathways cut in the solid rock, and at times was so -slightly marked that we could not see it five yards ahead of us. -On that first day, during which the trail was always leading upward, -the mules did not once put down any one of their four little feet -without first testing the spot upon which it was to rest. This made our -progress slow, but it gave one a sense of security, which the angle -and attitude of the body of the man in front did much to dissipate. -I do not know the name of the mountains over which we passed, nor do -I know the name of any mountain in Honduras, except those which we -named ourselves, for the reason that there is not much in Honduras -except mountains, and it would be as difficult to give a name to each -of her many peaks as to christen every town site on a Western prairie. -When the greater part of all the earth of a country stands on edge in -the air, it would be invidious to designate any one particular hill -or chain of hills. A Honduranian deputy once crumpled up a page of -letter-paper in his hand and dropped it on the desk before him. “That,” -he said, “is an outline map of Honduras.” - -We rode in single file, with Jeffs in front, followed by Somerset, with -Griscom and myself next, and Charlwood, the best and most faithful of -servants, bringing up the rear. The pack-mules, as I have said, were -two hours farther back, and we could sometimes see them over the edge -of a precipice crawling along a thousand feet below and behind us. -It seemed an unsociable way for friends to travel through a strange -country, and I supposed that in an hour or so we would come to a -broader trail and pull up abreast and exchange tobacco pouches and -grow better acquainted. But we never came to that broad trail until we -had travelled sixteen days, and had left Tegucigalpa behind us, and -in the foreground of all the pictures I have in my mind of Honduras -there is always a row of men’s backs and shoulders and bobbing helmets -disappearing down a slippery path of rock, or rising above the edge of -a mountain and outlined against a blazing blue sky. We were generally -near enough to one another to talk if we spoke in a loud voice or -turned in the saddle, though sometimes we rode silently, and merely -raised an arm to point at a beautiful valley below or at a strange bird -on a tree, and kept it rigid until the man behind said, “Yes, I see,” -when it dropped, like a semaphore signal after the train has passed. - -Early in the afternoon of the day of our setting forth we saw for the -last time the thatched roofs of San Pedro Sula, like a bare spot in the -great green plain hundreds of feet below us, and then we passed through -the clouds we had watched from the town itself, and bade the eastern -coast of Honduras a final farewell. - -The trail we followed was so rough and uncertain that at first I -conceived a very poor opinion of the Honduranians for not having -improved it, but as we continued scrambling upward I admired them for -moving about at all under such conditions. After all, we who had chosen -to take this road through curiosity had certainly no right to complain -of what was to the natives their only means of communication with the -Atlantic seaboard. It is interesting to think of a country absolutely -and entirely dependent on such thoroughfares for every necessity of -life. For whether it be a postal card or a piano, or a bale of cotton, -or a box of matches, it must be brought to Tegucigalpa on the back -of a mule or on the shoulders of a man, who must slip and slide and -scramble either over this trail or the one on the western coast. - -Sometimes this high-road of commerce was cut through the living rock -in steps as even and sharp as those in front of a brownstone house on -Fifth Avenue, and so narrow that we had to draw up our knees to keep -them from being scratched and cut on the rough walls of the passageway, -and again it led through jungle so dense that if one wandered three -yards from the trail he could not have found his way back again; but -this danger was not imminent, as no one could go that far from the -trail without having first hacked and cut his way there. - -It was not always so difficult; at times we came out into bare open -spaces, and rode up the dry bed of a mountain stream, and felt the full -force of the sun, or again it led along a ledge of rock two feet wide -at the edge of a precipice, and we were fanned with cool, damp breaths -from the pit a thousand feet below, where the sun had never penetrated, -and where the moss and fern of centuries grew in a thick, dark tangle. - -[Illustration: A DRAWER OF WATER] - -We stopped for our first meal at a bare place on the top of a mountain, -where there were a half-dozen mud huts. Jeffs went from one to another -of these and collected a few eggs, and hired a woman to cook them -and to make us some coffee. We added tinned things and bread to this -luncheon, which, as there were no benches, we ate seated on the -ground, kicking at the dogs and pigs and chickens, that snatched in a -most familiar manner at the food in our hands. In Honduras there are -so few hotels that travellers are entirely dependent for food and for -a place in which to sleep upon the people who live along the trail, -who are apparently quite hardened to having their homes invaded by -strangers, and their larders levied upon at any hour of the day or -night. - -Even in the larger towns and so-called cities we slept in private -houses, and on the solitary occasion when we were directed to a hotel -we found a bare room with a pile of canvas cots heaped in one corner, -to which we were told to help ourselves. There was a real hotel, -and a very bad one, at the capital, where we fared much worse than -we had often done in the interior; but with these two exceptions we -were dependent for shelter during our entire trip across Honduras -upon the people of the country. Sometimes they sent us to sleep in -the town-hall, which was a large hut with a mud floor, and furnished -with a blackboard and a row of-benches, and sometimes with stocks for -prisoners; for it served as a school or prison or hotel, according to -the needs of the occasion. - -We were equally dependent upon the natives for our food. We carried -breakfast bacon and condensed milk and sardines and bread with us, and -to these we were generally able to add, at least once a day, coffee -and eggs and beans. The national bread is the tortilla. It is made of -cornmeal, patted into the shape of a buckwheat cake between the palms -of the hands, and then baked. They were generally given to us cold, -in a huge pile, and were burned on both sides, but untouched by heat -in the centre. The coffee was always excellent, as it should have -been, for the Honduranian coffee is as fine as any grown in Central -America, and we never had too much of it; but of eggs and black beans -there was no end. The black-bean habit in Honduras is very general; -they gave them to us three times a day, sometimes cold and sometimes -hot, sometimes with bacon and sometimes alone. They were frequently -served to us in the shape of sandwiches between tortillas, and again -in the form of pudding with chopped-up goat’s meat. At first, and -when they were served hot, I used to think them delicious. That seems -very long ago now. When I was at Johnstown at the time of the flood, -there was a soda cracker, with jam inside, which was served out to -the correspondents in place of bread; and even now, if it became a -question of my having to subsist on those crackers, and the black -beans of Central America, or starve, I am sure I should starve, and by -preference. - -We were naturally embarrassed at first when we walked into strange -huts; but the owners seemed to take such invasions with apathy and as -a matter of course, and were neither glad to see us when we came, nor -relieved when we departed. They asked various prices for what they gave -us--about twice as much as they would have asked a native for the same -service; at least, so Jeffs told us; but as our bill never amounted -to more than fifty cents apiece for supper, lodging, and a breakfast -the next morning, they cannot be said to have robbed us. While the -woman at the first place at which we stopped boiled the eggs, her -husband industriously whittled a lot of sharp little sticks, which he -distributed among us, and the use of which we could not imagine, until -we were told we were expected to spike holes in the eggs with them, -and then suck out the meat. We did not make a success of this, and our -prejudice against eating eggs after that fashion was such that we were -particular to ask to have them fried during the rest of our trip. This -was the only occasion when I saw a Honduranian husband help his wife to -work. - -After our breakfast on the top of the mountain, we began its descent -on the other side. This was much harder on the mules than the climbing -had been, and they stepped even more slowly, and so gave us many -opportunities to look out over the tops of trees and observe with some -misgivings the efforts of the man in front to balance the mule by lying -flat on its hind-quarters. The temptation at such times to sit upright -and see into what depths you were going next was very great. We struck -a level trail about six in the evening, and the mules were so delighted -at this that they started off of their own accord at a gallop, and -were further encouraged by our calling them by the names of different -Spanish generals. This inspired them to such a degree that we had to -change their names to Bob Ingersoll or Senator Hill, or others to the -same effect, at which they grew discouraged and drooped perceptibly. - -We slept that night at a ranch called La Pieta, belonging to Dr. Miguel -Pazo, where we experimented for the first time with our hammocks, and -tried to grow accustomed to going to bed under the eyes of a large -household of Indian maidens, mosos, and cowboys. There are men who will -tell you that they like to sleep in a hammock, just as there are men -who will tell you that they like the sea best when it is rough, and -that they are happiest when the ship is throwing them against the sides -and superstructure, and when they cannot sit still without bracing -their legs against tables and stanchions. I always want to ask such men -if they would prefer land in a state of perpetual earthquake, or in its -normal condition of steadiness, and I have always been delighted to -hear sea-captains declare themselves best pleased with a level keel, -and the chance it gives them to go about their work without having to -hang on to hand-rails. And I had a feeling of equal satisfaction when -I saw as many sailors as could find room sleeping on the hard deck -of a man-of-war at Colon, in preference to suspending themselves in -hammocks, which were swinging empty over their heads. The hammock keeps -a man at an angle of forty-five degrees, with the weight of both his -legs and his body on the base of the spinal column, which gets no rest -in consequence. - -The hammock is, however, almost universally used in Honduras, and is -a necessity there on account of the insects and ants and other beasts -that climb up the legs of cots and inhabit the land. But the cots of -bull-hide stretched on ropes are, in spite of the insects, greatly to -be preferred; they are at least flat, and one can lie on them without -having his legs three feet higher than his head. Their manufacture -is very simple. When a steer is killed its hide is pegged out on the -ground, and left where the dogs can eat what flesh still adheres to it; -and when it has been cleaned after this fashion and the sun has dried -it, ropes of rawhide are run through its edges, and it is bound to a -wooden frame with the hairy side up. It makes a cool, hard bed. In the -poorer huts the hides are given to the children at night, and spread -directly on the earth floor. During the day the same hides are used to -hold the coffee, which is piled high upon them and placed in the sun to -dry. - -We left La Pieta early the next morning, in the bright sunlight, -but instead of climbing laboriously into the sombre mountains of -the day before, we trotted briskly along a level path between sunny -fields and delicate plants, and trees with a pale-green foliage, -and covered with the most beautiful white-and-purple flowers. There -were hundreds of doves in the air, and in the bushes many birds of -brilliant blue-and-black or orange-and-scarlet plumage, and one of -more sober colors with two long white tail-feathers and a white crest, -like a macaw that had turned Quaker. None of these showed the least -inclination to disturb himself as we approached. An hour after our -setting forth we plunged into a forest of manacca-palms, through which -we rode the rest of the morning. This was the most beautiful and -wonderful experience of our journey. The manacca-palm differs from the -cocoanut or royal palm in that its branches seem to rise directly from -the earth, and not to sprout, as do the others, from the top of a tall -trunk. Each branch has a single stem, and the leaf spreads and falls -from either side of this, cut into even blades, like a giant fern. - -[Illustration: NATIVE METHOD OF DRYING COFFEE] - -There is a plant that looks like the manacca-palm at home which you -see in flower-pots in the corners of drawing-rooms at weddings, and -consequently when we saw the real manacca-palm the effect was -curious. It did not seem as though they were monster specimens of -these little plants in the States, but as though we had grown smaller. -We felt dwarfed, as though we had come across a rose-bush as large -as a tree. The branches of these palms were sixty feet high, and -occasionally six feet broad, and bent and swayed and interlaced in the -most graceful and exquisite confusion. Every blade trembled in the air, -and for hours we heard no other sound save their perpetual murmur and -rustle. Not even the hoofs of our mules gave a sound, for they trod -on the dead leaves of centuries. The palms made a natural archway for -us, and the leaves hung like a portière across the path, and you would -see the man riding in front raise his arm and push the long blades -to either side, and disappear as they fell again into place behind -him. It was like a scene on the tropical island of a pantomime, where -everything is exaggerated both in size and in beauty. It made you think -of a giant aquarium or conservatory which had been long neglected. - -At every hundred yards or so there were giant trees with smooth -gray trunks, as even and regular as marble, and with roots like -flying-buttresses, a foot in thickness, and reaching from ten to -fifteen feet up from the ground. If these flanges had been covered -over, a man on muleback could have taken refuge between them. Some -of the trunks of these trees were covered with intricate lace-work -of a parasite which twisted in and out, and which looked as though -thousands of snakes were crawling over the white surface of the tree; -they were so much like snakes that one passed beneath them with an -uneasy shrug. Hundreds of orchids clung to the branches of the trees, -and from these stouter limbs to the more pliable branches of the palms -below white-faced monkeys sprang and swung from tree to tree, running -along the branches until they bent with the weight like a trout-rod, -and sprang upright again with a sweep and rush as the monkeys leaped -off chattering into the depths of the forest. We rode through this -enchanted wilderness of wavering sunlight and damp, green shadows for -the greater part of the day, and came out finally into a broad, open -plain, cut up by little bubbling streams, flashing brilliantly in the -sun. It was like an awakening from a strange and beautiful nightmare. - -[Illustration: IN A CENTRAL-AMERICAN FOREST] - -In the early part of the afternoon we arrived at another one of the -farm-houses belonging to young Dr. Pazo, and at which he and his -brother happened to be stopping. We had ridden out of our way there -in the hopes of obtaining a few days’ shooting, and the place seemed -to promise much sport. The Chamelicon River, filled with fish and -alligators, ran within fifty yards of the house; and great forests, in -which there were bear and deer and wild-pig, stretched around it -and beyond it on every side. The house itself was like almost every -other native hut in Honduras. They are all built very much alike, with -no attempt at ornamentation within, or landscape-gardening without, -although nature has furnished the most beautiful of plants and trees -close on every side for just such a purpose. The walls of a Honduranian -hut are made of mud packed round a skeleton of interwoven rods; the -floor is of the naked earth, and the roof is thatched with the branches -of palms. After the house is finished, all of the green stuff growing -around and about it is cleared away for fifty yards or so, leaving -an open place of bare and barren mud. This is not decorative, but it -helps in some measure to keep the insects which cling to every green -thing away from the house. A kitchen of similarly interlaced rods and -twigs, but without the clay, and covered with just such layers of palm -leaves, stands on the bare place near the house, or leans against one -side of it. This is where the tortillas are patted and baked, and the -rice and beans are boiled, and the raw meat of an occasional goat or -pig is hung to dry and smoke over the fire. The oven in the kitchen is -made of baked clay, and you seldom see any cooking utensils or dishes -that have not been manufactured from the trees near the house or the -earth beneath it. The water for drinking and cooking is kept in round -jars of red clay, which stand in rings of twisted twigs to keep them -upright, and the drinking-vessels are the halves of gourds, and the -ladles are whole gourds, with the branch on which they grew still -adhering to them, to serve as a handle. - -The furnishing of the house shows the same dependence upon nature; the -beds are either grass hammocks or the rawhide that I have described, -and there are no chairs and few benches, the people preferring -apparently to eat sitting on their haunches to taking the trouble -necessary to make a chair. Everything they eat, of which there is very -little variety, grows just beyond the cleared place around the hut, -and can be had at the cost of the little energy necessary to bring it -in-doors. When a kid or a pig or a steer is killed, the owner goes out -to the nearest peak and blows a blast on a cow’s horn, and those within -hearing who wish fresh meat hurry across the mountain to purchase it. -As there is no ice from one end of Honduras to the other, meat has to -be eaten the day it is killed. - -This is not the life of the Honduranians who live in the large towns or -so-called cities, where there are varying approaches to the comfort of -civilized countries, but of the country people with whom we had chiefly -to do. It is as near an approach to the condition of primitive man as -one can find on this continent. - -But bare and poor as are the houses, which are bare not because the -people are poor, but because they are indolent, there is almost -invariably some corner of the hut set aside and ornamented as an altar, -or some part of the wall covered with pictures of a religious meaning. -When they have no table, the people use a shelf or the stump of a -tree upon which to place emblematic figures, which are almost always -china dolls, with no original religious significance, but which they -have dressed in little scraps of tinsel and silk, and which they have -surrounded with sardine-tins and empty bottles and pictures from the -lids of cigar-boxes. Everything that has color is cherished, and every -traveller who passes adds unconsciously to their stock of ornaments in -the wrappings of the boxes which he casts away behind him. Sometimes -the pictures they use for ornamentation are not half so odd as the -fact that they ever should have reached such a wilderness. We were -frequently startled by the sight of colored lithographs of theatrical -stars, advertising the fact that they were playing under the direction -of such and such a manager, and patent-medicine advertisements and -wood-cuts from illustrated papers, some of them twenty and thirty years -old, which were pinned to the mud walls and reverenced as gravely as -though they had been pictures of the Holy Family by a Raphael or a -Murillo. - -In one hut we found a life-size colored lithograph of a woman whom, -it so happened, we all knew, which was being used to advertise a -sewing-machine. We were so pleased at meeting a familiar face so far -from home that we bowed to it very politely, and took off our hats, at -which the woman of the house, mistaking our deference, placed it over -the altar, fearing that she had been entertaining an angel unawares. - -The house of Dr. Pazo, where we were most hospitably entertained, was -similar to those that I have described. It was not his home, but what -we would call a hunting-box or a ranch. While we were at luncheon he -told a boy to see if there were any alligators in sight, in exactly -the same tone with which he might have told a servant to find out if -the lawn-tennis net were in place. The boy returned to say that there -were five within a hundred yards of the house. So, after we had as -usual patiently waited for Griscom to finish his coffee, we went out -on the bank and fired at the unhappy alligators for the remainder of -the afternoon. It did not seem to hurt them very much, and certainly -did us a great deal of good. To kill an alligator it is necessary to -hit it back of the fore-leg, or to break its spine where it joins the -tail; and as it floats with only its eyes and a half-inch of its nose -exposed, it is difficult to reach either of these vital spots. When the -alligator is on a bank, and you attempt to crawl up on it along the -opposite bank, the birds make such a noise, either on its account or on -their own, that it takes alarm, and rolls over into the water with an -abruptness you would hardly expect from so large a body. - -On our second day at Dr. Pazo’s ranch we divided into two parties, and -scoured the wilderness for ten miles around after game. One party was -armed with shot-guns, and brought back macaws of wonderful plumage, -wild turkeys, and quail in abundance; the others, scorning anything -but big game, carried rifles, and, as a result, returned as they set -forth, only with fewer cartridges. It was most unfortunate that the -only thing worth shooting came to me. It was a wild-cat with a long -tail, who patiently waited for