The little town and harbour of Acapulco resemble a wash bowl with a cup full of water in the bottom. On rounding the promontory that protected the entrance to the basin, we found ourselves in the arena of a vast amphitheatre formed by a range of lofty hills that shut us out on every side from the world we had left. At the foot of these hills, opposite the entrance, was a narrow strip of level ground affording room for a miniature city. Here are the coal depots of the Pacific Company, and here, on the arrival of every steamer, a brisk trade is carried on in eggs and poultry, bananas, oranges, and limes. I have already referred to the feats of gastronomy performed at our first landing. Though it was yet early in the morning, our first impulse, after a warm greeting between us and our mother earth, was to seek a convenient house of entertainment, where for the moderate charge of fifty cents we might eat an unlimited quantity of eggs and chicken.
As the American House seemed already full, we bent our steps towards the United States, where we were fortunate enough to secure a seat at the first table. For a few minutes nothing was heard but the cracking of eggshells, the mumbling of chicken bones, the sipping of coffee, interrupted by various inexpressible ejaculations of delight; but as one dish was emptied after another there arose a strange Babel of full-grown English and baby Spanish.
"Here muchacho!—muchacho! eggs—wavers—mas wavers—mas chickeen—cafe—mas milk—darn your eyes, don'tyou know your own language, see here;" and thus, words failing, they had recourse to signs. But after we had eaten a couple of chickens and nearly a dozen eggs apiece, with a corresponding supply of bread and coffee, neither words nor signs were any longer intelligible, and all our eloquence produced no other reply than the simple monosyllables, "no mas," or the more mysterious "poco tiempo." "Poker temper," cried a hungry voyager, "I've had poker temper long enough, I tell you, now I want some chicken." "Poco tiempo," returned the imperturbable host, and finishing our dinner with a hearty laugh, we sallied forth into the street.
Acapulco, in spite of its picturesque location, presents little that is attractive. The houses, though built of stone, appear mean and dilapidated, half way between a stable and a jail. To my eye, at least, the tangled, unbroken foliage of the tropics is slovenly and monotonous compared with the shaven fields and trim forests of New England. I missed that pleasant green that carpets all but our most barren hills. Nothing else, not even the architectural beauty of the cocoa palm with the tinkling music that the softest breeze steals from its ivory leaves, can compensate for the nakedness of the soil. It reminds one of an Indian chief, terrible in his war paint and graceful with his nodding plumes, but otherwise as naked as the day he was born.
But my curiosity was abundantly gratified in studying the manners and habits of the people. They are so backward in all the arts of civilization that one cannot escape the impression that they are a degenerate race. It seems impossible that they should have built the houses they now occupy, and indeed, in all the towns through which we passed inhabited by a race of Spanish origin, I do not remember to have seen a single building in progress of erection or which did not seem to have been standing at least half a century. Every day a market was held in the open air on one side of the plaza, where, besides the articles already mentioned, there were exposedfor sale fresh beef cut up into long strips, or rather rags, several kinds of vegetables, cheese, and tortillas.
Most of the trafficking was here done by women—they sat squat on the ground with thin rude baskets beside them—they used cakes of soap for the smaller currency, and fragments of stones for weights, breaking them in pieces till they balanced the article they were selling, and then, by some process of arithmetic I could not comprehend, arriving at the correct amount.
Near the sea-shore there was a fruit market held under the shade of some lofty trees. Here women and boys seated behind rude tables kept up an incessant cry to attract the attention of some loitering Californian, "Comprar oránges? comprar lemona? picayune a glass."
"Me no comprar—me no quiere," returns the other, taking it for granted, with delightful absurdity, that Mexicans as well as babies can understand bad English more readily than good, "me no comprar mas; me havvy all me wishy, here," stroking his stomach with most expressive complacency.
