End Papers.Drawn from ancient American originals by MissAnnie Hunter.Photogravures.By theSwan Electric Engraving Company.Chromolithographs.ByW. Griggs & Sons, Ltd.Etchings on Tissue.By theTypographic Etching Company.Index.By MissM. H. James.
End Papers.Drawn from ancient American originals by MissAnnie Hunter.
Photogravures.By theSwan Electric Engraving Company.
Chromolithographs.ByW. Griggs & Sons, Ltd.
Etchings on Tissue.By theTypographic Etching Company.
Index.By MissM. H. James.
Page151,forBrockleyreadBlockley.”4,”dosing”dozing.”191,”Izamal”Yzamal.”176,”Manakin”Manikin.”81,”Mosos”Mozos.”72,”Patzum”Patzun.”190,”Stevens”Stephens.”85,”Ututlan”Utatlan.
We left England early in October, 1893, and on the 13th November found ourselves in San Francisco. Our passages were taken in a steamer advertised to sail from that Port on the 18th of the month for San José de Guatemala, but no sooner had we set foot in the Palace Hotel, than the Influenza fiend seized us both; so we were obliged to give up our cabins in the steamer, and, as soon as we were well enough to travel, were ordered by the doctor to leave San Francisco and its cold winds for the more agreeable climate of Monterey. The railroad took us in four hours through the fruitful plain of San Joaquin, and landed us almost at the door of the Hotel del Monte, a huge low wooden building standing in the midst of a grove of magnificent evergreen oak trees, and surrounded by beautiful flower-gardens and exquisite green grass. The many porticos and verandahs were bowers of roses and heliotrope and every variety of creeper, and the garden beds were brilliant with magnificent dahlias and chrysanthemums and numberless smaller flowers.
Chinese gardeners could be seen in all directions tending the plants, and watering the lawn-grass to keep it fresh and green, in striking contrastto the yellow stubble which during the dry season covers the face of the surrounding country.
The Hotel del Monte is a favourite winter resort of people from the Eastern States as well as from California, and it would be difficult to imagine a more attractive place in which to seek health, warmth, or pleasure. Everything possible seems to be provided for the amusement and comfort of the guests; but in the late autumn it is almost deserted, and the dozen of us who sat down to dinner were lost in the huge dining-room built to accommodate nearly two thousand guests. We found many attractive walks in the neighbourhood, either across the great sand-dunes down to the fine hard sea-beach, or up amongst the beautiful groves of immense live-oaks and cedars with which the place abounds.
One morning on coming down to breakfast we were told that we were wanted at the telephone, and found that an old friend, Professor Holden, was speaking to us from the top of Mount Hamilton and bidding us to visit him at the great Lick Observatory, of which he has the charge. It was with regret that we left the enchanting land of flowers and green grass; but our time was short and the prospect of seeing the stars through the biggest telescope in the world was too attractive to be missed. So, following the directions conveyed by telephone, we took the train to the town of San José, where we passed the night, and on the following morning, in a pouring rain, packed away in a two-horse wagon with a high top and heavy leather curtains buttoned down to keep out the wet, we began the six hours’ journey up the mountain.
There was nothing to be seen but fog and smoking horses, and although, as usual, we were assured that the weather was most exceptional, no one attempted to predict anything better; and, indeed, it grew worse and worse until our arrival at the top of the mountain, when it was difficult to see more than a few yards around us, and we seemed to be standing on a small point of rock while the world below was filled with cold whirling mist, which penetrated to the marrow of our bones.
During our three days’ visit, once only, for a brief hour, did the clouds break and show us to the east the great mountains rising to the height of the Sierra Nevada, and to the west the broad plain we had crossed, which, protected by a low range of hills from the cold sea winds, yields that abundance of fruits which, fresh or preserved, yearly finds its way to foreign markets. Towards the north we could see the smoke of San Francisco, and even in the partial clearness make out the ships lying in the harbour.
Despite the bad weather our visit was made most enjoyable, but it was a real disappointment not to get so much as a peep through the greattelescope. However, we could not afford to miss another steamer, as that would have meant losing too much of the dry season in Guatemala. So reluctantly bidding our host good-bye we went to San Francisco, still followed by clouds and fog, which not only detained the steamer for twenty hours in the harbour, but clung to us tenaciously until we had been at sea five days and had run over a thousand miles.
Our ship, the ‘San Juan,’ belongs to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and runs between San Francisco and Panama in connection with the steamers sailing from Colon to New York. The accommodation was fairly good, but she carried too much deck cargo for comfort or safety, and one felt that she might labour dangerously in a heavy sea. Since our return the news has reached us of the wreck of the steamship ’Colima’ of the same line, occasioned by the shifting of the deck cargo, and we feel thankful to have been spared the dreadful fate which befell her passengers.