us in an open place with a calm and -curious expression of countenance. I think I was more surprised than he -was, and even after I had thrown up the ground under his white belly he -stopped and turned again to look at me in a hurt and reproachful manner -before he bounded gracefully out of sight into the underbrush. We also -saw a small bear, but he escaped in the same manner, without waiting -to be fired upon, and as we had no dogs to send after him, we gave up -looking for more, and went back to pot at alligators. There were some -excellent hunting-dogs on the ranch, but the Pazo brothers had killed a -steer the night we arrived, and had given most of it to the dogs, so -that in the morning they were naturally in no mood for hunting. - -There was an old grandfather of an alligator whom Somerset and I had -repeatedly disturbed in his slumbers. He liked to take his siestas on -a little island entirely surrounded by rapids, and we used to shoot at -him from the opposite bank of the river. He was about thirteen feet -long, and the agility with which he would flop over into the calm -little bay, which stretched out from the point on which he slept, was -as remarkable as it was disappointing. He was still asleep at his -old stand when we returned from our unsuccessful shooting tour, so -we decided to swim the rapids and crawl up on him across his little -island and attack him from the flank and rear. It reminded me somewhat -of the taking of Lungtenpen on a small scale. On that occasion, if I -remember correctly, the raw recruits were uniformed only in Martinis -and cartridge-belts; but we decided to carry our boots as well, because -the alligator’s island was covered with sharp stones and briers, and -the sand was very hot, and, moreover, we had but vague ideas about the -customs of alligators, and were not sure as to whether he might not -chase us. We thought we would look very silly running around a little -island pursued by a long crocodile and treading on sharp hot stones in -our bare feet. - -[Illustration: ON THE TRAIL TO SANTA BARBARA] - -So each of us took his boots in one hand and a repeating-rifle in the -other, and with his money-belt firmly wrapped around his neck, plunged -into the rapids and started to ford the river. They were exceedingly -swift rapids, and made you feel as though you were swinging round a -sharp corner on a cable-car with no strap by which to take hold. The -only times I could stop at all was when I jammed my feet in between two -stones at the bed of the river, and was so held in a vise, while the -rest of my body swayed about in the current and my boots scooped up -the water. When I wanted to go farther I would stick my toes between -two more rocks, and so gradually worked my way across, but I could -see nothing of Somerset, and decided that he had been drowned, and -went off to avenge him on the alligator. It took me some time to get -my bruised and bleeding toes into the wet boots, during which time I -kept continually looking over my shoulder to see if the alligator were -going to make a land attack, and surprise me instead of my surprising -him. I knew he was very near me, for the island smelled as strongly of -musk as a cigar-shop smells of tobacco; but when I crawled up on him -he was still on his point of sand, and sound asleep. I had a very good -chance at seventy yards, but I was greedy, and wanted to come closer, -and as I was crawling along, gathering thorns and briers by the way, -I startled about fifty birds, and the alligator flopped over again, -and left nothing behind him but a few tracks on the land and a muddy -streak in the water. It was a great deal of trouble for a very little -of alligator; but I was more or less consoled on my return to find that -Somerset was still alive, and seated on the same bank from which we had -both started, though at a point fifty yards farther down-stream. He was -engaged in counting out damp Bank-of-England notes on his bare knee, -and blowing occasional blasts down the barrel of his rifle, which had -dragged him and itself to the bottom of the river before the current -tossed them both back on the shore. - -[Illustration: A HALT AT TRINIDAD] - -The two days of rest at the ranch of Dr. Pazo had an enervating effect -upon our mules, and they moved along so slowly on the day following -that we had to feel our way through the night for several hours before -we came to the hut where we were to sleep. Griscom and I had lost -ourselves on the mountain-side, and did not overtake the others until -long after they had settled themselves in the compound. They had been -too tired when they reached it to do anything more after falling off -their mules, and we found them stretched on the ground in the light of -a couple of fluttering pine torches, with cameras and saddle-bags and -carbines scattered recklessly about, and the mules walking over them -in the darkness. A fire in the oven shone through the chinks in the -kitchen wall, and showed the woman of the house stirring something -in a caldron with one hand and holding her sleeping child on her hip -with the other, while the daughters moved in and out of the shadow, -carrying jars on their heads and bundles of fodder for the animals. It -looked like a gypsy encampment. We sent Emilio back with a bunch of -pine torches to find the pack-mules, and we could see his lighted torch -blazing far up the trail that we had just descended, and lighting the -rocks and trees on either side of him. - -There was only room for one of us to sleep inside the hut that night, -and as Griscom had a cold, that privilege was given to him; but it -availed him little, for when he seated himself on the edge of the -bull-hide cot and began to pull off his boots, five ghostly feminine -figures sat upright in their hammocks and studied his preparations with -the most innocent but embarrassing curiosity. So, after waiting some -little time for them to go to sleep again, he gave up any thought of -making himself more comfortable, and slept in his boots and spurs. - -We passed through the pretty village of Trinidad early the next -morning, and arrived at nightfall at the larger town of Santa Barbara, -where the sound of our mules’ hoofs pattering over the paved streets -and the smell of smoking street lamps came to us with as much of a -shock as does the sight of land after a week at sea. Santa Barbara, in -spite of its pavements, was not a great metropolis, and, owing to its -isolation, the advent of five strangers was so much of an event that -the children of the town followed us, cheering and jeering as though -we were a circus procession; they blocked the house in which we took -refuge, on every side, so that the native policemen had to be stationed -at our windows to wave them away. On the following morning we called -to pay our respects on General Louis Bogran, who has been President of -Honduras for eight years and an exile for two. He died a few months -after our visit. He was a very handsome man, with a fine presence, and -with great dignity of manner, and he gave us an audience exactly as -though he were a dethroned monarch and we loyal subjects come to pay -him homage in his loneliness. I asked him what he regarded as the best -work of his administration, and after thinking awhile he answered, -“Peace for eight years,” which was rather happy, when you consider -that in the three years since he had left office there have been four -presidents and two long and serious revolutions, and when we were in -the capital the people seemed to think it was about time to begin on -another. - -[Illustration: GENERAL LOUIS BOGRAN] - -We left Santa Barbara early the next morning, and rode over a few more -mountains to the town of Seguaca, where the village priest was holding -a festival, and where the natives for many miles around had gathered in -consequence. There did not seem to be much of interest going on when we -arrived, for the people of the town and the visitors within her gates -deserted the booths and followed us in a long procession down the -single street, and invaded the house where we lunched. - -Our host on this occasion set a table for us in the centre of his -largest room, and the population moved in through the doors and -windows, and seated themselves cross-legged in rows ten and fifteen -deep on the earth floor at our feet, and regarded us gravely and in -absolute silence. Those who could not find standing-room inside stood -on the window-sills and blocked the doorways, and the women were given -places of honor on tables and beds. It was somewhat embarrassing, -and we felt as though we ought to offer something more unusual than -the mere exercise of eating in order to justify such interest; so -we attempted various parlor tricks, without appearing to notice the -presence of an audience, and pretended to swallow the eggs whole, and -made knives and forks disappear in the air, and drew silver dollars -from the legs of the table, continuing our luncheon in the meantime -in a self-possessed and polite manner, as though such eccentricities -were our hourly habit. We could see the audience, out of the corner of -our eyes, leaning forward with their eyes and mouths wide open, and -were so encouraged that we called up some of the boys and drew watches -and dollars out of their heads, after which they retired into corners -and ransacked their scantily clad persons for more. It was rather an -expensive exhibition, for when we set forth again they all laid -claim to the dollars of which they considered they had been robbed. - -[Illustration: OUR PACK-TRAIN AT SANTA BARBARA] - -The men of the place, according to their courteous custom, followed -us out of the town for a few miles, and then we all shook hands and -exchanged cigars and cigarettes, and separated with many compliments -and expressions of high esteem. - -The trail from Seguaca to our next resting-place led through pine -forests and over layers of pine-needles that had been accumulating for -years. It was a very warm, dry afternoon, and the air was filled with -the odor of the pines, and when we came to one of the many mountain -streams we disobeyed Jeffs and stopped to bathe in it, and let it carry -us down the side of the mountain with the speed of a toboggan. We had -been told that bathing at any time was extremely dangerous in Honduras, -and especially so in the afternoon; but we always bathed in the -afternoon, and looked forward to the half-hour spent in one of these -roaring rapids as the best part of the day. Of all our recollections -of Honduras, they are certainly the pleasantest. The water was almost -icily cold, and fell with a rush and a heavy downpour in little -water-falls, or between great crevices in the solid rocks, leaping and -bubbling and flashing in the sun, or else sweeping in swift eddies in -the compass of deep, shadowy pools. We used to imprison ourselves -between two rocks and let a fall of water strike us from the distance -of several feet on our head and shoulders, or tear past and around us, -so that in five minutes the soreness and stiffness of the day’s ride -were rubbed out of us as completely as though we had been massaged at -a Turkish bath, and the fact that we were always bruised and black and -blue when we came out could not break us of this habit. It was probably -because we were new to the country that we suffered no great harm; -for Jeffs, who was an old inhabitant, and who had joined us in this -particular stream for the first time, came out looking twenty years -older, and in an hour his teeth were chattering with chills or clinched -with fever, and his pulse was jumping at one hundred and three. We were -then exactly six days’ hard riding from any civilized place, and though -we gave him quinine and whiskey and put him into his hammock as soon -as we reached a hut, the evening is not a cheerful one to remember. It -would not have been a cheerful evening under any circumstances, for we -shared the hut with the largest and most varied collection of human -beings, animals, and insects that I have ever seen gathered into so -small a place. - -I took an account of stock before I turned in, and found that there -were three dogs, eleven cats, seven children, five men, not including -five of us, three women, and a dozen chickens, all sleeping, or trying -to sleep, in the same room, under the one roof. And when I gave up -attempting to sleep and wandered out into the night, I stepped on the -pigs, and startled three or four calves that had been sleeping under -the porch and that lunged up out of the darkness. We were always asking -Jeffs why we slept in such places, instead of swinging our hammocks -under the trees and camping out decently and in order, and his answer -was that while there were insects enough in-doors, they were virtually -an extinct species when compared to the number one would meet in the -open air. - -I have camped in our West, where all you need is a blanket to lie upon -and another to wrap around you, and a saddle for a pillow, and where, -with a smouldering fire at your feet, you can sleep without thought -of insects. But there is nothing green that grows in Honduras that is -not saturated and alive with bugs, and all manner of things that creep -and crawl and sting and bite. It transcends mere discomfort; it is an -absolute curse to the country, and to every one in it, and it would -be as absurd to write of Honduras without dwelling on the insects, as -of the west coast of Africa without speaking of the fever. You cannot -sit on the grass or on a fallen tree, or walk under an upright one or -through the bushes, without hundreds of some sort of animal or other -attaching themselves to your clothing or to your person. And if you -get down from your mule to take a shot at something in the bushes and -walk but twenty feet into them, you have to be beaten with brushes and -rods when you come out again as vigorously as though you were a dusty -carpet. There will be sometimes as many as a hundred insects under one -leaf; and after they have once laid their claws upon you, your life is -a mockery, and you feel at night as though you were sleeping in a bed -with red pepper. The mules have even a harder time of it; for, as if -they did not suffer enough in the day, they are in constant danger at -night from vampires, which fasten themselves to the neck and suck out -the blood, leaving them so weak that often when we came to saddle them -in the morning they would stagger and almost fall. Sometimes the side -of their head and shoulders would be wet with their own blood. I never -heard of a vampire attacking a man in that country, but the fact that -they are in the air does not make one sleep any the sounder. - -In the morning after our night with the varied collection of men and -animals we put back again to the direct trail to Tegucigalpa, from -which place we were still distant a seven days’ ride. - - -II - -We swung our hammocks on the sixth night out in the municipal building -of Tabla Ve; but there was little sleep. Towards morning the night -turned bitterly cold, and the dampness rose from the earthen floor of -the hut like a breath from the open door of a refrigerator, and kept us -shivering in spite of sweaters and rubber blankets. Above, the moon and -stars shone brilliantly in a clear sky, but down in the valley in which -the village lay, a mist as thick as the white smoke of a locomotive -rose out of the ground to the level of the house-tops, and hid Tabla -Ve as completely as though it were at the bottom of a lake. The dogs -of the village moved through the mist, howling dismally, and meeting -to fight with a sudden sharp tumult of yells that made us start up in -our hammocks and stare at each other sleepily, while Jeffs rambled on, -muttering and moaning in his fever. It was not a pleasant night, and we -rode up the mountain-side out of the mist the next morning unrefreshed, -but satisfied to be once more in the sunlight. They had told us at -Tabla Ve that there was to be a bull-baiting that same afternoon at -the village of Seguatepec, fifteen miles over the mountain, where a -priest was holding a church festival. So we left Jeffs to push along -with the mozos, and by riding as fast as the mules could go, we reached -Seguatepec by four in the afternoon. - -[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN THE INTERIOR] - -It was a bright, clean town, sitting pertly on the flat top of a hill -that fell away from it evenly on every side. It had a little church and -a little plaza, and the church was so vastly superior to every other -house in the place--as was the case in every village through which we -passed--as to make one suppose that it had been built by one race of -people and the houses by another. The plaza was shut in on two of its -sides by a barrier seven rails high, held together by ox-hide ropes. -This barrier, with the houses fronting the plaza on its two other -sides, formed the arena in which the bull was to be set at liberty. -All of the windows and a few of the doors of the houses were barred, -and the open places between were filled up by ramparts of logs. There -was no grand-stand, but every one contributed a bench or a table from -his own house, and the women seated themselves on these, while the men -and boys perched on the upper rail of the barricade. The occasion was -a memorable one, and all the houses were hung with strips of colored -linen, and the women wore their brilliant silk shawls, and a band of -fifteen boys, none of whom could have been over sixteen years of age, -played a weird overture to the desperate business of the afternoon. - -It was a somewhat primitive and informal bull-fight, and it began with -their lassoing the bull by his horns and hoofs, and dragging him head -first against the barricade. With a dozen men pulling on the lariat -around the horns from the outside of the ring, and two more twisting -his tail on the inside, he was at such an uncomfortable disadvantage -that it was easy for them to harness him in a net-work of lariats, -and for a bold rider to seat himself on his back. The bold rider wore -spurs on his bare feet, and, with his toes stuck in the ropes around -the bull’s body, he grasped the same ropes with one hand, and with the -other hand behind him held on to the bull’s tail as a man holds the -tiller of a boat. When the man felt himself firmly fixed, and the bull -had been poked into a very bad temper with spears and sharp sticks, the -lariat around his horns was cut, and he started up and off on a frantic -gallop, bucking as vigorously as a Texas pony, and trying to gore the -man clinging to his back with backward tosses of his horns. - -There was no regular toreador, and any one who desired to sacrifice -himself to make a Saguatepecan holiday was at liberty to do so; and -as a half-dozen men so sought distinction, and as the bull charged -at anything on two legs, the excitement was intense. He moved very -quickly for so huge an animal in spite of his heavy handicap, and, with -the exception of one man with a red flag and a spirit of daring not -entirely due to natural causes, no one cared to go very near him. So -he pawed up and down the ring, tossing and bucking and making himself -as disagreeable to the man on his back as he possibly could. It struck -me that it would be a distinctly sporting act to photograph a bull -while he was charging head on at the photographer, and it occurred to -Somerset and Griscom at about the same time that it would be pleasant -to confront a very mad bull while he was careering about with a man -twisting his tail. So we all dropped into the arena at about the same -moment, from different sides, and as we were gringos, our appearance -was hailed with laughter and yells of encouragement. The gentleman on -the bull seemed to be able to control him more or less by twisting his -tail to one side or the other, and as soon as he heard the shouts that -welcomed us he endeavored to direct the bull’s entire attention to my -two young friends. Griscom and Somerset are six feet high, even without -riding-boots and pith helmets, and with them they were so conspicuous -that the bull was properly incensed, and made them hurl themselves over -the barricade in such haste that they struck the ground on the other -side at about the same instant that he butted the rails, and with about -the same amount of force. - -Shrieks and yells of delight rose from the natives at this delightful -spectacle, and it was generally understood that we had been engaged -to perform in our odd costumes for their special amusement, and the -village priest attained genuine popularity for this novel feature. The -bull-baiting continued for some time, and as I kept the camera in my -own hands, there is no documentary evidence to show that any one ran -away but Griscom and Somerset. Friendly doors were opened to us by -those natives whose houses formed part of the arena, and it was amusing -to see the toreadors popping in and out of them, like the little man -and woman on the barometer who come out when it rains and go in when -the sun shines, and _vice versa_. - -On those frequent occasions when the bull charged the barricade, the -entire line of men and boys on its topmost rail would go over backward, -and disappear completely until the disappointed bull had charged madly -off in another direction. Once he knocked half of a mud-house away in -his efforts to follow a man through a doorway, and again a window-sill, -over which a toreador had dived head first like a harlequin in a -pantomime, caved in under the force of his attack. Fresh bulls followed -the first, and the boy musicians maddened them still further by the -most hideous noises, which only ceased when the bulls charged the fence -upon which the musicians sat, and which they vacated precipitately, -each taking up the tune where he had left off when his feet struck the -ground. There was a grand ball that night, to which we did not go, but -we lay awake listening to the fifteen boy musicians until two in the -morning. It was an odd, eyrie sort of music, in which the pipings of -the reed instruments predominated. But it was very beautiful, and very -much like the music of the Hungarian gypsies in making little thrills -chase up and down over one’s nervous system. - -The next morning Jeffs had shaken off his fever, and, once more -reunited, we trotted on over heavily wooded hills, where we found no -water until late in the afternoon, when we came upon a broad stream, -and surprised a number of young girls in bathing, who retreated -leisurely as we came clattering down to the ford. Bathing in mid-stream -is a popular amusement in Honduras, and is conducted without