While we thus sauntered through the streets engaged in the innocent and laudable occupation of sucking oranges and eating what seemed to be withered slices of brown bread, but was really cocoanut and sugar, another part of our fellow-passengers were much more gravely employed. A meeting was held on the plaza, sundry speeches were made full of the most scorching sarcasm, and resolutions passed denouncing the conduct of the Company in the strongest terms. A collection was taken up for the purpose of instituting legal proceedings against the Carolina, and having her condemned as unseaworthy. Dark hints were given of burning her before she could leave the port. We were to get home from Acapulco the best way we could, and afterwards hold the Company responsible for all loss incurred by our detention.
It seemed for a time as if these agitators would succeed in accomplishing their purpose. A broken-down steamshipbelonging to the American consul was lying in the harbour, and it was natural to suppose that he would do all in his power to detain the Carolina, in order to obtain passengers for his own vessel. The first step was to order a survey to be made of the ship. The survey was made as a mere matter of form by three dignified officials within the steamer, and by as many naked Indians without. The divers, who seemed to understand their business much better than their superiors, reported that two strips of copper had been detached from the ship's bottom, and the seams were also open, thus causing the leak which had occasioned us so much uneasiness. On making this discovery the authorities delayed giving us a permit to go to sea, and the commandant of the fort above the town received orders to blow us out of water if we attempted to force a passage. Our captain declared he would go to sea in spite of them. The passengers entered into the dispute with ardour, and began to furbish up their revolvers and argue the feasibility of carrying the citadel by a coup-de-main.
In this state of affairs, when the doughty little town of Acapulco and the spiteful little steamer Carolina seemed about to come to loggerheads with each other, a compromise was proposed that satisfied the dignity of both the contending parties, and prevented that dreadful bloodshed that must otherwise have inevitably followed. The Indians, who had discovered the leak, were commissioned to stop it. For this purpose two strips of copper were provided to take the place of those that were lost, and lowered down to the divers, who instantly sunk with them beneath the surface, the white soles of their feet glancing curiously amid the dark water. What they did with the copper afterwards I cannot say. It did not rise again to the surface. But whether they really succeeded in nailing it on to its proper place, or whether it is now quietly reposing in the soft mud at the bottom of the little harbour, is a question about which I must decline giving an opinion.
This arrangement, however, had the desired effect; ithealed the breach, if it did not stop the leak. Our captain received his permit, and in a few hours we were ready for sea. About one hundred of our company remained behind, unwilling to risk their lives further in the Carolina. Part of them went across the country on mules to the city of Mexico, and thence by wagons to Vera Cruz, and the remainder took passage in the worn-out steamer belonging to the consul, thus jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. If any one wonders that we did not all follow the example of the first, an explanation is easily given. The land journey to Vera Cruz was long and toilsome—the rivers were already swollen by the winter rains, and it was doubtful if we should succeed in crossing them; and after reaching that city we might still have to wait a long time before we could obtain a passage to any port in the United States. Besides, the chief-engineer thought he had now succeeded in repairing the engine, so that we should have no further trouble on that score; but, more than all, the sun shone brightly, the touch of the earth had given us all new strength and spirits, and we no longer retained any very lively apprehensions of the dangers we had so recently encountered.
Behold us, then, four days after we entered the harbour of Acapulco, once more stealing out to sea. The caution with which we moved soon convinced us that, whatever repairs had been made during our stay, the engine was still in a very precarious condition. Slowly and painfully, like one just recovering from sickness, we crept along the smooth surface of the Pacific. We watched with the most intense solicitude all the signs of the weather, fearing lest some storm hovering near should spy us out and swoop down upon our feeble craft. What we feared was at length partially accomplished. A storm that swept across the ocean many miles from our course just brushed us, in passing, with its cloud-broad wings. The effect of this trifling blow showed us what we should have had to expect if we had encountered the main body ofthe tempest. The leak gained upon us with frightful rapidity, and we were obliged once more to have recourse to the buckets. We divided into several companies, that succeeded each other in this fatiguing labour, and were thus enabled to continue at work nearly the whole night. About three in the morning I left my station on the ladder for the last time, my clothes completely saturated with coal and water, and altogether my appearance so deplorable that a decent chimney-sweep would have been ashamed to be seen in my society. But the heat of the smoke-pipe round which I huddled soon dried my clothes, and as to my appearance, I consoled myself with the reflection that, bad as it was, our situation was ten times worse.