Our fellow voyagers in the ‘San Juan’ were mostly men, Americans and Spanish Americans, and they were distinctly dull. Indeed life on board was monotonous enough to all of us. The Spaniards took their boredom quietly, but it became well nigh intolerable to one Western American, whose talk was of twenty-storied houses and other boasted signs of progress at his own home, and who was now bound for Guatemala, where he apparently hoped to make a rapid fortune by running trolley-cars on the streets of the capital and generally electrifying the city.
The first few days of the voyage were certainly dull enough to tax anyone’s spirits; but when we were about 200 miles north of Cape St. Lucas the dark pall of clouds broke away, and the sun burst out in all his glory, changing the sea from a leaden grey to a wonderful blue; awnings were stretched over the decks, and we lay languidly in our chairs watching the changing shadows, while the great rollers of the Pacific gently rocked the ship, and soft warm winds blew over us. So soothing and delicious a motion I had never before experienced at sea, and in spite of my rooted objection to a ship I fell a victim to the lazy charm that seemed to hold sea and vessel in a sort of magic spell, and for the first time in my life I thoroughly enjoyed a sea voyage.
Soon we came in sight of the black-looking foothills of the Mexican coast. As we slowly sailed into the tropics, they lost their bareness, and became clothed with a rich vegetation, and then fringed with bananas and cocoanut-palms. Gradually rising higher, the hills grew into mountainous masses broken by volcanic peaks, and from one lofty cone a wreath of smoke drifted languidly on the breeze.
As the temperature of air and water grew warmer the sea became alivewith flying-fish, and shoals of dolphins, four or five hundred together, played round our bows or dashed across our course, leaping and throwing up the water in fountains of spray. Large turtles floated past lying asleep on the surface of the water, their shining backs catching the sunlight and reflecting it like mirrors. The sea-birds regarded them as convenient resting-places, and almost every sleeping turtle carried on his back a dozing bird which flapped lazily away, apparently shocked at the behaviour of the turtle when the approach of our ship caused him to take a sudden dive below.
All day the sea and its inhabitants yielded us endless amusement; the evenings were gorgeous with tropical sunsets and the nights revealed a brilliancy and glory in moon and stars that surpassed all my imaginings. We sat up late watching the north star sinking lower and lower, and marking the rise of strange constellations towards the south.
It must be remembered that I am a very bad sailor, that my experience of sea voyages had been confined to many rough and wintry passages across the North Atlantic, and that all the softness and colour and beauty of a tropical ocean broke on me like a revelation.
Our first port was San Blas, on the Mexican side of the Gulf of California. It boasts no harbour, so that we dropped anchor in the open roadstead, and lay as near shore as safety permitted, rocked by the big rollers of the restless Pacific as they passed to break on the sandy beaches and rugged cliffs of the coast. A few thatched cottages were clustered round the Custom House, and others were dotted along the beach half-hidden amongst cocoanut-palms and bananas and a tangle of tropical vegetation, whilst behind them rose a fine mass of mountains clothed in the softest imaginable shades of green with lovely blue distances stretching for miles into the interior. Big picturesque boats, rowed by Mexicans in huge broad hats and clean white shirts and trousers, came to deliver and take back cargo, and to supply us with fruits and vegetables. With our glasses we watched the great dexterity with which the boats were handled and guided safely through the heavy surf.
It was rather late in the day when we weighed anchor, and sailing close in shore we could entertain ourselves until dark marking the varied play of light and shade on the rocky shore as the sun sank, and watching the pelicans perched on every point and ledge of rock, some idly sunning themselves out of reach of the spray, but the majority choosing to stand where the surging waves could just wash over their feet, whilst others wheeled overhead in slow heavy flight searching for their food. It was an exciting moment when a great bird high up in the air would suddenly fold his wings together and fall with a splash on the water, whilst his long neck and beak were shot outto catch an unwary fish just under the surface; then having secured his supper he would fly away to enjoy it in a safe retreat amongst the rocks.
Sailing under cloudless skies and lovely stars through another night, we arrived at Manzanillo, the port of Colima, proud in the possession of a railway and a weekly train from the port to the city. Here we landed, to enjoy an hour’s walk through the little town, and resting under the trees of the Alameda I had my first glimpse of a tropical garden.