any false -sense of modesty; and judging from the number of times we came upon -women so engaged, it seems to be the chief occupation of their day. - -That night we slept in Comyagua, the second largest city in the -republic. It was originally selected as the site for a capital, and -situated accordingly at exactly even distances from the Pacific Ocean -and the Caribbean Sea. We found it a dull and desolate place of many -one-story houses, with iron-barred windows, and a great, bare, dusty -plaza, faced by a huge cathedral. Commerce seemed to have passed it -by, and the sixty thousand inhabitants who occupied it in the days of -the Spaniards have dwindled down to ten. The place is as completely -cut off from civilization as an island in the Pacific Ocean. The plain -upon which Comyagua stands stretches for many miles, and the nature of -the stones and pebbles on its surface would seem to show that it was -once the bottom of a great lake. Now its round pebbles and sandy soil -make it a valley of burning heat, into which the sun beats without the -intervening shadows of trees or mountains to save the traveller from -the fierceness of its rays. - -We rode over thirty miles of it, and found that part of the plain which -we traversed after our night’s rest at the capital the most trying ten -miles of our trip. We rode out into it in the rear of a long funeral -procession, in which the men and boys walked bareheaded and barefooted -in the burning sand. They were marching to a burial-ground out in -the plain, and they were carrying the coffin on their shoulders, and -bearing before it a life-sized figure of the Virgin and many flaring -candles that burned yellow in the glaring sunlight. - -From Comyagua the trail led for many miles through heavy sand, in which -nothing seemed to grow but gigantic cacti of a sickly light green that -twisted themselves in jointed angles fifteen to twenty feet in the air -above us, and century-plants with flowers of a vivid yellow, and tall, -leafless bushes bristling with thorns. The mountains lay on either -side, and formed the valley through which we rode, two dark-green -barriers against a blazing sky, but for miles before and behind us -there was nothing to rest the eye from the glare of the sand. The -atmosphere was without a particle of moisture, and the trail quivered -and swam in the heat; if you placed your hand on the leather pommel -of your saddle it burned the flesh like a plate of hot brass, and ten -minutes after we had dipped our helmets in water they were baked as dry -as when they had first come from the shop. The rays of the sun seemed -to beat up at you from below as well as from above, and we gasped and -panted as we rode, dodging and ducking our heads as though the sun was -something alive and active that struck at us as we passed by. If you -dared to look up at the sky its brilliancy blinded you as though some -one had flashed a mirror in your eyes. - -We lunched at a village of ten huts planted defiantly in the open -plain, and as little protected from the sun as a row of bricks in a -brick-yard, but by lying between two of them we found a draught of -hot air and shade, and so rested for an hour. Our trail after that -led over a mile or two of red hematite ore, which suggested a ride -in a rolling-mill with the roof taken away, and with the sun beating -into the four walls, and the air filled with iron-dust. Two hours -later we came to a cañon of white chalk, in which the government had -cut stepping-places for the hoofs of the mules. The white glare in -this valley was absolutely blinding, and the atmosphere was that of a -lime-kiln. We showed several colors after this ride, with layers of -sand and clay, and particles of red ore and powdering of white chalk -over all; but by five o’clock we reached the mountains once more, and -found a cool stream dashing into little water-falls and shaded by great -trees, where the air was scented by the odor of pine-needles and the -damp, spongy breath of moss and fern. - -[Illustration: BRIDGE CONNECTING TEGUCIGALPA WITH ITS SUBURB] - -We were now within two days of Tegucigalpa, and the sense of nearness -to civilization and the knowledge that the greater part of our journey -was at an end made us forget the discomforts and hardships which we had -endured without the consolation of excitement that comes with danger, -or the comforting thought that we were accomplishing anything in the -meantime. We had been complaining of this during the day to Jeffs, and -saying that had we gone to the coast of East Africa we could not have -been more uncomfortable nor run greater risks from fever, but that -there we would have met with big game, and we would have visited the -most picturesque instead of the least interesting of all countries. - -These complaints inspired Jeffs to play a trick upon us, which was -meant in a kindly spirit, and by which he intended to furnish us with a -moment’s excitement, and to make us believe that we had been in touch -with danger. There are occasional brigands in Central America, and -their favorite hunting-ground in Honduras is within a few miles of -Tegucigalpa, along the trail from the eastern coast over which we were -then passing. We had been warned of these men, and it occurred to Jeffs -that as we complained of lack of excitement in our trip, it would be -a thoughtful kindness to turn brigand and hold us up upon our march. -So he left us still bathing at the water-fall, and telling us that he -would push on to engage quarters for the night, rode some distance -ahead and secreted himself behind a huge rock on one side of a narrow -cañon. He first placed his coat on a bush beside him, and his hat on -another bush, so as to make it appear that there were several men with -him. His idea was that when he challenged us we would see the dim -figures in the moonlight and remember the brigands, and that we were -in their stalking-ground, and get out of their clutches as quickly as -possible, well satisfied that we had at last met with a real adventure. - -We reached his ambuscade about seven. Somerset was riding in advance, -reciting “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” while we were correcting him -when he went wrong, and gazing unconcernedly and happily at the cool -moonlight as it came through the trees, when we were suddenly startled -by a yell and an order to halt, in Spanish, and a rapid fusillade of -pistol-shots. We could distinguish nothing but what was apparently -the figures of three men crouching on the hill-side and the flashes of -their revolvers, so we all fell off our mules and began banging away at -them with our rifles, while the mules scampered off down the mountain. -This was not as Jeffs had planned it, and he had to rearrange matters -very rapidly. Bullets were cutting away twigs all over the hill-side -and splashing on the rock behind which he was now lying, and though he -might have known we could not hit him, he was afraid of a stray bullet. -So he yelled at us in English, and called us by name, until we finally -discovered we had been grossly deceived and imposed upon, and that our -adventure was a very unsatisfactory practical joke for all concerned. -It took us a long time to round up the mules, and we reached our -sleeping-place in grim silence, and with our desire for danger still -unsatisfied. - -[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TEGUCIGALPA] - -The last leagues that separated us the next morning from Tegucigalpa -seemed, of course, the longest in the entire journey. And so great -was our desire to reach the capital before nightfall that we left -the broader trail and scrambled down the side of the last mountain, -dragging our mules after us, and slipping and sliding in dust and -rolling stones to the tops of our boots. The city did not look inviting -as we viewed it from above. It lay in a bare, dreary plain, surrounded -by five hills that rose straight into the air, and that seemed to -have been placed there for the special purpose of revolutionists, -in order that they might the more exactly drop shot into the town at -their feet. The hills were bare of verdure, and the landscape about -the capital made each of us think of the country about Jerusalem. As -none of us had ever seen Jerusalem, we foregathered and argued why this -should be so, and decided that it was on account of the round rocks -lying apart from one another, and low, bushy trees, and the red soil, -and the flat roofs of the houses. - -[Illustration: THE BANK OF HONDURAS] - -The telegraph wire which extends across Honduras, swinging from trees -and piercing long stretches of palm and jungle, had warned the foreign -residents of the coming of Jeffs, and some of them rode out to make -us welcome. Their greeting, and the sight of paved streets, and the -passing of a band of music and a guard of soldiers in shoes and real -uniform, seemed to promise much entertainment and possible comfort. -But the hotel was a rude shock. We had sent word that we were coming, -and we had looked forward eagerly to our first night in a level bed -under clean linen; but when we arrived we were offered the choice -of a room just vacated by a very ill man, who had left all of his -medicines behind him, so that the place was unpleasantly suggestive of -a hospital, or a very small room, in which there were three cots, and -a layer of dirt over all so thick that I wrote my name with the finger -of my riding-glove on the centre-table. The son of the proprietor saw -this, and, being a kindly person and well disposed, dipped his arm in -water and proceeded to rub it over the top of the table, using his -sleeve as a wash-rag. So after that we gave up expecting anything -pleasant, and were in consequence delightfully surprised when we came -upon anything that savored of civilization. - -Tegucigalpa has an annex which lies on the opposite side of the river, -and which is to the capital what Brooklyn is to New York. The river is -not very wide nor very deep, and its course is impeded by broad, flat -rocks. The washer-women of the two towns stand beside these all day -knee-deep in the eddies and beat the stones with their twisted clubs -of linen, so that their echo sounds above the roar of the river like -the banging of shutters in the wind or the reports of pistols. This -is the only suggestion of energy that the town furnishes. The other -inhabitants seem surfeited with leisure and irritable with boredom. -There are long, dark, cool shops of general merchandise, and a great -cathedral and a pretty plaza, where the band plays at night and people -circle in two rings, one going to the right and one going to the left, -and there is the government palace and a big penitentiary, a university -and a cemetery. But there is no color nor ornamentation nor light -nor life nor bustle nor laughter. You do not hear people talking and -calling to one another across the narrow streets of the place by day or -serenading by night. Every one seems to go to bed at nine o’clock, and -after that hour the city is as silent as its great graveyard, except -when the boy policemen mark the hour with their whistles or the street -dogs meet to fight. - -[Illustration: STATUE OF MORAZAN] - -The most interesting thing about the capital is the fact to which I -have already alluded, that everything in it and pertaining to it that -was not dug from the ground or fashioned from trees was carried to it -on the backs of mules. The letter-boxes on the street corners had once -been United States letter-boxes, and had later swung across the backs -of donkeys. The gas-lamps and the iron railings of the parks, the few -statues and busts in the public places, reached Tegucigalpa by the same -means, and the great equestrian statue of Morazan the Liberator, in the -plaza, was cast in Italy, and had been brought to Tegucigalpa in pieces -before it was put together like a puzzle and placed in its present -position to mark a glorious and victorious immortality. These things -were not interesting in themselves, but it was interesting that they -were there at all. - -On the second day after our arrival the vice-president, Luis Bonilla, -who bears the same last name but is no near relation to President -Bonilla, took the oath of office, and we saw the ceremony with the -barefooted public in the reception-room of the palace. The hall was -hung with lace curtains and papered with imitation marble, and the -walls were decorated with crayon portraits of Honduranian presidents. -Bogran was not among them, nor was Morazan. The former was missing -because it was due to him that young Bonilla had been counted out -when he first ran for the presidency three years ago, when he was -thirty-three years old, and the portrait of the Liberator was -being reframed, because Bonilla’s followers six months before had -unintentionally shot holes through it when they were besieging the -capital. The ceremony of swearing in the vice-president did not last -long, and what impressed us most about it was the youth of the members -of the cabinet and of the Supreme Court who delivered the oath of -office. They belonged distinctly to the politician class as one sees -it at home, and were young men of eloquent speech and elegant manners, -in frock-coats and white ties. We came to know most of the president’s -followers later, and found them hospitable to a degree, although -they seemed hardly old enough or serious enough to hold place in the -government of a republic, even so small a one as Honduras. What was -most admirable about each of them was that he had fought and bled to -obtain the office he held. That is hardly a better reason for giving -out clerkships and cabinet portfolios than the reasons which obtain -with us for distributing the spoils of office, but you cannot help -feeling more respect for the man who has marched by the side of his -leader through swamps and through jungle, who has starved on rice, who -has slept in the bushes, and fought with a musket in his hand in open -places, than for the fat and sleek gentlemen who keep open bar at the -headquarters of their party organization, who organize marching clubs, -and who by promises or by cash secure a certain amount of influence and -a certain number of votes. - -[Illustration: P. Bonilla] - -They risk nothing but their money, and if their man fails to get in, -their money is all they lose; but the Central-American politician has -to show the faith that is in him by going out on the mountain-side -and hacking his way to office with a naked machete in his hand, and -if _his_ leader fails, he loses his life, with his back to a church -wall, and looking into the eyes of a firing squad, or he digs his own -grave by the side of the road, and stands at one end of it, covered -with clay and sweat, and with the fear of death upon him, and takes -his last look at the hot sun and the palms and the blue mountains, -with the buzzards wheeling about him, and then shuts his eyes, and is -toppled over into the grave, with a half-dozen bullets in his chest and -stomach. That is what I should like to see happen to about half of our -professional politicians at home. Then the other half might understand -that holding a public office is a very serious business, and is not -merely meant to furnish them with a livelihood and with places for -their wives’ relations. - -[Illustration: GENERAL LUIS BOGRAN, EX-PRESIDENT] - -I saw several churches and cathedrals in Honduras with a row of -bullet-holes in the front wall, about as high from the ground as a -man’s chest, and an open grave by the road-side, which had been dug -by the man who was to have occupied it. The sight gave us a vivid -impression of the uncertainties of government in Central America. -The man who dug this particular grave had been captured, with two -companions, while they were hastening to rejoin their friends of -the government party. His companions in misery were faint-hearted -creatures, and thought it mattered but little, so long as they had to -die, in what fashion they were buried. So they scooped out a few feet -of earth with the tools their captors gave them, and stood up in the -hollows they had made, and were shot back into them, dead; but the -third man declared that he was not going to let his body lie so near -the surface of the earth that the mules could kick his bones and the -next heavy freshet wash them away. He accordingly dug leisurely and -carefully to the depth of six feet, smoothing the sides and sharpening -the corners, and while he was thus engaged at the bottom of the hole he -heard yells and shots above him, and when he poked his head up over the -edge of the grave he saw his own troops running down the mountain-side, -and his enemies disappearing before them. He is still alive, and -frequently rides by the hole in the road-side on his way to the -capital. The story illustrates the advisability of doing what every one -has to do in this world, even up to the very last minute, in a thorough -and painstaking manner. - -There do not seem to be very many men killed in these revolutions, -but the ruin they bring to the country while they last, and which -continues after they are over, while the “outs” are getting up another -revolution, is so serious that any sort of continued prosperity or -progress is impossible. Native merchants will not order goods that may -never reach them, and neither do the gringos care to make contracts -with men who in six months may not only be out of office, but out of -the country as well. Sometimes a revolution takes place, and half -of the people of the country will not know of it until it has been -put down or has succeeded; and again the revolution may spread to -every boundary, and all the men at work on the high-roads and in the -mines or on the plantations must stop work and turn to soldiering, -and pack-mules are seized, the mail-carriers stopped, plantations -are devastated, and forced loans are imposed upon those who live in -cities, so that every one suffers more or less through every change -of executive. During the last revolution Tegucigalpa was besieged for -six months, and was not captured until most of the public buildings -had been torn open by cannon from the hills around the town, and the -dwelling-houses still show where bullets marked the mud and plaster of -the walls or buried themselves in the wood-work. The dining-room of our -hotel was ventilated by such openings, and we used to amuse ourselves -by tracing the course of the bullets from the hole they had made at -one side of the room to their resting-place in the other. The native -Honduranian is not energetic, and, except in the palace, there has been -but little effort made by the victors to cover up the traces of their -bombardment. Every one we met had a different experience to relate, and -pointed out where he was sitting when a particular hole appeared in the -plaster before him, or at which street corner a shell fell and burst at -his feet. - -[Illustration: BARRACKS AT TEGUCIGALPA AFTER THE ATTACK OF THE -REVOLUTIONISTS] - -It follows, of course, that a government which is created by force of -arms, and which holds itself in place by the same power of authority, -cannot be a very just or a very liberal one, even if its members are -honest, and the choice of a majority of the people, and properly in -office in spite of the fact that they fought to get there, and not on -account of it. Bonilla was undoubtedly at one time elected President of -Honduras, although he did not gain the presidential chair until after -he had thrown his country into war and had invaded it at the head of -troops from the rival republic of Nicaragua. - -The Central-American cannot understand that when a bad man is -elected to office legally it is better in the long-run that he should -serve out his full term than that a better man should drive him out and -defy the constitution. If he could be brought to comprehend that when -the constitution says the president must serve four years that means -four years, and not merely until some one is strong enough to overthrow -him, it might make him more careful as to whom he elected to office in -the first place. But the value of stability in government is something -they cannot be made to understand. It is not in their power to see it, -and the desire for change and revolution is born in the blood. They -speak of a man as a “good revolutionist” just as we would speak of some -one being a good pianist, or a good shot, or a good executive officer. -It is a recognized calling, and the children grow up into fighters; -and even those who have lived abroad, and who should have learned -better, begin to plot and scheme as soon as they return to their old -environment. - -In each company of soldiers in Honduras there are two or three little -boys in uniform who act as couriers and messengers, and who are able, -on account of their slight figure, to penetrate where a man would be -seen and shot. One of the officers in the revolution of 1894 told me he -had sent six of these boys, one after another, with despatches across -an open plain which was being raked by the rifles of the enemy. And as -each boy was killed as he crawled through the sage-brush the other boys -begged of their colonel to let them be the next to go, jumping up and -down around him and snapping their fingers like school-boys who want to -attract the attention of their teacher. - -In the same revolution a young man of great promise and many -acquirements, who had just returned from the States with two degrees -from Columbia College, and who should have lived to turn his education -to account in his own country, was killed with a rifle in his hand -the third day after his arrival from New York. In that city he would -probably have submitted cheerfully to any imposition of the law, and -would have taken it quite as a matter of course had he been arrested -for playing golf on Sunday, or for riding a bicycle at night without -a lamp; but as soon as this graduate of Columbia smelled the powder -floating on his native air he loaded a rifle, and sat out all day on -the porch of his house taking chance shots at the revolutionists on -the hill-side, until a chance shot ended him and his brilliant career -forever. The pity of it is that so much good energy should be wasted in -obtaining such poor results, for nothing better ever seems to follow -these revolutions. There is only a new form of dictatorship, which -varies only in the extent of its revenge and in the punishments it -metes out to its late opponents, but which must be, if it hopes to -remain in power, a dictatorship and an autocracy. - -[Illustration: MORAZAN, THE LIBERATOR OF HONDURAS] - -The