The result of this night's experience was to induce Captain W. to give up his design of reaching Panama, and turn the ship's head towards Realejo. The passengers had already strongly urged this change, but, with that jealousy natural to sea-captains and cookmaids, he had hitherto preserved the most impenetrable mystery as to his intentions.
Having after some difficulty found the entrance, we sailed up the river about a mile, and made the ship fast at a wharf where the steamers of Vanderbilt's line take on board their coal, and we were now at liberty to take a view of the surrounding country.
The town of Realejo was eight miles further up the river, and the only buildings near the wharf were two or three miserable shanties inhabited by an old Indian and half a dozen melancholy fowl. On the opposite side of the river, or perhaps I should rather say arm of the sea, here about a mile in width, a single house was visible peeping through the snarled and matted forest. An American bark and brig lay dozing over their anchors half a mile from our ship, seeming, so thick was the silence in which they were encrusted, to be stuck fast in that enchanted sea, like flies in a hogshead of molasses.
With these exceptions every thing still remained in apparentlythe same state as when, six thousand years before, evening and morning were the fifth day. The "great horologe divine" of this lower creation was all complete—there were the springs, the weights, the wheels, but the maker's fingers had not yet put them in motion, and they still seemed waiting for that powerful touch. It was almost like sacrilege to venture into those sublimely silent waters, and arouse them from their long slumbers by our noisy and impertinent life.
The sea here seemed to have gained upon the land—the trees stood like the herds on a sultry summer's afternoon knee deep in the cooling flood. Beneath the low arching roof the shadows lay thickly woven and felted together. Birds of unknown plumage glided along the glassy pavement, among the slender stems, or unfolded their crimson and gold to the sun as they floated carelessly over our heads. Each little leaf hung silent on its perch—there was not even that whispering hum that, like the drone of a beehive or a country school-house, is forever heard from a waking forest.
But suddenly an almost imperceptible ripple came creeping round a distant headland, and the next moment a rude canoe shot out into the river. Others continually made their appearance in different directions, and in a few hours fifteen or twenty were drawn up on the beach. They contained large baskets of eggs, oranges of a finer flavour than any we had yet tasted, and a strange fruit resembling the quince in size and shape, but as yellow and almost as tasteless as a pumpkin. Parrots, macaws, and paroquets were also offered for sale, and some of them, we were told, talked the purest Castilian, but no one seemed disposed to try that method of instruction.
Having satiated our curiosity on the novel scenery around us, the question arose whether we should remain in the ship during her hazardous voyage to Panama, or tempt the more uncertain difficulties of a journey through Central America. A party that had gone up to Realejo to make inquiries, havingbrought back a favourable report, the greater part of the passengers abandoned the ship without reluctance. It was only at the last moment, however, that we could make up our minds to follow their example. The brief twilight of the equator was already closing around us when we took our seats in the only remaining canoe and pushed off from the ship in company with which we had braved so many perils. We crossed and recrossed the river several times to avoid the currents and shallows; sometimes we were in the middle of the stream, and again we glided like a shadow beneath the overhanging branches. It was the hour of vespers, and presently our boatmen, an Indian with his wife and daughter gaily dressed in their Sunday attire, began chanting in a low and rather plaintive tone the Evening Song to the Virgin. As the river grew narrower the trees on either hand bent their heads in listening silence. Closing our eyes, we seemed to be floating onward, as in a dream, independent of human agency, still farther and farther into the heart of a boundless, trackless forest. It was a dream to last forever, but suddenly the canoe struck with a wide-awake jar against the wharf at Realejo. Several huge canoes, as big as a railroad car and each dug out of a single mahogany, lay moored in the stream. Scrambling over two or three smaller ones that lay by our side, we mounted the wharf and looked round for the city. We could discover nothing in the darkness but half a dozen ill-looking natives, one of whom now came forward and offered with a vast deal of gesticulation to conduct us to a hotel where there were muchos Americanos. Taking our trunk on his shoulders he led the way and we followed in silence. A short walk through streets silent as churchyard paths, and lined with doorless, windowless houses, brought us into a rather more cheerful neighbourhood, and to a hotel filled indeed with mucho Americano. All were busy in making arrangements for their journey, and a few rapid inquiries soon gave us all the needed information.