Whilst waiting for the boat to carry us back to the ship we enjoyed the excitement of watching the natives trying to spear a great skate, or devil-fish, as the sailors call it. As soon as the harpoon struck, the cord was attached to a boat, and the fish swam rapidly away towing the boat after him with the greatest ease. The struggle must have already lasted half an hour when we sailed out of the bay and the fish was not yet vanquished. Later in the day we saw one of these monsters jump right out of the sea and with a great flop strike the water again, spreading out his flat proportions like a table, and making a sound like the report of a cannon.
On the evening of December 7th we arrived at the Port of Acapulco, and sailed into the beautiful bay, through a tortuous channel between high cliffs, guided by a feeble light perched on the rocks above us. The sea was a marvel of beauty, glowing with phosphorus, and alive with illuminated fish and dolphins darting about and leaving long streams of light behind them. Through this molten silver sea we glided to our anchorage near the town. As we neared the shore long narrow dug-out canoes lighted by great flaring pitch-pine torches carried by mahogany-coloured boys swarmed out of the darkness, and before the anchor was cast the ship was surrounded by a fringe of bum-boats, filled with fruit, vegetables, and pottery, and presided over by swarthy Mexican men and women.
It was a pretty and amusing scene, and as the bum-boat women and their smuggling propensities were well known to the ship’s crew, a lively fire of chaff and bargaining in a strange jargon of Spanish-English immediately began, and continued, as far as I know, all night. It certainly was a noisy night, and was rendered doubly unpleasant by the arrival of huge coal-barges manned by picturesque little black devils in dirty white garments, carrying flaring torches, who passed the night supplying us with coal and smothering us with dust.
When the sun rose on the next morning the heat was excessive, and as the town itself looked unattractive, and the surrounding country, although beautiful to look at, suggested malaria, we did not attempt to land, but contented ourselves watching the vendors of fruits, who when the day broke were still actively engaged in bargaining. On leaving the harbourbefore noon we hugged the coast even closer than before; so that besides the entertainment afforded by the ocean and its varied and interesting population, we could rest our eyes on the refreshing green vegetation covering the mountains, which pile themselves up, range after range, and on the rocky headlands and shining sand-beaches of the coast-line.
Acapulco: a snapshot over the bulwarksACAPULCO: A SNAPSHOT OVER THE BULWARKS.
ACAPULCO: A SNAPSHOT OVER THE BULWARKS.
Sailors fight shy of the heavy seas in the Gulf of Tehuantepec caused by the northerly winds which rush across the isthmus from the Atlantic; and during the winter months, in spite of the increased distance to be travelled, they gain all the shelter they can by hugging the shore. On this occasion there was no exception to the rule. The weather had been hot, cloudless, and calm, but as soon as we entered the gulf we felt a quick fall in temperature and a distinct increase in the motion. When about halfway round the gulf, we dimly discerned on the horizon the beginnings of the long line of mountains and volcanoes which follow the coast almost from Tehuantepec to Panama. Gradually as we sailed nearer individual volcanic peaks roseabove the broken mass: first Tacaná and Tajumulco, the highest of them all, and then the crests of Santa Maria and Atitlan, and last of all we could recognize the soft outlines of Agua and Fuego, shaded by fleecy wrappings of cloud, and knew that our voyage was near its end.
In full view of this grand panorama of mountains we cast anchor at the port of Champerico, where for many long hot hours we lay rolling in the heavy ground-swell of the open roadstead, while discharging and taking in cargo and waiting for the passengers to come on board. The town wasen fiestaon account of the visit of General Barrios, President of Guatemala, and his staff, who were to be our fellow-passengers to the port of San José. Several ships lying in the roadstead were dressed with flags, and even our dirty old steamer did her best in the way of bunting to do honour to so distinguished a guest. We tried to be duly impressed by the festivities and rejoicings, but the grand blaze of blue lights and showers of rockets which followed us out to sea hardly compensated for loss of time and the general discomfort of an overcrowded ship. The President’s party took entire possession of everything; they sprawled all over the decks, went to sleep in our two deck chairs, and succeeded in breaking both of them. Fortunately, a short night’s sail brought us to the port of San José, and also to the end of our pleasant voyage.
Again we anchored in the open sea, and when the time came to go ashore we were each in turn swung over the ship’s side in a chair and deposited with a bump on the top of the other passengers and piles of baggage in a large lighter which swayed alongside. This operation was reversed when we neared the shore, and a cage was lowered from the iron pier which loomed prodigiously and alarmingly high above us, and we were swung up in safety. Thank goodness there was no sea running, only the long undulations of the swell which beats ceaselessly on the coast. Even so, landing was an unpleasant experience, and what it must be on a rough day my mind refuses to contemplate; but one must remember that even the terror of seizing the right moment to scramble from a surging lighter into a heavy iron cage, which at one moment strikes against the bottom of the boat and the next moment hangs threateningly overhead, is preferable to that of the older method when the lighter was dragged through the surf, and the unfortunate passengers landed, soaked and terrified, even if they were lucky enough to escape a capsize and the teeth of hungry sharks.