republics of Central America are republics in name only, and -the movements of a stranger within the boundaries of Honduras are -as closely watched as though he were a newspaper correspondent in -Siberia. I often had to sign the names of our party twice in one day -for the benefit of police and customs officers, and we never entered -a hotel or boarded a steamer or disembarked from one that we were not -carefully checked and receipted for exactly as though we were boxes of -merchandise or registered letters. Even the natives cannot walk the -street after nightfall without being challenged by sentries, and the -collection of letters we received from alcaldes and comandantes and -governors and presidents certifying to our being reputable citizens -is large enough to paper the side of a wall. The only time in Central -America when our privacy was absolutely unmolested, and when we felt as -free to walk abroad as though we were on the streets of New York, was -when we were under the protection of the hated monarchical institution -of Great Britain at Belize, but never when we were in any of these -disorganized military camps called free republics. - -The Central-American citizen is no more fit for a republican form of -government than he is for an arctic expedition, and what he needs is to -have a protectorate established over him, either by the United States -or by another power; it does not matter which, so long as it leaves the -Nicaragua Canal in our hands. In the capital of Costa Rica there is a -statue of the Republic in the form of a young woman standing with her -foot on the neck of General Walker, the American filibuster. We had -planned to go to the capital for the express purpose of tearing that -statue down some night, or blowing it up; so it is perhaps just as well -for us that we could not get there; but it would have been a very good -thing for Costa Rica if Walker, or any other man of force, had put his -foot on the neck of every republic in Central America and turned it to -some account. - -Away from the coasts, where there is fever, Central America is a -wonderful country, rich and beautiful, and burdened with plenty, but -its people make it a nuisance and an affront to other nations, and its -parcel of independent little states, with the pomp of power and none of -its dignity, are and will continue to be a constant danger to the peace -which should exist between two great powers. - -There is no more interesting question of the present day than that of -what is to be done with the world’s land which is lying unimproved; -whether it shall go to the great power that is willing to turn it to -account, or remain with its original owner, who fails to understand its -value. The Central-Americans are like a gang of semi-barbarians in a -beautifully furnished house, of which they can understand neither its -possibilities of comfort nor its use. They are the dogs in the manger -among nations. Nature has given to their country great pasture-lands, -wonderful forests of rare woods and fruits, treasures of silver and -gold and iron, and soil rich enough to supply the world with coffee, -and it only waits for an honest effort to make it the natural highway -of traffic from every portion of the globe. The lakes of Nicaragua are -ready to furnish a passageway which should save two months of sailing -around the Horn, and only forty-eight miles of swamp-land at Panama -separate the two greatest bodies of water on the earth’s surface. -Nature has done so much that there is little left for man to do, but it -will have to be some other man than a native-born Central-American who -is to do it. - -We had our private audience with President Bonilla in time, and found -him a most courteous and interesting young man. He is only thirty-six -years of age, which probably makes him the youngest president in the -world, and he carries on his watch-chain a bullet which was cut out -of his arm during the last revolution. He showed us over the palace, -and pointed out where he had shot holes in it, and entertained us most -hospitably. The other members of the cabinet were equally kind, making -us many presents, and offering Griscom a consul-generalship abroad, and -consulates to Somerset and myself, but we said we would be ambassadors -or nothing; so they offered to make us generals in the next revolution, -and we accepted that responsible position with alacrity, knowing that -not even the regiments to which we were accredited could force us again -into Honduras. - -Before we departed the president paid us a very doubtful compliment -in asking us to ride with him. We supposed it was well meant, but we -still have secret misgivings that it was a plot to rid himself of us -and of the vice-president at the same time. When his secretary came -to tell us that Dr. Bonilla would be glad to have us ride with him at -five that afternoon, I recalled the fact that all the horses I had -seen in Honduras were but little larger than an ordinary donkey, and -quite as depressed and spiritless. So I accepted with alacrity. The -other two men, being cross-country riders, and entitled to wear the -gold buttons of various hunt clubs on their waistcoats, accepted as a -matter of course. But when we reached the palace we saw seven or eight -horses in the patio, none under sixteen hands high, and each engaged in -dragging two or three grooms about the yard, and swinging them clear -of the brick tiles as easily as a sailor swings a lead. The president -explained to us that these were a choice lot of six stallions which he -had just imported from Chili, and that three of them had never worn a -saddle before that morning. - -He gave one of these to Griscom and another one to the vice-president, -for reasons best known to himself, and the third to Somerset. Griscom’s -animal had an idea that it was better to go backward like a crab than -to advance, so he backed in circles around the courtyard, while -Somerset’s horse seemed best to enjoy rearing himself on his hind-legs, -with the idea of rubbing Somerset off against the wall; and the -vice-president’s horse did everything that a horse can do, and a great -many things that I should not have supposed a horse could do, had I not -seen it. I put my beast’s nose into a corner of the wall where he could -not witness the circus performance going on behind him, and I watched -the president’s brute turning round and round and round until it made -me dizzy. We strangers confessed later that we were all thinking of -exactly the same thing, which was that, no matter how many of our bones -were shattered, we must not let these natives think they could ride any -better than any chance American or Englishman, and it was only a matter -of national pride that kept us in our saddles. The vice-president’s -horse finally threw him into the doorway and rolled on him, and it -required five of his officers to pull the horse away and set him on his -feet again. The vice-president had not left his saddle for an instant, -and if he handles his men in the field as he handled that horse, it is -not surprising that he wins many battles. - -Not wishing to have us all killed, and seeing that it was useless to -attempt to kill the vice-president in that way, Dr. Bonilla sent word -to the band to omit their customary salute, and so we passed out in -grateful silence between breathless rows of soldiers and musicians -and several hundreds of people who had never seen a life-sized horse -before. We rode at a slow pace, on account of the vice-president’s -bruises, while the president pointed out the different points from -which he had attacked the capital. He was not accompanied by any -guard on this ride, and informed us that he was the first president -who had dared go abroad without one. He seemed to trust rather to the -good-will of the _pueblo_, to whom he plays, and to whom he bowed -much more frequently than to the people of the richer class. It was -amusing to see the more prominent men of the place raise their hats -to the president, and the young girls in the suburbs nodding casually -and without embarrassment to the man. Before he set out on his ride he -stuck a gold-plated revolver in his hip-pocket, which was to take the -place of the guard of honor of former presidents, and to protect him in -case of an attempt at assassination. It suggested that there are other -heads besides those that wear a crown which rest uneasy. - -It was a nervous ride, and Griscom’s horse added to the excitement by -trying to back him over a precipice, and he was only saved from going -down one thousand yards to the roofs of the city below by several of -the others dragging at the horse’s bridle. When, after an hour, we -found ourselves once more within sight of the palace, we covertly -smiled at one another, and are now content never to associate with -presidents again unless we walk. - -We left Tegucigalpa a few days later with a generous escort, including -all the consuls, and José Guiteris, the assistant secretary of state, -and nearly all of the foreign residents. We made such a formidable -showing as we raced through the streets that it suggested an uprising, -and we cried, “Viva Guiteris!” to make the people think there was -a new revolution in his favor. We shouted with the most loyal -enthusiasm, but it only served to make Guiteris extremely unhappy, -and he occupied himself in considering how he could best explain to -Bonilla that the demonstration was merely an expression of our idea of -humor. Twelve miles out we all stopped and backed the mules up side -by side, and everybody shook hands with everybody else, and there -were many promises to write, and to forward all manner of things, and -assurances of eternal remembrance and friendship, and then the Guiteris -revolutionists galloped back, firing parting salutes with their -revolvers, and we fell into line again with a nod of satisfaction at -being once more on the road.[B] - -We never expected any conveniences or comforts on the road, and so we -were never disappointed, and were much happier and more contented in -consequence than at the capital, where the name promised so much and -the place furnished so little. We found that it was not the luxuries -of life that we sighed after, but the mere conveniences--those things -to which we had become so much accustomed that we never supposed there -were places where they did not exist. A chair with a back, for example, -was one of the things we most wanted. We had never imagined, until we -went to Honduras, that chairs grew without backs; but after we had -ridden ten hours, and were so tired that each man found himself easing -his spinal column by leaning forward with his hands on the pommel of -his saddle, we wanted something more than a three-legged stool when we -alighted for the night. - -Our ride to the Pacific coast was a repetition of the ride to the -capital, except that, as there was a full moon, we slept in the middle -of the day and rode later in the night. During this nocturnal journey -we met many pilgrims going to the festivals. They were all mounted on -mules, and seemed a very merry and jovial company. Sometimes there were -as many as fifty in one party, and we came across them picnicking in -the shade by day, or jogging along in the moonlight in a cloud of white -dust, or a cloud of white foam as they forded the broad river and -their donkeys splashed and slipped in the rapids. The nights were very -beautiful and cool, and the silence under the clear blue sky and white -stars was like the silence of the plains. The moon turned the trail a -pale white, and made the trees on either side of it alive with shadows -that seemed to play hide-and-seek with us, and the stumps and rocks -moved and gesticulated with life, until we drew up even with them, when -they were transformed once more into wood and stone. - -[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO CORINTO] - -It was on the third day out from the capital, while we were picking -our way down the side of a mountain, that Jeffs pointed to what looked -like a lake of silver lying between two great hills, and we knew that -we had crossed the continent, and so raised our hats and saluted the -Pacific Ocean. A day later, after a long, rapid ride over a level plain -where the trail was so broad that we could ride four abreast, we came -to San Lorenzo, a little cluster of huts at the edge of the ocean. The -settlement was still awake, for a mule train of silver had just arrived -from the San Rosario mines, and the ruddy glare of pine knots was -flashing through the chinks in the bamboo walls of the huts, and making -yellow splashes of color in the soft white light of the moon. We swung -ourselves out of the saddles for the last time, and gave the little -mules a farewell pat and many thanks, to which they made no response -whatsoever. - -Five hours later we left the continent for the island of Amapala, the -chief seaport of the Pacific side of Honduras, and our ride was at an -end. We left San Lorenzo at two in the morning, but we did not reach -Amapala, although it was but fifteen miles out to sea, until four the -next afternoon. We were passengers in a long, open boat, and slept -stretched on our blankets at the bottom, while four natives pulled at -long sweeps. There were eight cross-seats, and a man sat on every other -one. A log of wood in which steps had been cut was bound to each empty -seat, and it was up this that the rower walked, as though he meant to -stand up on the seat to which it was tied, but he would always change -his mind and sink back again, bracing his left leg on the seat and his -right leg on the log, and dragging the oar through the water with the -weight of his body as he sank backwards. I lay on the ribs of the boat -below them and watched them through the night, rising and falling with -a slight toss of the head as they sank back, and with their brown naked -bodies outlined against the sky-line. They were so silent and their -movements so regular that they seemed like statues cut in bronze. By -ten the next morning they became so far animated as to say that they -were tired and hungry, and would we allow them to rest on a little -island that lay half a mile off our bow? We were very glad to rest -ourselves, and to get out of the sun and the glare of the sea, and to -stretch our cramped limbs: so we beached the boat in a little bay, and -frightened off thousands of gulls, which rose screaming in the air, and -which were apparently the only inhabitants. - -The galley-slaves took sticks of driftwood and scattered over the -rocks, turning back the seaweed with their hands, and hacking at the -base of the rocks with their improvised hammers. We found that they -were foraging for oysters; and as we had nothing but a tin of sardines -and two biscuits among five of us, and had had nothing to eat for -twenty-four hours, we followed their example, and chipped the oysters -off with the butts of our revolvers, and found them cool and coppery, -like English oysters, and most refreshing. It was such a lonely little -island that we could quite imagine we were cast away upon it, and began -to play we were Robinson Crusoe, and took off our boots and went in -wading, paddling around in the water after mussels and crabs until we -were chased to shore by a huge shark. Then every one went to sleep in -the sand until late in the afternoon, when a breeze sprang up, and a -boatman carried us out on his shoulders, and we dashed off gayly under -full sail to the isle of Amapala, where we bade good-bye to Colonel -Jeffs and to the Republic of Honduras. - -We had crossed the continent at a point where it was but little broader -than the distance from Boston to New York, a trip of five hours by -train, but which had taken us twenty-two days. - - - - -AT CORINTO - - -EVERY now and again each of us, either through his own choice or by -force of circumstance, drops out of step with the rest of the world, -and retires from it into the isolation of a sick-room, or to the -loneliness of the deck of an ocean steamer, and for some short time the -world somehow manages to roll on without him. - -He is like a man who falls out of line in a regiment to fasten his -shoelace or to fill his canteen, and who hears over his shoulder the -hurrying tramp of his comrades, who are leaving him farther and farther -behind, so that he has to run briskly before he can catch up with them -and take his proper place once more in the procession. - -I shall always consider the ten days we spent at Corinto, on the -Pacific side of Nicaragua, while we waited for the steamer to take us -south to Panama, as so many days of non-existence, as so much time -given to the mere exercise of living, when we were no more of this -world than are the prisoners in the salt-mines of Siberia, or the -keepers of light-houses scattered over sunny seas, or the men who tend -toll-gates on empty country lanes. And so when I read in the newspapers -last fall that three British ships of war were anchored in the harbor -of Corinto, with their guns loaded to the muzzles with ultimatums and -no one knows what else besides, and that they meant to levy on the -customs dues of that sunny little village, it was as much of a shock to -me as it would be to the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow were they told -that that particular spot was wanted as a site for a World’s Fair. - -For no ships of any sort, certainly no ships of war, ever came to -Corinto while we occupied the only balcony of its only hotel. Indeed, -that was why we were there, and had they come we would have gone with -them, no matter to what port they were bound, even to the uttermost -parts of the earth. - -We had come to Corinto from the little island of Amapala, which lies -seventy-five miles farther up the coast, and which guards the only -port of entry to Honduras on the Pacific seaboard. It is supposed to -belong to the Republic of Honduras, but it is in reality the property -of Rossner Brothers, who sell everything from German machetes to German -music-boxes, and who could, if they wanted it, purchase the entire -Republic of Honduras in the morning, and make a present of it to the -Kaiser in the course of the afternoon. You have only to change the name -of Rossner Brothers to the San Rosario Mining Company, to the Pacific -Mail, to Errman Brothers, to the Panama Railroad Company, and you will -identify the actual rulers of one or of several of the republics of -Central America. - -[Illustration: PRINCIPAL HOTEL AND PRINCIPAL HOUSE AT CORINTO] - -It is very well for President Zelaya, or Barrios, or Vasquez, or -whatever his name may happen to be this month, to write to the New -York _Herald_ and tell the people of the United States what the -revolution in his country means. It does no harm; no one in the United -States reads the letter, except the foreign editor who translates it, -and no one in his own country ever sees it, but it makes him happy in -thinking he is persuading some one that he governs in his own way. As -a matter of fact he does not. His country, no matter what her name may -be, is ruled by a firm of coffee-merchants in New York city, or by a -German railroad company, or by a line of coasting steamers, or by a -great trading-house, with headquarters in Berlin or London or Bordeaux. -If the president wants money he borrows it from the trading-house; -if he wants arms, or his soldiers need blankets, the trading-house -supplies them. No one remembers now who was President of Peru when -Henry Meiggs was alive, and to-day William L. Grace is a better name on -letters of introduction to Chili and Peru than that of a secretary of -state. - -When we were in Nicaragua, one little English banking-house was -fighting the minister of finance and the minister of foreign affairs -and the president and the entire government, and while the notes issued -by the bank were accepted at their face value, those of the government -were taken only in the presence of a policeman or a soldier, who was -there to see that you did take it. You find this condition of affairs -all through Central America, and you are not long in a republic before -you learn which merchant or which bank or which railroad company -controls it, and you soon grow to look upon a mule loaded with boxes -bearing the trade-mark of a certain business-house with more respect -than upon a soldier who wears the linen ribbon of the government. For -you know that at a word the soldier will tear the ribbon from his -straw sombrero and replace it with another upon which is printed “Viva -Dr. Somebody Else,” while the trade-mark of the business-house will -continue as long as English and German merchandise is carried across -the sea in ships. And it will also continue as long as Great Britain -and Germany and the United States are represented by consuls and -consular agents who are at the same time the partners of the leading -business firms in the seaport over which their consular jurisdiction -extends. For few Central-American republics are going to take away a -consul’s exequatur as long as they owe him in his unofficial capacity -for a large loan of money; and the merchant, on the other hand, knows -that he is not going to suffer from the imposition of a forced loan, -nor see his mules seized, as long as the tin sign with the American -eagle screaming upon it is tacked above the brass business plate of his -warehouse. - -There was a merchant in Tegucigalpa named Santos Soto--he is there -still, I believe--and about a year ago President Vasquez told him he -needed a loan of ten thousand dollars to assist him in his struggle -against Bonilla; and as Soto was making sixty thousand dollars a year -in the country, he suggested that he had better lend it promptly. Soto -refused, and was locked in the cartel, where it was explained to him -that for every day he delayed in giving the money the amount demanded -of him would be increased one thousand dollars. As he still refused, he -was chained to an iron ball and led out to sweep the streets in front -of his shop, which extends on both sides of the principal thoroughfare -of the capital. He is an old man, and the sight of the chief merchant -in Tegucigalpa sweeping up the dust in front of his own block of stores -had a most salutary effect upon the other merchants, who promptly -loaned the sums demanded of them, taking rebates on customs dues in -exchange--with one exception. This merchant owned a jewelry store, -and was at the same time the English consular agent. He did not sweep -the streets, nor did he contribute to the forced loan. He values in -consequence his tin sign, which is not worth much as a work of art, at -about ten