A contract had already been made with several wealthy proprietors to convey us across the country, one hundred and fifty miles, to Granada on Lake Nicaragua, where we should proceed by water to San Juan. Carts, drawn by oxen and capable of containing six persons, were to be provided for the moderate charge of eight dollars apiece.
The most prominent member of our little cartful was a sturdy buckeye blacksmith of the most royal generosity and good nature. But he never seemed to know when he was conferring a favour, and hence it lost much of its effect from the want of that accompanying smile and unconscious softening of the voice that so often please more than the gift itself. His hair and eyebrows were whitey brown, his features showed even in their coarseness his frank and dashing temper—and the words came sputtering out of his mouth like ale out of a bottle.
His companion, a quiet, smoothfaced lad from Wisconsin, who was wonderfully expert in the use of the rifle, had to my knowledge no other name than Si.
Texas, as we styled the third of our party, was an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity. He had a thousand oddities, the fancies of a young girl, the whims of an old bachelor, and the greenness—I use it for want of a better word—of a Southern plantation. We all made him our butt; he knew it and enjoyed it, for he knew too that he could put an end to it whenever he would.
Monday morning, the head of our train began its march out of the city, and the rest followed at long intervals. There were in all about forty carts, containing nearly two hundred and fifty passengers,—and, as we are now fairly under way, I will take the opportunity to give a description of one of these ingenious vehicles. The body of the cart, which was made of mahogany, was about seven feet in length and three and a half in width. Over it was erected a rude framework of slender sticks resembling the osier, and covered with raw hides tokeep off the sun and rain. The wheels were formed of solid pieces of mahogany about four feet in diameter and six inches thick, with stout projections at the hub; and as they fitted very loosely to the axle, the whole fabric moved forward with that rolling, sidelong gait peculiar to sailors and elephants. Four oxen were yoked to this rude contrivance in the manner common I believe to all Spanish countries. A straight piece of wood about four inches square, slightly hollowed at the ends to fit the heads of the oxen, was bound firmly to their horns by long strips of hide. This yoke is much lighter and simpler than our own, but more time is required to make it secure, and its position on the head would probably be unfavourable to drawing heavy loads.
With this description of our equipage, the reader will be curious to know how seven persons could find room in it. If he could have taken a peep in at the back of the cart, he would have seen the hombre, as we styled our driver, and the brother of the author elevated in front on a trunk which had accompanied us to the mines and still clung to us in all our wanderings. In the interior he would have discovered the profiles of Ohio, Texas, and New York, who sat crosswise on the bottom with their backs against one side, their feet against the other, and presented a lively resemblance to the letter C. As there was not room enough remaining to accommodate us in the same way, Si and myself were obliged to sit with our superfluous legs dangling behind. The obvious advantages of our position in enabling us to see so much more of what was passing than those within were counterbalanced by equal inconveniences. A fifth ox, that was intended to take the place of one of the others in case of any emergency, was tied to one corner of the cart; and, as he rolled along behind us, the malicious brute would set down his pestle hoofs with most unnecessary emphasis, making the soft oozy mud fly like cream in a churn, and spattering us from head to foot till we were enclosed in a complete suit of defensive armour.