Going ashore at San José
A long glistening hot sand beach facing south, a background of palm-trees and bananas, a few houses, and an illimitable ocean describes the port of San José. There is not a decent inn in the place, and our condition on seeing the only train for Guatemala leave without us (owing to the delay ingetting our belongings past the custom-house) would have been pitiable, but for the kind hospitality of Colonel Stuart, the agent for the steamship line, who took us into his house on the beach and made us most comfortable for the night.
The next morning we took the train for the capital, distant about 70 miles. Our way lay through a thick growth of wild vegetation, varied by banana-plantations and groves of cocoanut-trees laden with fruit. Every small tree supported a wealth of flowering “morning glories” and other creepers, while big patches of sunflowers filled in the open spaces.
The railway soon began to ascend, and making innumerable turns among the mountains opened up charming views of the tropical forest, and gave us glimpses of the sea and the shining sand beach stretching for miles along the coast. Not the least interesting features in the journey were the endless variety of strange fruits offered us for sale, and the glimpses of native life which we caught at the wayside stations. Through ever-changing scenes, always climbing and winding through the mountains, we reached the pretty lake of Amatitlan, at an elevation of about 4000 feet above the sea, and, rising still another 1000 feet, we arrived late in the afternoon at the city of Guatemala, standing on a level plateau seamed with great ravines, or barrancas as they are here called. Two of these big ravines nearly encircle the city, and as they slowly but surely eat their way backwards threaten to curtail its growth.
City of Guatemala, from the Cerro del CarmenCITY OF GUATEMALA, FROM THE CERRO DEL CARMEN.
CITY OF GUATEMALA, FROM THE CERRO DEL CARMEN.
The city of Guatemala occupies a beautiful position in the middle of a broad plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains and volcanoes. Hill after hill rises to the north until the view is shut in by the distant Sierra Madre range. To the south-east is a volcanic group crowned by the peaks of Pacaya, and above the nearer hills to the south rise the giant cone of Agua and the triple craters of Fuego.
The streets of the city are laid out at right angles, and they gain an appearance of breadth from the lowness of the houses. Two-storied houses are as scarce as earthquakes are frequent, and the long low lines of buildings are broken only by the stumpy bell-towers and squat cupolas of the churches.
Churches and houses alike are white-washed, and the general effect is cheerful and even dazzling in the bright sunlight of the tropics. Street tramways, telegraph and telephone wires, and electric lights are there to keep us up to date; but in spite of their intrusion, it is Old Spain—the Spain of the Moors—which comes uppermost in one’s mind when wandering about the city. The deep-set windows, barred with the heavy iron “reja,” and the broad “zaguan” or porch, through which one catches a glimpse of the arches of a colonnade round a patio bright with flowers or chequered with the grateful shade of trees, take one back at once to the sunny plains of Andalusia. Nothing in the whole city was so attractive to both of us as the great market-place, and there we spent many hours. Every morning the broad streets leading to it were thronged with gaily-dressed ladinos (half-castes) and Indians, and we were even driven by frequent collisions to quit the narrow side-walk for the rough cobble-stones of the street.
The Indians are for the most part carriers of vegetables and other produce from the neighbouring villages, or merchants from a distance, who bring all their merchandise on their backs packed in light wooden crates called “cacastes.” The Indian women from the nearer hamlets also come burdened with large bundles of clean linen which has been washed for the townsfolk, or support baskets on their heads full of cakes and “pan dulce” for sale in the market-place, and many carry an additional burden slung in a shawl over the back, from which peeps out the quaint little face of an Indian baby. To judge from the expression of their faces one would say that the Indians are a dull and solemn race; but this impression vanishes when one hears their lively chatter as they trot along under their burdens, for none but the most heavily laden condescend to the slowness of a walk.
The ladino housekeepers and maid-servants with their bright striped aprons and rebosos add to the crowd, and give it a distinct charm when they poise their large flat baskets on their heads and show their shapely bare arms and pretty hands to advantage. One is not long in the city before hearing the wails of the mistresses at the length of time spent by their servants in buying a few vegetables or a dozen eggs, for, indeed, these handmaidens dearly love the loitering and chatter of the market-place.