thousand dollars. - -There is much that might be written of consular agents in Central -America that would differ widely from the reports written by -themselves and published by the State Department. The most interesting -thing about them, to my mind, is the fact that none of them ever seem -to represent a country which they have ever seen, and that they are -always citizens of another country to which they are anxious to return. -I find that after Americans, Germans make the best American consular -agents, and Englishmen the best German consular agents, while French -consular agents would be more useful to their countrymen if they could -speak French as well as they do Spanish. Sometimes, as in the case of -the consular agent at Corinto, you find a native of Italy representing -both Great Britain and the United States. A whole comic opera could be -written on the difficulties of a Nicaraguan acting as an English and -American consul, with three British men-of-war in the harbor levying on -the customs dues of his native land, and an American squadron hastening -from Panama to see that their English cousins did not gather in a few -islands by mistake. - -If he called on the British admiral, and received his seven-gun salute, -would it constitute a breach of international etiquette if he were -rowed over to the American admiral and received seven guns from him; -and as a native of Nicaragua could he see the customs dues, which -comprise the government’s chief source of revenue, going into the -pockets of one country which he so proudly serves without complaining -to the other country which he serves with equal satisfaction? Every -now and then you come across a real American consul who was born in -America, and who serves the United States with ability, dignity, -and self-respect, so that you are glad you are both Americans. Of -this class we found General Allen Thomas at La Guayra, who was later -promoted and made United States minister at Caracas, Mr. Alger at -Puerto Cortez, Mr. Little at Tegucigalpa, and Colonel Bird at Caracas. - -We found that the firm of Rossner Brothers had in their employ the -American and English consular agents, and these gentlemen endeared -themselves to us by assisting at our escape from their island in an -open boat. They did not tell us, however, that Fonseca Bay was one of -the most treacherous stretches of water on the admiralty charts; but -that was, probably, because they were merchants and not sailors. - -Amapala was the hottest place I ever visited. It did not grow warm as -the day wore on, but began briskly at sunrise by nailing the mercury at -fever-heat, and continued boiling and broiling until ten at night. By -one the next morning the roof over your head and the bed-linen beneath -you had sufficiently cooled for you to sleep, and from that on until -five there was a fair imitation of night. - -There was but one cool spot in Amapala; it was a point of land that -the inhabitants had rather tactlessly selected as a dumping-ground -for the refuse of the town, and which was only visited by pigs and -buzzards. This point of land ran out into the bay, and there had once -been an attempt made to turn it into a public park, of which nothing -now remains but a statue to Morazan, the Liberator of Honduras. The -statue stood on a pedestal of four broad steps, surrounded by an iron -railing, the gates of which had fallen from their hinges, and lay -scattered over the piles of dust and débris under which the park is -buried. At each corner of the railing there were beautiful macaws which -had once been painted in brilliant reds and greens and yellows, and -which we tried to carry off one night, until we found that they also -were made of iron. We would have preferred the statue of Morazan as a -souvenir, but that we doubted its identity. Morazan was a smooth-faced -man with a bushy head of hair, and this statue showed him with long -side-whiskers and a bald head, and in the uniform of an English -admiral. It was probably the rejected work of some English sculptor, -and had been obtained, no doubt, at a moderate price, and as very few -remember Morazan to-day it answers its purpose excellently well. We -became very much attached to it, and used to burn incense to it in the -form of many Honduranian cigars, which sell at two cents apiece. - -When night came on, and the billiard-room had grown so hot that the -cues slipped in our hands, and the tantalizing sight of an American -ice-cooler, which had never held ice since it left San Francisco, -had driven us out into the night, we would group ourselves at the -base of this statue to Morazan, and throw rocks at the buzzards and -pigs, and let the only breeze that dares to pass over Amapala bring -our temperature down to normal. We should have plotted a revolution -by rights, for the scene was set for such a purpose, and no one in -the town accounted in any other way for our climbing the broken iron -railing nightly, and remaining on the steps of the pedestal until two -the next morning. - -Amapala, I suppose, was used to heat, and could sleep with the -thermometer at ninety, and did not mind the pigs or the buzzards, and -if we did plot to convert Honduras into a monarchy and make Somerset -king, no one heard us but the English edition of Morazan smiling -blandly down upon us like a floor-walker at the Army and Navy Stores, -with his hand on his heart and an occasional buzzard soaring like -Poe’s raven above his marble forehead. The moonlight turned him into a -figure of snow, and the great palms above bent and waved and shivered -unceasingly, and the sea beat on the rocks at our feet. - -It was an interesting place of rendezvous, but we tired of a town that -grew cool only after midnight, and in which the fever stalked abroad -by day. So we chartered a small boat, and provisioned it, and enlisted -a crew of pirates, and set sail one morning for Corinto, seventy-five -miles farther south. There was no steamer expected at Corinto at any -earlier date than at Amapala, but in the nature of things one had to -touch there some time, and there was a legend to which we had listened -with doubt and longing to the effect that at Corinto there was an -ice-machine, and though we found later that the ice-machines always -broke on the day we arrived in port, we preferred the chance of finding -Fonseca Bay in a peaceful state to yellow-fever at Amapala. It was an -exciting voyage. I would now, being more wise, choose the yellow-fever, -but we did not know any better then. There was no deck to the boat, and -it was not wide enough for one to lie lengthwise from side to side, and -too crowded to permit of our stretching our bodies fore and aft. So -we rolled about on top of one another, and were far too miserable to -either apologize or swear when we bumped into a man’s ribs or sat on -his head. - -We started with a very fine breeze dead astern, and the boat leaped -and plunged and rolled all night, and we were hurled against the sides -and thumped by rolling trunks, and travelling-bags, and gun-cases, and -boxes of broken apollinaris bottles. The stone-breaker in a quarry -would have soothed us in comparison. And when the sun rose fully -equipped at four in the morning the wind died away absolutely, and we -rose and sank all day on the great swell of the Pacific Ocean. The boat -was painted a bright red inside and out, and the sun turned this open -red bowl into an oven of heat. It made even our white flannels burn -when they touched the skin like a shirt of horse-hair. As far as we -could look on every side the ocean lay like a sea of quicksilver, and -the dome of the sky glittered with heat. The red paint on the sides -bubbled and cracked, and even the native boatmen cowered under the -cross-seats with their elbows folded on their knees and their faces -buried in their arms; and we had not the heart to tell them to use the -oars, even if we had known how. At noon the chief pirate crawled over -the other bodies and rigged up the sail so that it threw a shadow over -mine, and I lay under this awning and read Barrie’s _Lady Nicotine_, -while the type danced up and down in waving lines like the letters -in a typewriter. I am sure it was only the necessity which that book -impressed upon me of holding on to life until I could smoke the Arcadia -mixture that kept me from dropping overboard and being cremated in the -ocean below. - -We sighted the light-house of Corinto at last, and hailed the white -custom-house and the palms and the blue cottages of the port with a -feeble cheer. - -The people came down to the shore and crowded around her bow as we -beached her in front of the custom-house, and a man asked us anxiously -in English, “What ship has been wrecked?” And we explained that we were -not survivors of a shipwreck, but of a possible conflagration, and -wanted ice. - -And then, when we fell over the side bruised and sleepy, and burning -with thirst, and with everything still dancing before our eyes, they -refused to give us ice until we grew cooler, and sent out in the -meanwhile to the _comandancia_ in search of some one who could identify -us as escaped revolutionists. They took our guns away from us as a -precaution, but they could have had half our kingdom for all we cared, -for the wonderful legend proved true, and at last we got the ice in -large, thick glasses, with ginger ale and lemon juice and apollinaris -water trickling through it, and there was frost on the sides of the -glasses, and a glimpse of still more ice wrapped up in smoking blankets -in the refrigerator--ice that we had not tasted for many days of riding -in the hot sun and through steaming swamp-lands, and which we had last -seen treated with contempt and contumely, knocked about at the bow of -a tug-boat in the North River, and tramped upon by many muddy feet -on Fifth Avenue. None of us will ever touch ice hereafter without -handling it with the same respect and consideration that we would show -to a precious stone. - -The busybodies of Corinto who had decided from the manner of our -arrival that we had been forced to leave Honduras for the country’s -good, finally found a native who identified me as a filibuster he -had met during the last revolution at Leon. As that was bringing it -rather near home, Griscom went after Mr. Palaccio, the Italian who -serves both England and the United States as consular agent. We showed -him a rare collection of autographs of secretaries, ambassadors, -and prime-ministers, and informed him that we intended taking four -state-rooms on the steamer of the line he represented at that port. -This convinced him of the necessity of keeping us out of jail until -the boat arrived, and he satisfied the local authorities as to our -respectability, and that we had better clothes in our trunks. - -Corinto is the best harbor on the Pacific side of Nicaragua, but the -town is not as large as the importance of the port would suggest. It -consists of three blocks of two-story houses, facing the harbor fifty -feet back from the water’s edge, with a sandy street between each block -of buildings. There are about a thousand inhabitants, and a foreign -population which varies from five residents to a dozen transient -visitors and stewards on steamer days. The natives are chiefly -occupied in exporting coffee and receiving the imported goods for the -interior, and the principal amusement of the foreign colony is bathing -or playing billiards. It has a whist club of four members. The fifth -foreign resident acts as a substitute in the event of any one of the -four players chancing to have another engagement, but as there is no -one with whom he could have an engagement, the substitute is seldom -called upon. He told me he had been sitting by and smoking and watching -the others play whist for a month now, and hoping that one of them -would have a sunstroke. - -[Illustration: HARBOR OF CORINTO] - -We left Corinto the next morning and took the train to Lake Managua, -where we were to connect with a steamer which crosses the lake to the -capital. It was a beautiful ride, and for some distance ran along -the sea-shore, where the ocean rolled up the beach in great waves, -breaking in showers of foam upon the rocks. Then we crossed lagoons and -swamps on trestles, and passed pretty thatched villages, and saw many -beautiful women and girls selling candy and sugar-cane at the stations. -They wore gowns that left the neck and shoulders bare, and wrapped -themselves in silk shawls of solid colors, which they kept continually -loosening and rearranging, tossing the ends coquettishly from one -shoulder to the other, or drawing them closely about the figure, or -like a cowl over the head. This silk shawl is the most characteristic -part of the wardrobe of the native women of Central America. It is as -inevitable as the mantilla of their richer sisters, and it is generally -the only bit of splendor they possess. A group of them on a feast-day -or Sunday, when they come marching towards you with green, purple, -blue, or yellow shawls, makes a very striking picture. - -These women of the pueblo in Honduras and Nicaragua were better-looking -than the women of the lower classes of any country I have ever visited. -They were individually more beautiful, and the proportion of beautiful -women was greater. A woman there is accustomed from her childhood to -carry heavy burdens on her head, and this gives to all of them an erect -carriage and a fearless uplifting of the head when they walk or stand. -They have never known a tight dress or a tight shoe, and they move as -easily and as gracefully as an antelope. Their hair is very rich and -heavy, and they oil it and comb it and braid it from morning to night, -wearing it parted in the middle, and drawn tightly back over the ears, -and piled upon the head in heavy braids. Their complexion is a light -brown, and their eyes have the sad look which one sees in the eyes of -a deer or a dog, and which is not so much the sign of any sorrow as -of the lack of intelligence. The women of the upper classes are like -most Spanish-American women, badly and over dressed in a gown fashioned -after some forgotten Parisian mode, with powder over their faces, and -with their hair frizzled and curled in ridiculous profusion. They are a -very sorry contrast to a woman of the people, such as you see standing -in the doorways of the mud huts, or advancing towards you along the -trail with an earthen jar on her shoulder, straight of limb, and with a -firm, fine lower jaw, a low, broad forehead, and shy, sad eyes. - -[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE AT MANAGUA] - -Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, is a most dismal city, built on -a plain of sun-dried earth, with houses of sun-dried earth, plazas -and parks and streets of sun-dried earth, and a mantle of dust over -all. Even the stores that have been painted in colors and hung with -balconies have a depressed, dirty, and discouraged air. The streets are -as full of ruts and furrows as a country road, the trees in the plaza -are lifeless, and their leaves shed dust instead of dew, and the people -seem to have taken on the tone of their surroundings, and very much -more of the dust than seems absolutely necessary. We were there only -two days, and felt when we left as though we had been camping out on a -baseball diamond; and we were sure that had we remained any longer we -should have turned into living statues of clay when the sun shone, and -of mud when it rained. - -There was no American minister or consul at Managua at the time of our -visit, but the English consul took very good care of us, and acted as -our interpreter when we called upon the president. Relations between -the consul and President Zelaya were somewhat strained at that time, -and though we knew this we told the consul to tell the president how -much he was admired by the American people for having taken the stand -he did against the English on the Mosquito Coast question, and that -we hoped he would see that the British obtained no foothold near our -canal. At which the English consul would hesitate and grin unhappily, -and remark, in a hurried aside, “I’ll be hanged if I’ll translate -that.” So we continued inventing other pleasant speeches derogatory -to Britons and British influence in Nicaragua until Somerset and his -consul protested vigorously, and the president saw what we were doing -and began to enjoy the consul’s embarrassment and laughed, and the -consul laughed with him, and they made up their quarrel--for the time -being, at least. - -Zelaya said, among other things, that if there were no other argument -in favor of the Nicaragua Canal than that it would enable the United -States to move her ships of war quickly from ocean to ocean, instead of -being forced as she is now to make them take the long journey around -Cape Horn, it would be of inestimable benefit. He also said that the -only real objection that had been made in the United States to the -canal came from those interested in the transcontinental railroads, who -saw in its completion the destruction of their freight traffic. - -He seemed to be a very able man, and more a man of the world than -Bonilla, the President of Honduras, and much older in many ways. He was -apparently somewhat of a philosopher, and believed, or said he did, -in the survival of the fittest as applied to the occupation of his -country. He welcomed the gringos, he said, and if they were better able -to rule Nicaragua than her own people, he would accept that fact as -inevitable and make way before them. - -[Illustration: PRESIDENT ZELAYA OF NICARAGUA] - -We returned to Corinto after wallowing in the dust-bins of Managua as -joyfully as though it were a home, and we were so anxious to reach the -ocean again that we left Granada and Leon, which are, so we are told, -much more attractive than the capital, out of our route. - -Corinto was bright and green and sunny, and the waters of the -big harbor before it danced and flashed by day and radiated with -phosphorescent fire by night. It was distinctly a place where it would -occur to one to write up the back pages of his diary, but it was -interesting at least in showing us the life of the exiles in these hot, -far-away seaports among a strange people. - -There was but one hotel, which happened to be a very good one with -a very bad proprietor, who, I trust, will come some day to an untimely -death at the end of one of his own billiard-cues. The hotel was built -round a patio filled with palms and ramparts of empty bottles from -the bar, covered with dust, and bearing the name of every brewer and -wine-grower in Europe. The sleeping-rooms were on the second floor, and -looked on the patio on one side and upon a wide covered veranda which -faced the harbor on the other. The five resident gringos in Corinto -lived at the hotel, and sat all day on this veranda swinging in their -hammocks and swapping six-months-old magazines and tattered novels. -Reading-matter assumed an importance in Corinto it had never attained -before, and we read all the serial stories, of which there was never -more than the fourth or sixth instalment, and the scientific articles -on the Fall of the Rupee in India, or the Most Recent Developments in -Electricity, and delighted in the advertisements of seeds and bicycles -and baking-powders. - -The top of our veranda was swept by a row of plane-trees that grew in -the sandy soil of the beach below us, and under the shade of which -were gathered all the idle ones of the port. There were among them -thieving ships’ stewards who had been marooned from passing vessels, -ne’er-do-wells from the interior who were “combing the beach” and -looking for work, but not so diligently that they had seen the coffee -plantations on their tramp down to the coast, and who begged for money -to take them back to “God’s country,” or to the fever hospital at -Panama. With them were natives, sailors from the rolling tug-boat they -called a ship of war, and barefooted soldiers from the cartel, and -longshoremen with over-developed chests and muscles, who toil mightily -on steamer days and sleep and eat for the ten days between as a reward. - -All of these idlers gathered in the shade around the women who sold -sweet drinks and sticks of pink-and-yellow candy. They were the public -characters of the place and the centre of all the gossip of the -town, and presided over their tables with great dignity in freshly -ironed frocks and brilliant turbans. They were very handsome and very -clean-looking, with bare arms and shoulders, and their hair always -shone with cocoanut oil, and was wonderfully braided and set off with -flowers stuck coquettishly over one ear. The men used to sit around -them in groups on the bags of coffee waiting for export, and on the -boxes of barbed wire, which seemed to be the only import. And sometimes -a small boy would buy a stick of candy or command the mixture of a -drink, and the woman would fuss over her carved gourds, and rinse and -rub them and mix queer liquors with a whirling stick of wood that she -spun between the palms of her hands. We would all watch the operation -with great interest, the natives on the coffee-sacks and ourselves upon -the balcony, and regard the small boy while he drank the concoction -with envy. - -The veranda had loose planks for its floor, and gaping knot-holes -through which the legs of our chairs would sink suddenly, and which -we could use on those occasions when we wanted to drop penknives and -pencils and water on the heads of those passing below. Our companions -in idleness were the German agents of the trading-houses and young -Englishmen down from the mines to shake off a touch of fever, and -two Americans who were taking a phonograph through Central America. -Their names were Edward Morse and Charles Brackett, and we will always -remember them as the only Americans we met who were taking money out of -Central America and not bringing it there to lose it. - -Every afternoon we all tramped a mile or two up the beach in the hot -sun for the sake of a quarter of an hour of surf-bathing, which was -delightful in itself, and which was rendered especially interesting by -our having to share the surf with large man-eating sharks. When they -came, which they were sure to do ten minutes after we had arrived, we -generally gave them our share. - -The phonograph men and our party did not believe in sharks; so we -would venture out some distance, leaving the Englishmen and the -Germans standing like sandpipers where the water was hardly up to their -ankles, and keeping an anxious lookout for us and themselves. Had the -sharks attempted to attack us