Where the road was smooth, the cattle proceeded at a rapid rate, urged on by the relentless goad of our hombre. This instrument was as long and stout as a fishing-rod, and terminated in a formidable brad that brought blood at every blow. The hind quarters of the oxen were scarred as if by the smallpox from former applications of this cruel weapon. When our hombre desired to enliven the pair that were yoked to the pole, he was obliged to shorten his goad stick by thrusting it behind him into the cart, to the serious discomfiture of Texas and Ohio. To do him justice, however, he seldom resorted to this means of propulsion, except in the most difficult passages, contenting himself with yelling in the most approved fashion of his class, and belabouring his cattle with a storm of ringing Spanish curses, any one of which would easily have filled a balloon. If his unaided efforts proved ineffectual to extricate us from the slough, he was obliged to wait till the carts behind came up, when three or four drivers, levelling their goads all at once at the unlucky beasts, and raising a concert that would scare at least ten souls out of one weaver, would commence capering and grimacing in the most frantic manner. The naked Indian boys, one of whom followed every cart, would join in this exercise, while twenty or thirty bearded Saxons looked on with supreme contempt. When this species of incantation did not succeed, the only resource was to attach a third yoke of oxen, which never failed to extricate us from our difficulty.
The first part of our journey was as bad as a road through a level country could possibly be. The dark fat soil had been churned into an almost uniform mass of the softest mud, into which the wheels sunk up to the hub. Where the ground was firmer, the road had been worn into deep ruts and holes, which would bring the cart down upon its axis with stunning violence. It was the duty of the one in front to give us timely warning of these dangerous breakers.
"Hard a-starboard," he would suddenly cry, and instantly Texas and Ohio would brace themselves more firmly, in anticipation of the coming shock, while Si and myself drew in our pendulum legs with emulous celerity. Down goes the right wheel as suddenly as if it had rolled off the roof of a house, settling Texas' head an inch between his shoulders, and jamming Ohio's inextricably between his knees. The next moment their positions are reversed, the cart slowly recovers its balance and plunges down a precipice on the left. It is in vain that they cling like bats to the framework behind them, or brace their legs like pillars against the opposite side, the next jolt upsets all their calculations and throws them into a state of helpless bewilderment, from which they do not fully recover till the cart reaches more level ground, when a volley of "darns" and "gollies," and such like exclamations, seems to operate as a wonderful sedative.
But it must not be supposed that we remained constantly in such contracted quarters. Ohio's bustling activity was continually driving him out to stretch his legs, Si was anxious to try his new revolver, and we all felt a natural curiosity to see as much of the country as possible. It was unsafe, however, to loiter long behind. The oxen moved commonly as fast as a man could walk, and if they ever got out of sight it was no easy matter to overtake them. We each of us found ourselves at different times in this awkward predicament; and the state of exhaustion in which we at length rejoined our company, and the ill-concealed derision with which we were greeted, made us firmly resolve never again to be guilty of a similar blunder. Yet the boy of ten or twelve years who accompanied us, performed nearly the whole journey on foot, and without exhibiting any signs of fatigue. When we first left Realejo he marched before, in the middle of the road, and the cattle followed close behind as if he had been their pilot. But after we were once fairly started, he was no longer needed in that capacity, and I wondered why he continuedto follow us. Presently I saw him seize a large knife, resembling a butcher's cleaver, that lay in the back of the cart, and run into the woods. In ten or fifteen minutes he reappeared, carrying a large bundle of strips of bark about a foot in length. While I was in an agony of curiosity to know what he would do next, he advanced to the side of the cart and thrust several of the mysterious strips in between the axle and the wheel, which had been for some time creaking in the most distressing manner. A few turns relieved the difficulty. The bark, ground against the heated axle, yielded a small supply of lubricating sap that furnished an indifferent substitute for grease. This lasted perhaps an hour, when another application became necessary. In spite, however, of this ingenious artifice, we wore out two axles four inches in diameter in performing a journey of one hundred and fifty miles. Several times the axle began to smoke, when the cry of "Acqui, muchacho! muchacho! rota, fuego!" brought our indefatigable satellite to our assistance. When not thus occupied, he commonly walked behind the cart, with a grave and erect demeanour that set off the hat, the only article of clothing he had on, to infinite advantage.