The market-place itself is divided into two large patios surrounded and crossed by corridors. Small recesses in the walls are used as shops, like those in an eastern bazaar. Here the vendors of the durable articles ply their trade, offering for sale hardware and saddlery and all the innumerable sacks, bags, ropes, and girths needed for the trains of pack-mules; whilst others deck out their stalls with the bright-coloured dress fabrics so much loved by the natives. Towards the middle of the market-place, where the light fell strongest, colour reigned supreme in the rainbow hues of the women’s dresses and the brilliant tints of the tropical fruits. Here are heaped up mountains of golden oranges, red, yellow, and green bananas, cocoanuts, pine-apples, aguacates, anonas, and tomatoes large and small, jocotes, pimientos, limes, and sweet lemons, great bunches of flowers, endless bundles of green vegetables, and baskets piled high with fresh eggs; in fact the produce of every clime, from potatoes grown on the cold slopes of Agua to the sugar-cane from the hot plains of the Pacific coast.
At Christmas time another market is held in the arcades which surround the great Plaza de Armas, where the women display their handiwork in the manufacture of toys, most of them tiny dolls dressed in the Indian costumes and illustrating the occupations and customs of the race. Some of theselittle groups of figures are so extremely minute that one almost needs a magnifying-glass to examine them, and attest the clearness of vision and neatness of hand of the makers.
The shops and stores of the principal merchants are numerous, and, I suppose, under the circumstances, may be said to be fairly good, but to one coming from Europe or the United States the articles displayed are not very enticing. Most of the foreign goods are of a class which must, I think, be manufactured only for export to a semicivilized country. They do not, however, possess the merit of cheapness, for the exorbitant duties levied at the Custom House would alone more than double their original price. My efforts to buy a good silk veil to wear when travelling, as a protection against the dust, were not crowned with success; and the French modiste from whom I finally purchased a very second-rate article amused me greatly by her description of the difficulties she met with in satisfying the taste of her clients in a country where duties are levied on bonnets and hats by weight, and the boxes and paper in which they are packed are also weighed and charged for at the same rate.
Three-quarters of the foreign trade is in German hands, and many Germans have been wise enough to settle on the rich coffee-lands of the Costa Grande and Costa Cuca on the Pacific slope, and in the province of the Vera Paz, and have made a splendid success of their plantations. Next to the Germans the North Americans are most in evidence, but the English are not to be found.
When the capital was moved to its present site in the year 1774, priests and monks were still a power in the land and the finest buildings in the city were raised by the monastic orders. Now not a monk or friar is to be found in the country, and even the secular clergy are forbidden to wear any distinctive dress. From the time of the rupture with Spain ecclesiastical influence began to decline; it rose again for a time under the rule of the Dictator Carrera, an Indian of pure blood, whom the priests found it worth while to support; but during the wars which followed Carrera’s death it again waned, and in 1872 the last of the great Orders was expelled and its property seized by the government and turned to secular use. The Post Office and Custom House are now lodged in the monastery of San Francisco; the “Instituto Nacional,” a great public school, is well housed in what was once the Jesuit College; the military school is in the Recoletos. The monastery of Santo Domingo harbours the “Direccion general de Licores,” the Capuchinos is utilized for a second theatre, and some of the less important religious houses serve as “mesones” or caravanserais for the muleteers and ladino travellers.
The churches are still left to the secular clergy, and they are as uninteresting as Spanish-American churches are wont to be. Had the conquest occurred but a century earlier America might have been covered with churches worthy of the traditions handed down by the builders of Burgos, Toledo, and Seville, for the supply of labourers was for some time unlimited, the Indians were good craftsmen, and the great monuments of Copan and Quirigua show that curved and drooping feathers may afford a motive for decoration as graceful and beautiful as Gothic foliations; but such art as the Spaniards brought with them was a degraded form of the renaissance, and the innumerable churches which they built are without any architectural merit but mass, the interiors great bare halls, and the façades overloaded with stumpy twisted columns, wavy stucco cornices, and such-like abominations. Not even the ruin into which so many of them have fallen can add a grace to the masses of stucco and rubble. It is only in the villages that they gain a picturesqueness of their own, and that owing more to their surroundings than to any merit in design. However, in their favour it must be said that they are neither dirty nor bad-smelling, partly because they are so little used and partly because in this equable climate doors and windows can be left open all day long.