from the land, they would have afforded -excellent protection. When they all yelled at once and ran back up -the beach into the bushes, we knew that they thought we had been in -long enough, and we came out, and made as much noise as we could while -doing so. But there would be invariably one man left behind--one man -who had walked out farther than the others, and who, owing to the roar -of the surf, could not hear our shrieks of terror. It was exciting to -watch him from the beach diving and splashing happily by himself, and -shaking the water out of his ears and hair, blissfully unconscious of -the deserted waste of waters about him and of the sharp, black fin that -shot like a torpedo from wave to wave. We would watch him as he turned -to speak to the man who the moment before had been splashing and diving -on his right, and, missing him, turn to the other side, and then whirl -about and see us all dancing frantically up and down in a row along the -beach, beckoning and screaming and waving our arms. We could observe -even at that distance his damp hair rising on his head and his eyes -starting out of their sockets as he dug his toes into the sand and -pushed back the water with his arms, and worked his head and shoulders -and every muscle in his whole body as though he were fighting his way -through a mob of men. The water seemed very opaque at such times, and -the current appeared to have turned seaward, and the distance from -shore looked as though it were increasing at every step. - -When night came to Corinto we would sit out on the wharf in front of -the hotel and watch the fish darting through the phosphorescent waters -and marking their passage with a trail of fire, or we would heave a log -into it and see the sparks fly just as though we had thrown it upon a -smouldering fire. One night one of the men was obliging enough to go -into it for our benefit, and swam under water, sweeping great circles -with his arms and legs. He was outlined as clearly in the inky depths -below as though he wore a suit of spangles. Sometimes a shark or some -other big fish drove a shoal of little fish towards the shore, and -they would turn the whole surface of the water into half-circles of -light as they took leap after leap for safety. Later in the evening we -would go back to the veranda and listen to our friends the phonograph -impresarios play duets on the banjo and guitar, and in return for the -songs of the natives they had picked up in their wanderings we would -sing to them those popular measures which had arisen into notice since -they had left civilization. - -This was our life at Corinto for ten idle days, until at last the -steamer arrived, and the passengers came on shore to stretch their -legs and buy souvenirs, and the ship’s steward bustled about in search -of fresh vegetables, and the lighters plied heavily between the shore -and the ship’s side, piled high with odorous sacks of coffee. And then -Morse and Brackett started with their phonograph through Costa Rica, -and we continued on to Panama, leaving the five foreign residents of -Corinto to the uninterrupted enjoyment of their whist, and richer and -happier through our coming in an inaccurate knowledge of the first -verse and tune of “Tommy Atkins,” which they shouted at us defiantly as -they pulled back from the steamer’s side to their quiet haven of exile. - -[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING CHANGE IN TRADE ROUTES AFTER -THE COMPLETION OF THE NICARAGUA CANAL] - - - - -ON THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA - - -IF Ulysses in his wanderings had attempted to cross the Isthmus of -Panama his account of the adventure would not have been filled with -engineering reports or health statistics, nor would it have dwelt -with horror on the irregularities of the canal company. He would have -treated the isthmus in language full of imagination, and would have -delivered his tale in the form of an allegory. He would have told -how on such a voyage his ship came upon a strip of land joining two -great continents and separating two great oceans; how he had found -this isthmus guarded by a wicked dragon that exhaled poison with every -breath, and that lay in wait, buried in its swamps and jungles, for -sailors and travellers, who withered away and died as soon as they -put foot upon the shore. But that he, warned in time by the sight of -thousands of men’s bones whitening on the beach, hoisted all sail and -stood out to sea. - -It is quite as easy to believe a story like that as to believe the -truth: that for the last century a narrow strip of swamp-land has -blocked the progress of the world; that it has joined the peoples of -two continents without permitting them to use it as a thoroughfare; -that it has stopped the meeting of two great oceans and the shipping -of the world, and that it has killed with its fever half of those who -came to do battle against it. There is something almost uncanny in the -manner in which this strip of mud and water has resisted the advance of -man, as though there really were some evil genius of the place lurking -in the morasses and brooding over the waters, throwing out its poison -like a serpent, noiselessly and suddenly, meeting the last arrival at -the very moment of his setting foot upon the wharf, arrogant in health -and hope and ambition, and leaving him with clinched teeth and raving -with madness before the sun sets. - -[Illustration: DREDGES IN THE CANAL] - -It is like the old Minotaur and his yearly tribute of Greek maidens, -with the difference that now it is the lives of men that are -sacrificed, and men who are chosen from every nation of the world, -speaking every language, believing in every religion; and to-day the -end of each is marked by a wooden plank in the Catholic Cemetery, in -the Hebrew Cemetery, in the French Cemetery, in the English Cemetery, -in the American Cemetery, for there are acres and acres of -cemeteries and thousands and thousands of wooden head-stones, to which -the evil spirit of the isthmus points mockingly, and says, “These are -your failures.” - -The fields of Waterloo and Gettysburg saw a sacrifice of life but -little greater than these fifty miles of swamp-land between North and -South America have seen, and certainly they saw no such inglorious -defeats, without a banner flying or a comrade cheering, or the roar -of musketry and cannon to inspire the soldiers who fell in the -unequal battle. Those who died striving to save the Holy Land from -the unspeakable Turk were comforted by the promise of a glorious -immortality, and it must have been gratifying in itself to have been -described as a Crusader, and to have worn the red cross upon one’s -shoulder. And, in any event, a man who would not fight for his religion -or his country without promises or pensions is hardly worthy of -consideration. But these young soldiers of the transit and sailors of -the dredging-scow had no promises or sentiment to inspire them; they -were not fighting for the boundaries of their country, but redeeming -a bit of No Man’s Land; not doing battle for their God, but merely -digging a canal. And it must strike every one that those of them who -fell doing their duty in the sickly yellow mist of Panama and along the -gloomy stretches of the Chagres River deserve a better monument to -their memories than the wooden slabs in the cemeteries. - -It is strange that not only nature, but man also, should have selected -the same little spot on the earth’s surface in which to show to the -world exactly how disagreeable and unpleasant they can make themselves -when they choose. It seems almost as though the isthmus were unholy -ground, and that there was a curse upon it. Some one should invent a -legend to explain this, and tell how one of the priests who came over -with Columbus put the ban of the Church upon the land for some affront -by its people to the voyagers, and so placed it under a curse forever. -For those whom the fever did not kill the canal company robbed, and -the ruin that came to the peasants of France was as irredeemable as -the ravages of the fever, and the scandal that spattered almost every -public man in Paris exposed rottenness and corruption as far advanced -as that in the green-coated pools along the Rio Grande. - -[Illustration: THE BAY OF PANAMA] - -Ruins are always interesting, but the ruins of Panama fill one only -with melancholy and disgust, and the relics of this gigantic swindle -can only inspire you with a contempt for yourself and your fellow-men, -and you blush at the evidences of barefaced rascality about you. And -even the honest efforts of those who are now in charge, and who are -trying to save what remains, and once more to build up confidence in -the canal, reminded me of the town councillors of Johnstown who met in -a freight depot to decide what was to be done with the town and those -of its inhabitants that had not been swept out of existence. - -There are forty-eight miles of railroad across the isthmus, stretching -from the town of Panama on the Pacific side to that of Colon--or -Aspinwall, as it was formerly called--on the Caribbean Sea. The canal -starts a little north of the town of Panama, in the mouth of the Rio -Grande River, and runs along on one side or the other of the railroad -to the port of Colon. The Chagres River starts about the middle of the -isthmus, and follows the route of the canal in an easterly direction, -until it empties itself into the Caribbean Sea a little north of Colon. - -The town of Panama, as you approach it from the bay, reminds you of -an Italian seaport, owing to the balconies which overhang the water -and the colored house-fronts and projecting red roofs. As seen from -the inside, the town is like any other Spanish-American city of the -second class. There are fiacres that rattle and roll through the clean -but narrow streets behind undersized ponies that always move at a -gallop; there are cool, dark shops open to the streets, and hundreds -of negroes and Chinese coolies, and a handsome plaza, and some very -large municipal buildings of five stories, which appeared to us, after -our experience with a dead level of one-story huts, to tower as high -as the Auditorium. Panama, as a town, and considered by itself, and -not in connection with the canal, reminded me of a Western county-seat -after the boom had left it. There appeared to be nothing going forward -and nothing to do. The men sat at the cafés during the day and talked -of the past, and went to a club at night. We saw nothing of the women, -but they seem to have a greater degree of freedom than their sisters in -other parts of Spanish America, owing, no doubt, to the cosmopolitan -nature of the inhabitants of Panama. - -[Illustration: PANAMA CANAL ON THE PACIFIC SIDE] - -But the city, and the people in it, interest you chiefly because of -the canal; and even the ruins of the Spanish occupation, and the tales -of buccaneers and of bloody battles and buried treasure, cannot touch -you so nearly as do the great, pretentious building of the company and -the stories of De Lesseps’ visit, and the ceremonies and feastings and -celebrations which inaugurated the greatest failure of modern times. - -The new director of the canal company put a tug at our disposal, -and sent us orders that permitted us to see as much of the canal as -has been completed from the Pacific side. But before presenting our -orders we drove out from the city one afternoon and began a personally -conducted inspection of the machine-shops. - -We had read of the pathetic spectacle presented by thousands of -dollars’ worth of locomotive engines and machinery lying rotting and -rusting in the swamps, and as it had interested us when we had read of -it, we were naturally even more anxious to see it with our own eyes. -We, however, did not see any machinery rusting, nor any locomotives -lying half buried in the mud. All the locomotives that we saw were -raised from the ground on ties and protected with a wooden shed, and -had been painted and oiled and cared for as they would have been in -the Baldwin Locomotive Works. We found the same state of things in the -great machine-works, and though none of us knew a turning-lathe from a -sewing-machine, we could at least understand that certain wheels should -make other wheels move if everything was in working order, and so we -made the wheels go round, and punched holes in sheets of iron with -steel rods, and pierced plates, and scraped iron bars, and climbed to -shelves twenty and thirty feet from the floor, only to find that each -bit and screw in each numbered pigeon-hole was as sharp and covered as -thick with oil as though it had been in use that morning. - -This was not as interesting as it would have been had we seen what -the other writers who have visited the isthmus saw. And it would have -given me a better chance for descriptive writing had I found the ruins -of gigantic dredging-machines buried in the morasses, and millions of -dollars’ worth of delicate machinery blistering and rusting under the -palm-trees; but, as a rule, it is better to describe things just as you -saw them, and not as it is the fashion to see them, even though your -way be not so picturesque. - -As a matter of fact, the care the company was taking of its machinery -and its fleet of dredging-scows and locomotives struck me as being much -more pathetic than the sight of the same instruments would have been -had we found them abandoned to the elements and the mud. For it was -like a general pipe-claying his cross-belt and polishing his buttons -after his army had been routed and killed, and he had lost everything, -including honor. - -[Illustration: HUTS OF WORKMEN EMPLOYED ON THE CANAL] - -There was a little village of whitewashed huts on the southern bank of -the Rio Grande, where the men lived who take care of the fleet and the -machine-shop, and it was as carefully kept and as clean as a graveyard. -Before the crash came the quarters of the men used to ring with their -yells at night, and the music of guitars and banjos came from the open -doors of cafés and drinking-booths, and a pistol-shot meant no more -than a momentary punctuation of the night’s pleasure. Those were great -days, and there were thousands of men where there are now a score, and -a line of light and deviltry ran from the canal’s mouth for miles back -to the city, where it blazed into a great fire of dissolute pleasure -and excitement. In those days men were making fortunes in a night, -and by ways as dark as night--by furnishing machinery that could not -even be put together, by supplying blocks of granite that cost more in -freight than bars of silver, by kidnapping workmen for the swamps, and -by the simple methods of false accounts and credits. And while some -were growing rich, others were living with the fear of sudden death -before their eyes, and drinking the native rum that they might forget -it, and throwing their wages away on the roulette-tables, and eating -and drinking and making merry in the fear that they might die on the -morrow. - -Mr. Wells, an American engineer, was in charge of the company’s -flotilla, and waited for us at the wharf. - -“I saw you investigating our engines,” he said. “That’s all right. -Only tell the truth about what you see, and we won’t mind.” - -We stood on the bow of the tug and sped up the length of the canal -between great dredging-machines that towered as high above us as the -bridge of an ocean liner, and that weighed apparently as much as a -battle-ship. The decks of some of them were split with the heat, and -there were shutters missing from the cabin windows, but the monster -machinery was intact, and the wood-work was freshly painted and -scrubbed. They reminded me of a line of old ships of war at rest in -some navy-yard. They represent in money value, even as they are to-day, -five million francs. Beyond them on either side stretched low green -bushes, through which the Rio Grande bent and twisted, and beyond the -bushes were high hills and the Pacific Ocean, into which the sun set, -leaving us cold and depressed. - -[Illustration: THE TOP OF A DREDGE] - -Except for the bubbling of the water under our bow there was not a -sound to disturb the silence that hung above the narrow canal and the -green bushes that rose from a bed of water. I thought of the entrance -of the Suez Canal, as I had seen it at Port Said and at Ismaïlia, -with great P. & O. steamers passing down its length, and troop-ships -showing hundreds of white helmets above the sides, and tramp steamers -and sailing-vessels flying every flag, and compared it and its -scenes of life and movement with this dreary waste before us, with the -idle dredges rearing their iron girders to the sky, the engineers’ -sign-posts half smothered in the water and the mud, and with a naked -fisherman paddling noiselessly down the canal with his eyes fixed on -the water, his hollowed log canoe the only floating vessel in what -should have been the highway of the world. - -There were about eight hundred men in all working along the whole -length of the canal while we were there, instead of the twelve thousand -that once made the place hum with activity. But the work the twelve -thousand accomplished remains, and the stranger is surprised to find -that there is so much of it and that it is so well done. It looks to -his ignorant eyes as though only a little more energy and a greater -amount of honesty would be necessary to open the canal to traffic; but -experts will tell him that one hundred million dollars will have to be -expended and seven or eight years of honest work done before that ditch -can be dug and France hold a Kiel celebration of her own. - -But before that happens every citizen of the United States should help -to open the Nicaragua Canal to the world under the protection and the -virtual ownership of his own country. - -Our stay in Panama was shortened somewhat on account of our having -taken too great an interest in the freedom of a young lawyer and -diplomat, who was arrested while we were there, charged with being one -of the leaders of the revolution. - -[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN PANAMA] - -He was an acquaintance of Lloyd Griscom’s, who took an interest in -the young rebel because they had both been in the diplomatic service -abroad. One afternoon, while Griscom and the lawyer were sitting -together in the office of the latter, five soldiers entered the place -and ordered the suspected revolutionist to accompany them to the -cartel. As he happened to know something of the law, he protested that -they must first show him a warrant, and while two of them went out -for the warrant and the others kept watch in the outer office Griscom -mapped out a plan of escape. The lawyer’s office hung over the Bay of -Panama, and Griscom’s idea was that he should, under the protection of -the darkness, slip down a rope from the window to a small boat below -and be rowed out to the _Barracouta_, of the Pacific Mail Company’s -line, which was listed to sail that same evening up the coast. The -friends of the rebel were sent for, and with their assistance Griscom -made every preparation for the young rebel’s escape, and then came to -the hotel and informed Somerset and myself of what he had done, and -asked us to aid in what was to follow. We knew nothing of the rights -or the wrongs of the revolutionists, but we considered that a man -who was going down a rope into a small boat while three soldiers sat -waiting for him in an outer room was performing a sporting act that -called for our active sympathy. So we followed Griscom to his friend’s -office, and, having passed the soldiers, were ushered into his presence -and introduced to him and his friends. - -He was a little man, but was not at all alarmed, nor did he pose or -exhibit any braggadocio, as a man of weaker calibre might have done -under the circumstances. When we offered to hold the rope for him, or -to block up the doors so that the soldiers might not see what was going -forward, he thanked us with such grateful politeness that he made me -feel rather ashamed of myself; for my interest in the matter up to that -point had not been a very serious or a high one. Indeed, I did not even -know the gentleman’s name. But as we did not know the names of the -government people against whom he was plotting either, we felt that we -could not be accused of partiality. - -The prisoner did not want his wife to know what had happened, and so -sent her word that important legal business would detain him at the -office, and that his dinner was to be brought to him there. The rope by -which he was to escape was smuggled past the soldiers under the napkin -which covered this dinner. It was then seven o’clock and nearly dark, -and as our rebel friend feared our presence might excite suspicion, -he asked us to go away, and requested us to return in half an hour. It -would then be quite dark, and the attempt to escape could be made with -greater safety. - -But the alcalde during our absence spoiled what might have been an -excellent story by rushing in and carrying the diplomat off to jail. -When we returned we found the office locked and guarded, and as -we walked away, in doubt as to whether he had escaped or had been -arrested, we found that the soldiers were following us. As this -continued throughout the evening we went across the isthmus the next -morning to Colon, the same soldiers accompanying us on our way. - -[Illustration: THE CANAL IN THE INTERIOR] - -The ship of war _Atlanta_ was at Colon, and as we had met her officers -at Puerto Cortez, in Honduras, we went on board and asked them to -see that we were not shot against church walls or hung. They were -exceedingly amused, and promised us ample protection, and though we did -not need it on that occasion, I was impressed with the comforting sense -that comes to a traveller from the States when he knows that one of -our White Squadron is rolling at anchor in the harbor. And later, when -Griscom caught the Chagres fever, we had every reason to be grateful -for the presence in the harbor of the _Atlanta_, as her officers, led -by Dr. Bartolette and his assistant surgeon, Mr. Moore, helped him -through his sickness, visiting him daily with the greatest kindness and -good-will. - -Colon did not impress us very favorably. It is a large town of wooden -houses, with a floating population of Jamaica negroes and a few -Chinese. The houses built for the engineers of the canal stretch out -along a point at either side of a double row of magnificent palms, -which terminate at the residence intended for De Lesseps. It is now -falling into decay. In front