The wardrobe of our hombre was rather more extensive. He had, besides a hat, a shirt and pair of pantaloons; and, in that climate, nothing more was required. The children of both sexes seldom wear a rag of clothing till they are four years old, and the boys often go entirely naked ten years longer. As we were passing one day through a village, the name of which I have forgotten, my attention was attracted by a little girl not more than three years old, standing before the door of a house, with no other protection than a cigar and the cloud of smoke that she breathed from her nostrils with all the practicednonchalanceof an ancient Dutchman. A dispute, however, arose as to the sex of this young ancient, one of my companions stoutly maintaining that it was a boy; but then, as a lady to whom I related the incident ingeniouslyremarked, the children dress so much alike in that country that such a mistake might easily occur.
We went the first day only seven miles, and stopped for the night at Chanandaigua, a large town, and much more attractive than Realejo, though the style of building, as in all the cities of Central America, is to a stranger naturally gloomy and repulsive. The houses are mostly of one story, built of stone or brick, and plastered with cement. There are few windows looking towards the street, and these are often guarded by iron gratings or heavy shutters. The principal hotels and larger dwelling-houses somewhat resemble an Eastern caravanserai. They consist of a range of apartments surrounding an open square, and connected by a broad verandah. On this verandah the most important affairs of the family are conducted. It is often used as a kitchen, and almost always as a dining-room and bed-chamber. Hammocks slung between the posts and the walls of the house furnish a favourite lounge by day and bed by night. But little furniture is required, and that of the plainest description. A few chairs, a rough table, and a number of cot-bedsteads comprised the entire contents of the best hotel we found during our journey, and in Leon, a city of forty thousand inhabitants, we were obliged to sleep on the floor.
At Chanandaigua we fared sumptuously on boiled chicken, eggs, and wheaten bread resembling what we call French rolls. The flour used in the country is mostly imported from the United States, and the lower classes subsist almost entirely on corn and fruit. Our hombre grew fat on a diet we thought fit only for hogs. When we left Realejo, he threw into the cart a bag containing a lump of something twice as big as his hand, and of most alarming ponderosity. On stopping for dinner, he opened the bag, and displayed to our wondering eyes what seemed the half of a huge cheese, but on closer inspection proved to be a loaf of meal and water of a degree of density that argued immense pressure. With ahuge wedge of this in one hand and a small wedge of rude cheese resembling curd in the other, he munched and nibbled alternately, with the most evident satisfaction. Before we reached the end of our journey, the bread had become so sour as to impregnate the whole atmosphere of our cart; yet the appetite of the hombre appeared in no wise diminished, and he and the muchacho probably finished the cake between them on their homeward route.
We left Chanandaigua early in the morning, for we had a long march before us, and desired to avoid the intense heat of midday as far as possible. The road led most of the way through an almost unbroken forest, interrupted at long intervals by a patch of corn or sugar-cane, with a footpath winding off to some invisible and isolated farmhouse. Except in the towns and villages, I do not remember seeing more than one building during our whole march;—the country seemed uninhabited, and the fat and fertile soil suffered for want of hands to trim its waste luxuriance. Among the strange trees of the forest, the mahogany seemed like an old acquaintance. Those that we saw were about the size of our largest oaks, and closely resembled them in the size and formation of the branches.
We passed this day through one or two small towns, the inhabitants of which came running to the doors to feast their eyes on so unusual a spectacle. Everywhere we were received with shouts of welcome;—even the little children joining in the cry of "los buenos Americanos!" Yet it must be confessed that our appearance was by no means prepossessing;—we looked more like a band of robbers or ragamuffins than the peaceful representatives of the greatest country in the known world, and perhaps owed more to our reals and revolvers than our vanity would have been willing to allow. But whatever may have been the reason, we had no cause to complain of incivility, and the only serious annoyance was the everlasting"poco tiempo." In the mouth of a Spaniard or an Indian these words possess the most perplexing significance. They are a sufficient answer to all complaint or expostulation. They are expected to feed the hungry, to quiet the impatient, and to satisfy the inquisitive. They afford the best possible refuge for indolence and stupidity, and there is reason to fear that as long as the Spaniard retains these words in his vocabulary he will continue to be distinguished for both those vices.