A few days before Christmas we happened to enter the church of La Merced and chanced upon a vesper service for the Hijas de Maria, sung by a choir of girls and children to the strains of a wheezy harmonium, whilst all did their best to increase the noise by blowing penny whistles, shaking bells and tambourines, and striking triangles. After playing with their penny toys until they were tired, the choir broke into a quaint chant, to which the rest of the congregation responded. During this performance the “Daughters of Mary,” veiled and dressed in white, and each carrying a lighted candle in her hand, knelt at the altar rails, whilst the “Sons of Mary,” with large white ribbon bows tied on their arms, sat in the seats near the choir. This was almost the only ladino church-function which we saw during our stay in the country. In all the other towns and villages the churches seemed to be given over almost exclusively to the Indians.
In our rambles through the suburbs we often found our path barred by the great barrancas which almost surround the town. These big fissures are very beautiful, and we spent many idle and pleasant hours watching the shadows chasing each other across their open green mouths, and enjoying the delicious June temperature which comes to this favoured land at Christmas time. Trees and shrubs loaded with festoons of creeping plants cling to the precipitous sides of these rifts, and now and then one caught a bright gleam where the sunlight struck the rivulet that bubbles through the luxurianttropical vegetation in the depths. The great Zopilote vulture which seems to haunt every barranca would swoop with a whirr of his outstretched wings close above our heads and sail on over the chasm with hardly a quiver in his wings, but with his ugly black head and restless eyes always in eager movement, whilst from below now and again would well up the strong sweet notes of the “guarda barranca,” a small brown bird, who makes his home in the most inaccessible cliffs and deepest tree-clad gorges.
Cerro del Carmen
The usual evening stroll of the Guatemaltecos is to the Cerro del Carmen, a small turf-covered hill rising to the north-east of the city, where stands an old church and the remains of a monastery, perhaps the oldest in the Republic. From this hill the view of the city with its large white churches and conventual buildings, surrounded by walled gardens full of trees and flowers, is very beautiful at any hour of the day, but at sunset the sight is one not easily forgotten. It is difficult to describe the beauty of the amphitheatre of mountains all aglow in the sunset light, or of the majesty of the clouds as they float up from the distant sea, wreathing themselves round Agua and Fuego, filling up the valleys with mists of everypossible hue, which take on a deeper colour as they drift away from the setting sun and fill the vault of the heavens. Then the east takes up what light the clouds have left behind and shoots up to the zenith splendid rays of colour, which meet those of the setting sun as it sinks behind the mountain peaks. Too soon the short twilight ends and the volcanoes clothe themselves in a bloom of dark blue, and receding into the night seem to sleep quietly under the brilliant tropical stars.
Cerro del Carmen
It was a lovely scene, which we always left reluctantly for the comfortless hotel and a bad dinner. But not even our dusty room nor the dark stuffy “comedor,” where we took our meals, could obliterate the vision of that brilliant pageant of marching clouds and magnificent colouring which had surrounded us on the Cerro del Carmen. The less said about Guatemala hotels the better; those in the capital are pretentious and bad. The Grand Hotel, where we put up, is a good-sized house, with patios and broad corridors and good rooms, but the furnishings are old, dirty, and disagreeably stuffy. In the dining-room, which was always overcrowded, we were not permitted to engage one of the many small tables, and had to take our chance of companions and table-cloths; the former not always agreeable and the latter often unbearable. Good food might have done much to soothe our troubled feelings, but it never came, and this was all the more aggravating as the market was full of good things to eat. The bedroom service, carried on by a very dirty man, was uncomfortable beyond expression, and a large part of my day was always passed cleaning and tidying the single room which was all the accommodation we could secure. Appeals to the landlord, a German, who, thanks to the cook whom he had married, had grown rich and proportionately proud, and who was also the owner of the large store attached to the hotel, resulted in nothing but a polite bow, a hand pointing the while to a pile of telegrams, and a suggestion that if the Señora proposed making different arrangements others were more than willing to engage her room. However, we were most fortunate in finding the kindest of friends at the British Legation and amongst the foreign residents, who rescued us from bad dinners and smelling oil-lamps, entertaining us so hospitably as to make us forget the distance from home at Christmas time; and although the atmosphere would have afforded no clue to the season as we know it in the north, there was no mistaking its kindly greetings and its roast turkeys and plum puddings.
Stone idols on the road to MixcoSTONE IDOLS ON THE ROAD TO MIXCO.
STONE IDOLS ON THE ROAD TO MIXCO.
At the end of three weeks all our outfit for the journey, including numerous cases of provisions, had, by the kindness of the Government, been passed through the Custom House free of duty, and we at once set to work sorting the provisions and repacking them in smaller boxes—some to be carried with us, others to be sent on to various points on the road to await our arrival.
We had already purchased seven cargo-mules and one horse, none of them in very good condition, for sound and well-conditioned animals were not only very expensive, but exceedingly scarce, and we were forced to take what we could find.