of it, facing the sea, is a statue of -Columbus protecting the Republic of Colombia, represented by an Indian -girl, who is crouching under his outstretched arm. This monument was -presented to the United States of Colombia by the Empress Eugenie, and -the statue is, in its fallen state, with its pedestal shattered by -the many storms and time, significant of the fallen fortunes of that -great lady herself. If Columbus could have protected Colombia from the -French as he is in the French statue protecting her from all the world, -she would now be the richest and most important of Central-American -republics. - -Colon seems to be owned entirely by the Panama Railroad Company, a -monopoly that conducts its affairs with even more disregard for the -public than do other monopolies in better-known localities. The company -makes use of the seaport as a freight-yard, and its locomotives run -the length of the town throughout the entire day, blowing continually -on their whistles and ringing their bells, so that there is little -peace for the just or the unjust. We were exceedingly relieved when the -doctors agreed that Griscom was ready to put to sea again, and we were -able to turn from the scene of the great scandal and its fever fields -to the mountains of Venezuela, and of Caracas in particular. - - - - -THE PARIS OF SOUTH AMERICA - - -SHOVED off by itself in a corner of Central Park on the top of a wooded -hill, where only the people who live in the high apartment-houses at -Eighty-first Street can see it, is an equestrian statue. It is odd, -bizarre, and inartistic, and suggests in size and pose that equestrian -statue to General Jackson which mounts guard before the White House in -Washington. It shows a chocolate-cream soldier mastering with one hand -a rearing rocking-horse, and with the other pointing his sword towards -an imaginary enemy. - -Sometimes a “sparrow” policeman saunters up the hill and looks at the -statue with unenlightened eyes, and sometimes a nurse-maid seeks its -secluded site, and sits on the pedestal below it while the children of -this free republic play unconcernedly in its shadow. On the base of -this big statue is carved the name of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of -Venezuela. - -Down on the northeastern coast of South America, in Caracas, the -capital of the United States of Venezuela, there is a pretty little -plaza, called the Plaza Washington. It is not at all an important -plaza; it is not floored for hundreds of yards with rare mosaics like -the Plaza de Bolivar, nor lit by swinging electric lights, and the -president’s band never plays there. But it has a fresh prettiness -and restfulness all its own, and the narrow gravel paths are clean -and trim, and the grass grows rich and high, and the branches of the -trees touch and interlace and form a green roof over all, except in -the very centre, where there stands open to the blue sky a statue of -Washington, calm, dignified, beneficent, and paternal. It is Washington -the statesman, not the soldier. The sun of the tropics beats down upon -his shoulders; the palms rustle and whisper pleasantly above his head. -From the barred windows of the yellow and blue and pink houses that -line the little plaza dark-eyed, dark-skinned women look out sleepily, -but understandingly, at the grave face of the North American Bolivar; -and even the policeman, with his red blanket and Winchester carbine, -comprehends when the gringos stop and take off their hats and make a -low bow to the father of their country in his pleasant place of exile. - -[Illustration: STATUE OF SIMON BOLIVAR, CARACAS] - -Other governments than those of the United States of America and the -United States of Venezuela have put up statues to their great men -in foreign capitals, but the careers of Washington and Bolivar bear so -striking a resemblance, and the histories of the two countries of which -they are the respective fathers are so much alike, that they might be -written in parallel columns. And so it seems especially appropriate -that these monuments to these patriots should stand in each of the two -continents on either side of the dividing states of Central America. - -It will offend no true Venezuelan to-day if it be said of his country -that the most interesting man in it is a dead one, for he will allow no -one to go further than himself in his admiration for Bolivar; and he -has done so much to keep his memory fresh by circulating portraits of -him on every coin and stamp of the country, by placing his statue at -every corner, and by hanging his picture in every house, that he cannot -blame the visitor if his strongest impression of Venezuela is of the -young man who began at thirty-three to liberate five republics, and -who conquered a territory more than one-third as great as the whole of -Europe. - -In 1811 Venezuela declared her independence of the mother-country of -Spain, and her great men put this declaration in writing and signed it, -and the room in which it was signed is still kept sacred, as is the -room where our declaration was signed in Independence Hall. But the -two men who were to make these declarations worth something more than -the parchment upon which they were written were not among the signers. -Their work was still to come, and it was much the same kind of work, -and carried on in much the same spirit of indomitable energy under -the most cruel difficulties, and with a few undrilled troops against -an army of veterans. It was marked by brilliant and sudden marches -and glorious victories; and where Washington suffered in the snows -of Valley Forge, or pushed his way through the floating ice of the -Delaware, young Bolivar marched under fierce tropical suns, and cut his -path through jungle and swamp-lands, and over the almost impenetrable -fastnesses of the Andes. - -[Illustration: STATUE OF WASHINGTON DECORATED WITH FLORAL WREATHS BY -THE VENEZUELANS] - -Their difficulties were the same and their aim was the same, but the -character of the two men were absolutely and entirely different, for -Bolivar was reckless, impatient of advice, and even foolhardy. What -Washington was we know. - -The South-American came of a distinguished Spanish family, and had -been educated as a courtier and as a soldier in the mother-country, -though his heart remained always with his own people, and he was among -the first to take up arms to set them free. Unless you have seen the -country through which he led his men, and have measured the mountains -he climbed with his few followers, it is quite impossible to -understand the immensity of the task he accomplished. Even to-day a -fast steamer cannot reach Callao from Panama under seven days, and yet -Bolivar made the same distance and on foot, starting from the South -Atlantic, and continuing on across the continent to the Pacific side, -and then on down the coast into Peru, living on his way upon roots -and berries, sleeping on the ground wrapped in a blanket, riding on -muleback or climbing the steep trail on foot, and freeing on his way -Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and finally Peru, the home of -the Incas. - -The history of this campaign is one too glorious and rich in incident -and color to be crowded into a few pages, and the character of its -chief actor too varied, and his rise and fall too dramatic, to be -dismissed, as it must be here, in a few paragraphs. But every American -who loves a hero and who loves a lover--and Bolivar was very much of -both, and perhaps too much of the latter--should read the life of this -young man who freed a country rich in brave men, who made some of these -who were much his senior in years his lieutenants, and who, after -risking his life upon many battle-fields and escaping several attempts -at assassination, died at last deserted except by a few friends, and -with a heart broken by the ingratitude of the people he had led out of -captivity. - -It is difficult to find out, even in his own country, why the -Venezuelans, after heaping Bolivar with honors and elevating him to the -place of a god, should have turned against him, and driven him into -exile at Santa Marta. Some will tell you that he tried to make himself -dictator over the countries which he had freed; others say that it was -because he had refused to be a dictator that the popular feeling went -against him, and that when the people in the madness of their new-found -freedom cried, “Thou hast rid us of kings; be thou king,” he showed -them their folly, and sought his old home, and died there before the -reaction came, which was to sweep him back once more and forever into -the place of the popular hero of South America. - -[Illustration: DECORATION OF THE STATUE OF BOLIVAR AT CARACAS, -VENEZUELA, DECEMBER 18, 1895, BY AMERICAN RESIDENTS] - -It was sixteen years after his death that a hero-worshipping friend was -brave enough to commission an artist to design a statue to his memory. -On the neck of this statue the artist hung the representation of a -miniature in the shape of a medallion, which had been given to Bolivar -by the family of Washington. On the reverse was a lock of Washington’s -hair and the inscription, “This portrait of the founder of liberty in -North America is presented by his adopted son to him who has acquired -equal glory in South America.” - -Some one asked why the artist had stripped from the breast of Bolivar -all of the other medals and stars that had been given him by -different countries in the hour of his triumph, and the artist answered -that he had done as his patron and the friend of Bolivar thought would -best please his hero. And ever after that it was decreed that every -bust or statue or engraving of the Liberator should show him with this -portrait of Washington hanging by a ribbon about his neck; and so you -will see in the National Portrait Gallery that while the coats of his -lieutenants glitter with orders and crosses, Bolivar’s bears this -medal only. It was his greatest pride, and he considered it his chief -glory. And the manner of its bestowal was curiously appropriate. In -1824 General Lafayette returned to this country as the guest of the -nation, and a banquet was given to him by Congress, at which the memory -of Washington and the deeds of his French lieutenant were honored -again and again. It was while the enthusiasm and rejoicings of this -celebration were at their height that Henry Clay rose in his place and -asked the six hundred Americans before him to remember that while they -were enjoying the benefits of free institutions founded by the bravery -and patriotism of their fore-fathers, their cousins and neighbors in -the southern continent were struggling to obtain that same independence. - -[Illustration: SIMON BOLIVAR] - -“No nation, no generous Lafayette,” he cried, “has come to their -aid; alone and without help they have sustained their glorious cause, -trusting to its justice, and with the assistance only of their bravery, -their deserts, and their Andes--and one man, Simon Bolivar, the -Washington of South America.” - -[Illustration: VIEW OF LA GUAYRA] - -And you can imagine the six hundred Americans jumping to their feet -and cheering the name of the young soldier, and the French marquis -eagerly asking that he might be the one to send him some token of their -sympathy and admiration. Lafayette forwarded the portrait of Washington -to Bolivar, who valued it so highly that the people who loved him -valued the man he worshipped; and to-day you will see in Caracas -streets and squares and houses named after Washington, and portraits -of Washington crossing the Delaware, and Washington on horseback, and -Washington at Mount Vernon, hanging in almost every shop and café in -the capital. And the next time you ride in Central Park you might turn -your bicycle, or tell the man on the box to turn the horses, into that -little curtain of trees, and around the hill where the odd-looking -statue stands, and see if you cannot feel some sort of sympathy and pay -some tribute to this young man who loved like a hero, and who fought -like a hero, with the fierceness of the tropical sun above him, and -whose inspiration was the calm, grave parent of your own country. - -Bolivar’s country is the republic of South America that stands nearest -to New York, and when people come to know more concerning it, I am sure -they will take to visiting it and its capital, the “Paris of South -America,” in the winter months, as they now go to southern Europe or to -the Mediterranean. - -There are many reasons for their doing so. In the first place, it can -be reached in less than six days, and it is the only part of South -America to which one can go without first crossing the Isthmus of -Panama and then taking a long trip down the western coast, or sailing -for nearly a month along the eastern coast; and it is a wonderfully -beautiful country, and its cities of Caracas and Valencia are typical -of the best South-American cities. When you have seen them you have -an intelligent idea of what the others are like; and when you read -about revolutions in Rio Janeiro, or Valparaiso, or Buenos Ayres, you -will have in your mind’s eye the background for all of these dramatic -uprisings, and you will feel superior to other people who do not know -that the republic of Venezuela is larger than France, Spain, and -Portugal together, and that the inhabitants of this great territory are -less in number than those of New York city. - -[Illustration: THE RAILROAD UP THE MOUNTAIN] - -La Guayra is the chief seaport of Venezuela. It lies at the edge of a -chain of great mountains, where they come down to wet their feet in the -ocean, and Caracas, the capital, is stowed away three thousand feet -higher up behind these mountains, and could only be bombarded in time -of war by shells that would rise like rockets and drop on the other -side of the mountains, and so cover a distance quite nine miles away -from the vessel that fired them. Above La Guayra, on the hill, is a -little fortress which was once the residence of the Spanish governor -when Venezuela was a colony of Spain. It is of interest now chiefly -because Charles Kingsley describes it in _Westward Ho!_ as the fortress -in which the Rose of Devon was imprisoned. Past this fortress, and up -over the mountains to the capital, are a mule-trail and an ancient -wagon-road and a modern railway. - -It is a very remarkable railroad; its tracks cling to the perpendicular -surface of the mountain like the tiny tendrils of a vine on a -stone-wall, and the trains creep and crawl along the edge of its -precipices, or twist themselves into the shape of a horseshoe magnet, -so that the engineer on the locomotive can look directly across a -bottomless chasm into the windows of the last car. The view from this -train, while it pants and puffs on its way to the capital, is the most -beautiful combination of sea and plain and mountain that I have ever -seen. There are higher mountains and more beautiful, perhaps, but -they run into a brown prairie or into a green plain; and there are as -beautiful views of the ocean, only you have to see them from the level -of the ocean itself, or from a chalk-cliff with the downs behind you -and the white sand at your feet. But nowhere else in the world have I -seen such magnificent and noble mountains running into so beautiful and -green a plain, and beyond that the great blue stretches of the sea. -When you look down from the car-platform you see first, stretching -three thousand feet below you, the great green ribs of the mountain and -its valleys and waterways leading into a plain covered with thousands -and thousands of royal palms, set so far apart that you can distinguish -every broad leaf and the full length of the white trunk. Among these -are the red-roofed and yellow villages, and beyond them again the white -line of breakers disappearing and reappearing against the blue as -though some one were wiping out a chalk-line and drawing it in again, -and then the great ocean weltering in the heat and stretching as far as -the eye can see, and touching a sky so like it in color that the two -are joined in a curtain of blue on which the ships seem to lie flat, -like painted pictures on a wall. - -[Illustration: COURT-YARD OF A HOUSE IN CARACAS] - -You pass through clouds on your way up that leave the trees and -rocks along the track damp and shining as after a heavy dew, and -at some places you can peer through them from the steps of the car -down a straight fall of three thousand feet. When you have climbed -to the top of the mountain, you see below you on the other side the -beautiful valley in which lies the city of Caracas, cut up evenly by -well-kept streets, and diversified by the towers of churches and public -buildings and open plazas, with the white houses and gardens of the -coffee-planters lying beyond the city at the base of the mountains. - -Venezuela, after our experiences of Central America, was like a -return to civilization after months on the alkali plains of Texas. We -found Caracas to be a Spanish-American city of the first class, with a -suggestion of the boulevards, and Venezuela a country that possessed -a history of her own, and an Academy of wise men and artists, and a -Pantheon for her heroes. I suppose we should have known that this was -so before we visited Venezuela; but as we did not, we felt as though -we were discovering a new country for ourselves. It was interesting to -find statues of men of whom none of us had ever heard, and who were -distinguished for something else than military successes, men who had -made discoveries in science and medicine, and who had written learned -books; to find the latest devices for comfort of a civilized community, -and with them the records of a fierce struggle for independence, a long -period of disorganization, where the Church had the master-hand, and -then a rapid advance in the habits and customs of enlightened nations. -There are the most curious combinations and contrasts, showing on -one side a pride of country and an eagerness to emulate the customs -of stable governments, and on the other evidences of the Southern -hot-blooded temperament and dislike of restraint. - -On the corner of the principal plaza stands the cathedral, with a -tower. Ten soldiers took refuge in this tower four years ago, during -the last revolution, and they made so determined a fight from that -point of vantage that in order to dislodge them it was found necessary -to build a fire in the tower and smoke them out with the fumes of -sulphur. These ten soldiers were the last to make a stand within the -city, and when they fell, from the top of the tower, smothered to -death, the revolution was at an end. This incident of warfare is of -value when you contrast the thing done with its environment, and know -that next to the cathedral-tower are confectionery-shops such as you -find on Regent Street or upper Broadway, that electric lights surround -the cathedral, and that tram-cars run past it on rails sunk below the -surface of the roadway and over a better street than any to be found in -New York city. - -[Illustration: THE MARKET OF CARACAS] - -Even without acquaintances among the people of the capital there are -enough public show-places in Caracas to entertain a stranger for a -fortnight. It is pleasure enough to walk the long, narrow streets under -brilliantly colored awnings, between high one- and two-story houses, -painted in blues and pinks and greens, and with overhanging red-tiled -roofs and projecting iron balconies and open iron-barred windows, -through which you gain glimpses beyond of cool interiors and beautiful -courts and gardens filled with odd-looking plants around a splashing -fountain. - -The ladies of Caracas seem to spend much of their time sitting at -these windows, and are always there in the late afternoons, when they -dress themselves and arrange their hair for the evening, and put a -little powder on their faces, and take their places in the cushioned -window-seats as though they were in their box at the opera. And though -they are within a few inches of the passers-by on the pavement, they -can look through them and past them, and are as oblivious of their -presence as though they were invisible. In the streets are strings of -mules carrying bags of coffee or buried beneath bales of fodder, and -jostled by open fiacres, with magnificent coachmen on the box-seat -in top-boots and gold trimmings to their hats and coats, and many -soldiers, on foot and mounted, hurrying along at a quick step in -companies, or strolling leisurely alone. They wear blue uniforms with -scarlet trousers and facings, and the president’s body-guard are in -white duck and high black boots, and are mounted on magnificent horses. - -[Illustration: VIEW OF CARACAS] - -There are three great buildings in Caracas--the Federal Palace, the -Opera-house, and the Pantheon, which was formerly a church, and which -has been changed into a receiving-vault and a memorial for the great -men of the country. Here, after three journeys, the bones of Bolivar -now rest. The most interesting of these buildings is the Federal -Palace. It is formed around a great square filled with flowers and -fountains, and lit with swinging electric lights. It is the handsomest -building in Caracas, and within its four sides are the chambers of -the upper and lower branches of the legislature, the offices of -the different departments of state, and the reception-hall of the -president, in which is the National Portrait Gallery. The palace is -light and unsubstantial-looking, like a canvas palace in a theatre, -and suggests the casino at a French watering-place. It is painted in -imitation of stone, and the statues are either of plaster-of-paris or -of wood, painted white to represent marble. But the theatrical effect -is in keeping with the colored walls and open fronts of the other -buildings of the city, and is not out of place in this city of such -dramatic incidents. - -[Illustration: PRESIDENT CRESPO, OF VENEZUELA] - -The portraits in the state-room of the palace immortalize the -features of fierce-looking, dark-faced generals, with old-fashioned -high-standing collars of gold-braid, and green uniforms. Strange and -unfamiliar names are printed beneath these portraits, and appear -again painted in gold letters on a roll of honor which hangs from the -ceiling, and which faces a list of the famous battles for independence. -High on this roll of honor are the names “General O’Leary” and “Colonel -Fergurson,” and among the portraits are the faces of two blue-eyed, -red-haired young men, with fair skin and broad chests and shoulders, -one wearing the