It was by a strange misnomer that we called our driver hombre. He had, to be sure, the outward semblance of a man, but he had no right to such a distinctive title. Curiosity, not that of the monkey, but of the philosopher, is man's most striking characteristic. Instead of defining him as a laughing animal or a cooking animal, I would define him as a curious animal. From this definition our hombre would certainly have been excluded. Of curiosity of any sort he had not, apparently, a single particle, and his intelligence was of the most contracted order. This was just the character for poco tiempo. He understood the uses of the phrase to perfection. If he delayed starting in the morning long after the last of our companions had disappeared, poco tiempo was his ready answer. If he loitered on the road without any assignable reason, when twilight was already stealing upon us, it was still poco tiempo. There was no use in getting into a passion,—in the first place he did not understand English, and if he had he would only have shrugged his shoulders a little more expressively, without losing a jot of his abiding complacency. We at length gave up the contest in despair, and submitted to a fate we could not resist, consoling ourselves with the reflection that an animal, who lived on cheese and sour Indian bread of the consistency of a bullet, must needs be of a very heavy, phlegmatic temper.
At several places by the roadside we found women and children with little tables covered with oranges, coarse brown sugar, lemonade, and bottles of milk. As bottles were apparentlydifficult to obtain, they were seldom willing to part with them; but rather than lose the sale of the milk, they would follow the cart a long distance, eagerly watching the bottle the whole time, as it rose from a horizontal to an upright position, as if fearful that that too would be swallowed by the voracious Americano. In spite of the intense heat we drank but little water on our journey, preferring to quench our thirst with oranges, of which I sometimes ate, or rather drank, twenty in a single day. They were not only far superior to any ever seen in the States, but surpassed, in almost the same degree, those we had eaten at Rio and Havana, the intensest heat of the tropics being required to bring this fruit to perfection. Of the pineapples I can only say, they seemed more fit to be the food of angels than of men; and if, as some suppose, our character be really affected by the nature of our food, then those who live on the pineapples of the equator must be of all men the most subtilized and ethereal. I am quite satisfied in my own mind the amiable Elia must, some time in his life, have visited Central America, or he never could have written with such feeling and unction on a subject that can be appreciated only by those who have been fortunate enough to enjoy similar opportunities. We travelled this day thirty-six miles, and came late in the evening to Leon. Our clumsy caravan, that seemed sufficiently rude and primitive in the depths of the forest, harmonized still less with the paved streets of a great and splendid city. It was like the relic of a barbarous age, and I could not help thinking that the inhabitants of Leon would regard it with as much curiosity as I had done myself. Yet it produced no greater sensation than a market wagon in Boston or New York,—our hombre drove carelessly along, past long blocks of lofty houses, and under magnificent cathedrals, without a thought of the ludicrous contrast we presented. He stopped at length before a hotel, where a crowd of our companions were already assembled. Some of them had been here several hours; they had eatentheir supper, and were now grumbling in good set terms at the imposition that had been practised upon them. In the first place the supper was detestable, and in the second place there was not half enough of it. Putting these two together, and sagely concluding that the case could not be much worse, we determined to try our fortunes in another direction. An American, who had been residing several months in Leon, directed us to a private house, where he said we should be sure to obtain an excellent supper.
This house stood on one corner of the plaza, directly opposite the great cathedral. It presented the same appearance of squalid magnificence to which I have already alluded;—the walls were of stone, and the apartments lofty and spacious, but there were no carpets, no sofas, no mirrors, and no sign of comfort except a netted hammock of twisted grass swung between the corners of what must be called the parlour.
After a long delay, which Ohio bore with provoking good nature, supper was brought in by a fat señora, assisted by a peeping señorita, and displayed upon the rickety little table. The plates were of different patterns,—the cups were without saucers,—the knives without forks,—and, for want of a more convenient seat, Texas was fain to trust himself to the hammock;—but, as Ohio declared, with his mouth full of chicken, and eggs, and frijoles, it was a supper fit for a king; but then, unfortunately, we were no king, but four half-starved Californians. When our chicken, who had doubtless been the lean and hungry Cassius to some Cæsar of the dunghill, had disappeared almost bodily down our throats,—and when the eggs and beans had followed, without at all diminishing our ardour,—we, all at once, turned upon our hostess a look of inquiry mingled with the utmost complacency and benevolence. It was as much as to say, "So far good,—you have made, my dear señora! a very tolerable commencement,—after this little skirmish, we feel ready for the more important engagement that is to follow."