No trained riding-mule could be found for me, so I had to make my choice of a steed from amongst the pack-mules, and picked out the smallest, principally because she had a pretty head and held her ears well forward.No doubt these are not all the points I should have attended to; but no choice could have proved more fortunate, and it would have been difficult to find in the whole country a gentler or more sure-footed creature. Her feet were unshod and her power of holding on to slippery rocks was positively astounding. I soon learnt to leave her reins loose and let her pick her own way, which she did with the greatest care, whether scrambling up the rough hillsides, or, with her hind feet kept well together, sliding down perilously steep and slippery mountain-paths. Her temper was above reproach, but it required much prodding to get her out of the steady walk to which her life in a pack-train had accustomed her; however, when once fairly started, she paced easily and comfortably. I cannot say too much in praise of my mule, for she solved the one great question which weighed on my mind: how was I, who had never ridden before, to traverse the difficult country which lay in front of us? Trusting to her superior knowledge and good sense, I was carried in safety for more than five hundred miles, in daylight and in dark, over mountains and across rivers, from the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic, without a stumble and without even the feeling of fear; and when at last I had to part with her at Yzabal, it was with real regret, and the feeling that I was saying good-bye to an old and valued friend.
Our party at the start numbered five—our two selves, Gorgonio Lopes (my husband’s faithful companion during many earlier expeditions), his son Caralampio, and Santos the arriero; our train was made up of the six cargo-mules, three saddle-mules, and a horse, and to this must be added four or five Indian cargadores, bearing loads which could not be conveniently carried on pack-saddles.
My husband rode the horse, which, although not a very magnificent-looking animal, gave a certain air of respectability to the train. Gorgonio’s mule was a wise old beast with a rough and varied experience of life, who seemed to have been brought more out of sentiment than for use, for Gorgonio persistently walked up and down all the hills, and sometimes on the flat, so as to lighten her labours. He had strange stories to tell of her adventures. Once, when on a journey in Honduras, she was stolen from him and he had to return home to Coban and give up all hope of seeing her again; it was not until long afterwards that he learnt that the thief was the Juez de paz (the local Judge). At the end of a year the Governor of the Province, having heard of the shortcomings of his subordinate, took possession of the mule, but, somehow or other, forgot to give any information to her real owner, and had her sent away to a distant rancho; there possibly her existence might have been forgotten and her brand have changed its shape, had it not been that, by the merest chance, a doctor, who was an oldfriend of Gorgonio, recognized the mule and gave him the information which led to her recovery. Caralampio’s mule was like Mr. Kipling’s Battery mule—a mule; and mine was the excellent creature I have described.
On the 2nd of January we left the capital, mounting our mules just outside the main streets of the town, as a concession to my feelings of bashfulness; for I had no wish to shock the sensibilities of the fashionable society of the capital by riding through the streets in a short walking-dress, or to expose my bad horsemanship to their criticism. We passed to the right of the fort or Castle of San José, which commands the city, and then for about a mile followed the road bordered by straggling houses to the Guarda viejo. On passing through the gate we turned to the right across a narrow strip of land between deep barrancas, and then found ourselves fairly in the country.
On the plain through which our road lay there must have stood in olden times a fair-sized town, if one can judge from the large number of grass-grown mounds scattered over its surface; but it is now the mere ghost of a town, without history and without name, and the two squat figures carved in a hard stone which stand by the roadside at the gate of a small hacienda are all that remains to show the art of the builders, although careful investigation would no doubt reveal much more of interest. The sketch-plan on the next page was made by my husband some years ago.
We had set out late in the afternoon, and our first journey was purposely a short one of eight miles,—just enough to settle down men and mules to their work,—to the small town of Mixco, the home of arrieros, mules, washerwomen, and bakers and purveyors in general to the capital. The short twilight faded away as we crossed the plain, and it was dark before we entered the deep barranca which had to be crossed before the town could be reached. I must confess that my heart was in my mouth as I felt rather than saw the steep rough road that lay before me—for be it remembered that I knew nothing as yet of the surefootedness of my mule,—but I soon felt that she was more at home crawling down the side of a barranca than when shuffling along the dusty high road; then I grew very brave, gave her my full confidence, and never after repented of the gift. My first barranca successfully passed, we clambered into the deserted street, crossed the plaza, and, guided by Gorgonio, groped our way in the pitchy darkness down another paved street, which seemed to be as steep as the roof of a house, and found ourselves in the courtyard of a straggling one-storied building dignified by the name of hotel.