close-clipped whiskers of the last of the -Georges, and the other the long Dundreary whiskers of the Crimean wars. -Whether the Irish general and the English colonel gave their swords -for the sake of the cause of independence or fought for the love of -fighting, I do not know, but they won the love of the Spanish-Americans -by the service they rendered, no matter what their motives may have -been for serving. Many people tell you proudly that they are descended -from “O’Leari,” and the names of the two foreigners are as conspicuous -on pedestals and tablets of honor as are their smiling blue eyes -and red cheeks among the thin-visaged, dark-skinned faces of their -brothers-in-arms. - -[Illustration: LEGISLATIVE BUILDING, CARACAS] - -At one end of the room is an immense painting of a battle, and the -other is blocked by as large a picture showing Bolivar dictating to -members of Congress, who have apparently ridden out into the field to -meet him, and are holding an impromptu session beneath the palm leaves -of an Indian hut. The dome of the chamber, which latter is two hundred -feet in length, is covered with an immense panorama, excellently well -done, showing the last of the battles of the Venezuelans against -the Spaniards, in which the figures are life-size and the action -most spirited, and the effect of color distinctly decorative. These -paintings in the National Gallery would lead you to suppose that there -was nothing but battles in the history of Venezuela, and that her -great men were all soldiers, but the talent of the artists who have -painted these scenes and the actors in them corrects the idea. Among -these artists are Arturo Michelena, who has exhibited at the World’s -Fair, and frequently at the French Salon, from which institution he has -received a prize, M. Tovar y Tovar, A. Herrea Toro, and Cristobal Rojas. - -[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT’S BODY-GUARD OF COWBOYS] - -It was that “Illustrious American, Guzman Blanco,” one of the -numerous presidents of Venezuela, and probably the best known, who -was responsible for most of the public buildings of the capital. -These were originally either convents or monasteries, which he -converted, after his war with the Church, into the Federal Palace, the -Opera-house, and a university. Each of these structures covers so much -valuable ground, and is situated so advantageously in the very heart -of the city, that one gets a very good idea of how powerful the Church -element must have been before Guzman overthrew it. - -He was a peculiar man, apparently, and possessed of much force and -of a progressive spirit, combined with an overmastering vanity. The -city was at its gayest under his régime, and he encouraged the arts -and sciences by creating various bodies of learned men, by furnishing -the nucleus for a national museum, by subsidizing the Opera-house, -and by granting concessions to foreign companies which were of quite -too generous a nature to hold good, and which now greatly encumber -and embarrass his successors. But while he was president, and before -he went to live in luxurious exile on the Avenue Kléber, which seems -to be the resting-place of all South-American presidents, he did much -to make the country prosperous and its capital attractive, and he was -determined that the people should know that he was the individual who -accomplished these things. With this object he had fifteen statues -erected to himself in different parts of the city, and more tablets -than one can count. Each statue bore an inscription telling that it -was erected to that “Illustrious American, Guzman Blanco,” and every -new bridge and road and public building bore a label to say that it was -Guzman Blanco who was responsible for its existence. The idea of a man -erecting statues to himself struck the South-American mind as extremely -humorous, and one night all the statues were sawed off at the ankles, -and to-day there is not one to be seen, and only raw places in the -walls to show where the memorial tablets hung. But you cannot wipe out -history by pulling down columns or effacing inscriptions, and Guzman -Blanco undoubtedly did do much for his country, even though at the same -time he was doing a great deal for Guzman Blanco. - -[Illustration: BAPTIZING INDIANS AT A VENEZUELAN STATION AT THE CUYUNI -RIVER] - -Guzman was followed in rapid succession by three or four other -presidents and dictators, who filled their pockets with millions -and then fled the country, only waiting until their money was first -safely out of it. Then General Crespo, who had started his revolution -with seven men, finally overthrew the government’s forces, and was -elected president, and has remained in office ever since. To set -forth with seven followers to make yourself president of a country as -large as France, Portugal, and Spain together requires a great deal -of confidence and courage. General Crespo is a fighter, and possesses -both. It was either he or one of his generals--the story is told -of both--who, when he wanted arms for his cowboys, bade them take off -their shirts and grease their bodies and rush through the camp of the -enemy in search of them. He told them to hold their left hands out -as they ran, and whenever their fingers slipped on a greased body -they were to pass it by, but when they touched a man wearing a shirt -they were to cut him down with their machetes. In this fashion three -hundred of his plainsmen routed two thousand of the regular troops, -and captured all of their rifles and ammunition. The idea that when -you want arms the enemy is the best person from whom to take them is -excellent logic, and that charge of the half-naked men, armed only with -their knives, through the sleeping camp is Homeric in its magnificence. - -Crespo is more at home when fighting in the field than in the -council-chamber of the Yellow House, which is the White House of the -republic; but that may be because he prefers fighting to governing, -and a man generally does best what he likes best to do. He is as -simple in his habits to-day as when he was on the march with his seven -revolutionists, and goes to bed at eight in the evening, and is deep in -public business by four the next morning; many an unhappy minister has -been called to an audience at sunrise. The president neither smokes nor -drinks; he is grave and dignified, with that dignity which enormous -size gives, and his greatest pleasure is to take a holiday and visit -his ranch, where he watches the round-up of his cattle and gallops -over his thousands of acres. He is the idol of the cowboys, and has a -body-guard composed of some of the men of this class. I suppose they -are very much like our own cowboys, but the citizens of the capital -look upon them as the Parisians regarded Napoleon’s Mamelukes, and tell -you in perfect sincerity that when they charge at night their eyes -flash fire in a truly terrifying manner. - -[Illustration: A TYPICAL HUNTING-PARTY IN VENEZUELA] - -I saw the president but once, and then but for a few moments. He was -at the Yellow House and holding a public reception, to which every one -was admitted with a freedom that betokened absolute democracy. When my -turn came he talked awhile through Colonel Bird, our consul, but there -was no chance for me to gain any idea of him except that he was very -polite, as are all Venezuelans, and very large. They tell a story of -him which illustrates his character. He was riding past the university -when a group of students hooted and jeered at him, not because of his -politics, but because of his origin. A policeman standing by, aroused -to indignation by this insult to the president, fired his revolver into -the crowd. Crespo at once ordered the man’s arrest for shooting at a -citizen with no sufficient provocation, and rode on his way without -even giving a glance at his tormentors. The incident seemed to show -that he was too big a man to allow the law to be broken even in his own -defence, or, at least, big enough not to mind the taunts of ill-bred -children. - -The boys of the university are taken very seriously by the people of -Caracas, as are all boys in that country, where a child is listened -to, if he be a male child, with as much grave politeness as though -it were a veteran who was speaking. The effect is not good, and the -boys, especially of the university, grow to believe that they are very -important factors in the affairs of the state, when, as a matter of -fact, they are only the cat’s-paws of clever politicians, who use them -whenever they want a demonstration and do not wish to appear in it -themselves. So these boys are sent forth shouting into the streets, and -half the people cheer them on, and the children themselves think they -are patriots or liberators, or something equally important. - -I obtained a rather low opinion of them because they stoned an -unfortunate American photographer who was taking pictures in the -quadrangles, and because I was so far interested in them as to get -a friend of mine to translate for me the sentences and verses they -had written over the walls of their college. The verses were of a -political character, but so indecent that the interpreter was much -embarrassed; the single sentences were attacks, anonymous, of course, -on fellow-students. As the students of the University of Venezuela step -directly from college life into public life, their training is of some -interest and importance. And I am sure that the Venezuelan fathers -would do much better by their sons if they would cease to speak of -the university in awe-stricken tones as “the hot-bed of liberty,” but -would rather take away the boys’ revolvers and teach them football, -and thrash them soundly whenever they caught them soiling the walls of -their alma mater with nasty verses. - -[Illustration: A CLEARING IN THE COUNTRY] - -There are some beautiful drives around Caracas, out in the country -among the coffee plantations, and one to a public garden that overlooks -the city, upon which President Crespo has spent much thought and money. -But the most beautiful feature of Caracas, and one that no person who -has visited that place will ever forget, is the range of mountains -above it, which no president can improve. They are smooth and bare -of trees and of a light-green color, except in the waterways, where -there are lines of darker green, and the clouds change their aspect -continually, covering them with shadows or floating over them from -valley to valley, and hovering above a high peak like the white smoke -of a volcano. - -I do not know of a place that will so well repay a visit as Caracas, -or a country that is so well worth exploring as Venezuela. To a -sportsman it is a paradise. You can shoot deer within six miles of -the Opera-house, and in six hours beyond Macuto you can kill panther, -and as many wild boars as you wish. No country in South America is -richer in such natural products as cocoa, coffee, and sugar-cane. And -in the interior there is a vast undiscovered and untouched territory -waiting for the mining engineer, the professional hunter, and the -breeder of cattle. - -The government of Venezuela at the time of our visit to Caracas -was greatly troubled on account of her boundary dispute with Great -Britain, and her own somewhat hasty action in sending three foreign -ministers out of the country for daring to criticise her tardiness in -paying foreign debts and her neglect in not holding to the terms of -concessions. These difficulties, the latter of which were entirely of -her own making, were interesting to us as Americans, because the talk -on all sides showed that in the event of a serious trouble with any -foreign power Venezuela looked confidently to the United States for -aid. Now, since President Cleveland’s so-called “war” message has been -written, she is naturally even more liable to go much further than -she would dare go if she did not think the United States was back of -her. Her belief in the sympathy of our government is also based on -many friendly acts in the past: on the facts that General Miranda, the -soldier who preceded Bolivar, and who was a friend of Hamilton, Fox, -and Lafayette, first learned to hope for the independence of South -America during the battle for independence in our own country; that -when the revolution began, in 1810, it was from the United States that -Venezuela received her first war material; that two years later, when -the earthquake of 1812 destroyed twenty thousand people, the United -States Congress sent many ship-loads of flour to the survivors of the -disaster; and that as late as 1888 our Congress again showed its good -feeling by authorizing the secretary of the navy to return to Venezuela -on a ship of war the body of General Paez, who died in exile in New -York city, and by appointing a committee of congressmen and senators to -represent the government at his public funeral. - -[Illustration: THE CUYUNI RIVER - -With View of the English Station that was sacked by Venezuelan Troops, -and from which Inspector Barnes was taken Prisoner] - -All of these expressions of good-will in the past count for something -as signs that the United States may be relied upon in the future, but -it is a question whether she will be willing to go as far as Venezuela -expects her to go. Venezuela’s hope of aid, and her conviction, which -is shared by all the Central-American republics, that the United -States is going to help her and them in the hour of need, is based -upon what they believe to be the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine -as we understand it is a very different thing from the Monroe Doctrine -as they understand it; and while their reading of it is not so -important as long as we know what it means and enforce it, there is -danger nevertheless in their way of looking at it, for, according -to their point of view, the Monroe Doctrine is expected to cover a -multitude of their sins. President Monroe said that we should “consider -any attempt on the part of foreign powers to extend their system to any -portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety, and -that we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing -those governments that had declared their independence, or controlling -in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other -light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition to the -United States.” - -He did not say that if a Central-American republic banished a British -consul, or if Venezuela told the foreign ministers to leave the country -on the next steamer, that the United States would back them up with -force of arms. - -[Illustration: VENEZUELAN STATION ON THE CUYUNI RIVER - -The Barracks and House in which the English Police were confined] - -Admiral Meade’s squadron touched at La Guayra while we were at the -capital, the squadron visiting the port at that time in obedience -to the schedule already laid out for it in Washington some months -previous, just as a theatrical company plays a week’s stand at the -time and at the place arranged for it in advance by its agent, but -the Venezuelans did not consider this, and believed that the squadron -had been sent there to intimidate the British and to frighten the -French and German men-of-war which were then expected in port to convey -their dismissed ministers back to their own countries. One of the -most intelligent men that I met in Caracas, and one closely connected -with the Foreign Office, told me he had been to La Guayra to see our -squadron, and that the admiral had placed his ships of war in the -harbor in such a position that at a word he could blow the French and -German boats out of the water. I suggested to one Venezuelan that there -were other ways of dismissing foreign ministers than that of telling -them to pack up and get out of the country in a week, and that I did -not think the Monroe Doctrine meant that South-American republics could -affront foreign nations with impunity. He answered me by saying that -the United States had aided Mexico when Maximilian tried to found an -empire in that country, and he could not see that the cases were not -exactly similar. - -[Illustration: ENGLISH STATION ON THE CUYUNI RIVER - -Inspector Barnes, Chief of the English Police who were captured by the -Venezuelan troops, is seated on the steps] - -They will, however, probably understand better what the Monroe Doctrine -really is before their boundary dispute with Great Britain is settled, -and Great Britain will probably know more about it also, for it is -possible that there never was a case when the United States needed -to watch her English cousins more closely than in this international -dispute over the boundary-line between Venezuela and British Guiana. -If England succeeds it means a loss to Venezuela of a territory as -large as the State of New York, and of gold deposits which are believed -to be the richest in South America, and, what is more important, it -means the entire control by the English of the mouth and four hundred -miles of the Orinoco River. The question is one of historical records -and maps, and nothing else. Great Britain fell heir to the rights -formerly possessed by Holland. Venezuela obtained by conquest the lands -formerly owned by Spain. The problem to be solved is to find what were -the possessions of Holland and Spain, and so settle what is to-day -the territory of England and Venezuela. Year after year Great Britain -has pushed her way westward, until she has advanced her claims over a -territory of forty thousand square miles, and has included Barima Point -at the entrance to the Orinoco. She has refused positively, through -Lord Salisbury, to recede or to arbitrate, and it is impossible for any -one at this writing to foretell what the outcome will be. If the Monroe -Doctrine does not apply in this case, it has never meant anything in -the past, and will not mean much in the future. - -[Illustration: DR. PEDRO EZEQUIEL ROJAS - -Minister of Foreign Affairs] - -[Illustration: MAP EXPLAINING VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE] - -Personally, although the original Monroe Doctrine distinctly designates -“this hemisphere,” and not merely this continent, I cannot think the -principle of this doctrine should be applied in this instance. For if -it does apply, it could be extended to other disputes much farther -south, and we might have every republic in South America calling on -us for aid in matters which could in no possible way affect either the -honor or the prosperity of our country. - -[Illustration: THE CITY OF CARACAS] - -In any event the Monroe Doctrine is distinctly a selfish one, so far, -at least, as all rules for self-preservation must be selfish, and I -should prefer to think that we are interfering in behalf of Venezuela, -not because we ourselves are threatened by the encroachments of Great -Britain, but because we cannot stand by and see a weak power put upon -by one of the greatest. It may be true, as the foreign powers have -pointed out, that the aggressions of Great Britain are none of our -business, but as we have made them our business, it concerns no one -except Great Britain and ourselves, and now having failed to avoid the -entrance to a quarrel, and being in, we must bear ourselves so that the -enemy may beware of us, and see that we issue forth again with honor, -and without having stooped to the sin of war. - -Caracas was the last city we visited on our tour, and perhaps it is -just as well that this was so, for had we gone there in the first place -we might have been in Caracas still. It is easy to understand why it -is attractive. While you were slipping on icy pavements and drinking -in pneumonia and the grippe, and while the air was filled with flying -particles of ice and snow, and the fog-bound tugs on the East River -were shrieking and screeching to each other all through the night, -we were sitting out-of-doors in the Plaza de Bolivar, looking up at -the big statue on its black marble pedestal, under the shade of green -palms and in the moonlight, with a band of fifty pieces playing Spanish -music, and hundreds of officers in gold uniforms, and pretty women -with no covering to their heads but a lace mantilla, circling past in -an endless chain of color and laughter and movement. Back of us beyond -the trees the cafés sent out through their open fronts the noise of -tinkling glasses and the click of the billiard-balls and a flood of -colored light, and beyond us on the other side rose the towers and -broad façade of the cathedral, white and ghostly in the moonlight, and -with a single light swinging in the darkness through the open door. - -In the opinion of three foreigners, Caracas deserves her title of -the Paris of South America; and there was only one other title that -appealed to us more as we saw the shores of La Guayra sink into the -ocean behind us and her cloud-wrapped mountains disappear, and that, it -is not necessary to explain, was “the Paris of North America,” which -stretches from Bowling Green to High Bridge. - - -THE END - - - - -IMPORTANT WORKS OF TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION. - - - =From the Black Sea through Persia and India.= Written and - Illustrated by EDWIN LORD WEEKS. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt - Top, $3 50. - - =Venezuela=: A Land where it’s always Summer. 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Post 8vo, - Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00. - - =On Canada’s Frontier.= By JULIAN RALPH. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 - 50. - - =Our Great West.= By JULIAN RALPH. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. - - -Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York - -_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be mailed by -the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._ - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[A] Since this was written, Professor S. H. Woodbridge, of the -Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been successful in having a -bill passed which hinders the lottery still further by closing to it -apparently every avenue of advertisement and correspondence. - -The lottery people in consequence are at present negotiating with the -government of Venezuela, and have offered it fifty thousand dollars a -year and a share of the earnings for its protection. - -[B] Guiteris died a few months after our visit. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE GRINGOS IN VENEZUELA AND -CENTRAL AMERICA *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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