Plan of the ruined town between Guatemala and MixcoPLAN OF THE RUINED TOWN BETWEEN GUATEMALA AND MIXCO.
PLAN OF THE RUINED TOWN BETWEEN GUATEMALA AND MIXCO.
After many fruitless efforts to attract some attention, a woman appeared with a candle and led us to a sort of outhouse which had been engaged for us by Caralampio, who had preceded us with the pack animals and cargadores. This apartment was not prepossessing; its furniture consisted oftwo miserable beds, a table, two infirm chairs, a wooden bench, and a sewing-machine, and in one corner our servants had piled up indiscriminately provision-boxes, mule-trunks, tents, beds, and pack-saddles, so that confusion was added to discomfort.
A street in MixcoA STREET IN MIXCO.
A STREET IN MIXCO.
My husband and Gorgonio were particularly assiduous in their attentions to me and in their efforts to improve matters, each in his way rather alarmed as to what effect this sudden plunge into semi-civilization might produce on a novice. They were lavish in the use of candles from our store, and Gorgonio went off to forage for supper, whilst the other men were set to work to put the baggage into something like order. Before long the usual food of the country—fried eggs, frijoles (black beans), and tortillas (thin round cakes of Indian corn)—was brought to us, and to this fare we added a tin of good chicken-broth, cooked on our own spirit-lamp. Bread, which I afterwards found to be usually the first thing placed on the table of a Central-American inn, was on this occasion lacking; and we learnt that a company of soldiers, on their way to a distant station, had passed through the town in the morning and eaten up all the bread, so nothing was left for us but a little stale ‘pan dulce.’ However, we made a good supper, and even enjoyed the stale ‘pan dulce’ with the help of a cup of delicious coffee, a luxury which the traveller in Guatemala may usually count on finding even in the poorest posada.
As soon as we were comfortable Gorgonio left us to assure himself that the arriero had attended to the wants of the beasts, and found them safely tied up in the yard outside our door, each with a bundle of “sacate de milpa” (the leaves and stems of the maize-plant) for his supper. In my opinionGorgonio holds a unique position amongst his countrymen on account of his sympathy with dumb animals, and it is well for the mule-train which falls under his management. The kind soul never thought of refreshing himself until the mules had been attended to, and no beautiful scenery or convenient camping-ground had any charms for him if there was a scarcity of food “para las pobres mulas.” His horror lest the animals should suffer stood out in striking contrast to the callousness and brutality which one noticed every day amongst the half-caste muleteers.
Supper disposed of we turned our attention to the bed question, and after examining those provided for us, determined to open our own camp-cots. But, alas! neither persuasion nor force would induce the swollen plugs to fit into their sockets, and we were obliged to sleep on the beds belonging to the hotel. A message came from the patrona to the effect that clean sheets were to be had if they were needed, and when these arrived we carefully wrapped the suspected mattresses up in them, and rolling ourselves in our blankets, knew nothing more until the sunlight streaming into the room awakened us to a lovely morning.
As we looked from the window across the plain we had traversed the evening before, the scene was an enchanting one. Soft mists coloured by the sunlight, and pierced here and there by dome and tower, hung over the city, and billowy sunlit clouds wreathed themselves round the distant mountains. Even our immediate surroundings, which appeared so squalid the night before, became transformed under the brilliant sunlight: the old courtyard looked quite picturesque with the bustle of preparation for our journey; gaily-dressed washerwomen laden with bundles of clean linen trotted past the open door, and we could watch them and the line of pack-mules and Indian carriers winding down the sides of the barranca on their way to the morning market in the capital. The air was filled with the perfume of flowers, and the atmosphere was soft and delicious.
A Mixco washerwomanA MIXCO WASHERWOMAN.
A MIXCO WASHERWOMAN.
To the native traveller there is not much difficulty in making an early start, for he seems, as a rule, to confine his equipment for the road to a rug rolled upand strapped on the back of his saddle, a Turkish bath towel thrown over his shoulders, and such small articles as he can stow away in his “arganas,” or plaited grass saddle-bags. Possibly he may be followed by a small boy on a second mule, who carries his master’s clothes in front of him wrapped up in a petate or mat. But with us the case was very different, for what with tents, tent-furniture, beds, bedding, photographic cameras and other apparatus, a large store of provisions, a cooking-canteen, and water-tins, as well as our own personal belongings, our baggage-train was a long one, much time was occupied in getting under weigh, and our progress was necessarily slow. We had found it impossible in the city to engage Indian carriers by the month or even by the week, so we had to depend on the village alcaldes to supply us with mozos to carry loads from town to town.