But the señora, looking coldly and ungratefully upon our enthusiasm, replies, that what we have just eaten is really and absolutely our supper, that there is, in fact, not another morsel of food in the house. Slowly and reluctantly we dropped our four reals into the skinny hands of the withered old beldame, and walked back to our hotel a sadder and wiser man.
Having slept very comfortably on the dirty floor of the dining-room, we walked out next morning to see the city. There can hardly be a greater contrast than that between the towns and cities of Central America and those of our own country. The latter are emphatically of to-day,—they have nothing to do with the past, and hardly any thing more to do with the future. If our buildings do not tumble down in the progress of erection, they are almost sure to be removed in a few years to give place to others. But the buildings of Leon seemed to have locked up in them the story of a thousand years, and as if they might live to tell of a thousand years to come. There are no unfinished houses, no piles of stone or lumber blocking up the streets, no sound of the saw, or pleasant tinkling of the mason's hammer. These things may have been some centuries ago, but one would rather suppose the whole city had suddenly sprung from the ground, like Minerva full grown from the head of Jupiter. Yet it has nothing of the warmth, and brilliancy, and fantastic variety of tropical vegetation;—instead of the gaudy kiosk and slender minaret, like bundles of sunbeams converted into stone, which harmonize so well with the glowing regions of the sun, there is nothing but a heavy, cubic monotony, better suited to the snows of Siberia, or Dickens' London fog.
The cathedral is a vast, ungainly structure, built entirely of stone, and with no pretensions to beauty; but being advantageously situated on one side of the great square, with several massive towers, it presents a very imposing and commanding appearance. Ascending to the top by a narrow, winding stairway, in the thickness of the wall, we obtained a grandand extensive prospect. From this elevated island of brick, and stone, and mortar, we overlooked an immense sea of foliage which closed around us on every side, dotted, here and there, with smaller islands, and watched over by the cloud-girdled, pyramidal mountain we had seen in ascending the Realejo, seemingly thrown forward, like a solitary sentinel, in advance of the mighty host behind. We stood on a building, and in the midst of a city belonging to the civilization of the old world, while all around lay the untamed barbarism of the new. The inhabitants of Leon are not Americans, but Europeans, and such as Europe saw two hundred years ago. They have gained nothing of new life and vigour by being transplanted on to this virgin soil, but seem rather to have lost what little they possessed. This country has not proved to them the harsh stepmother that New England was to our Puritan ancestors; but, like a foolish grandam, has spoilt them by her foolish indulgence. The result is that they can do nothing for themselves,—England supplies them with manufactures, and the United States furnish their flour. Their cities, without good roads to connect them with the country and with each other, languish and go out like scattered embers.
Yet the country is rich almost beyond compare. The forests abound in the most valuable timber, the soil is of inexhaustible fertility, and the year is a constant harvest. The sugar-cane, which in our Southern States requires to be renewed every three years, here continues to yield a sufficient return for ten, growing fifteen or twenty feet high, and as thick as a man's arm. Native labour can be obtained for a real a day. As far as our experience extends, the climate is extremely healthy. We were three weeks in the country, at the commencement of the rainy season, and especially liable to sickness from our long confinement, yet we lost only one man by disease, and he was attacked before we left the ship. Government holds out great inducement to actual settlers,and the finest land in the world can be obtained at a merely nominal value.
While we were at Leon, an offer was made to Ohio of so liberal a nature as almost induced him to stop short on his homeward journey, and forego the anticipated pleasure of seeing his wife and children for another year. He was to receive one hundred dollars a month, besides board and lodging; a shop and tools were promised at the expense of Government, and the privilege of working a third of the time on his own account was superadded.
Other artisans were also eagerly sought after. Thousands of muskets lay useless in the armories, because not a workman could be found who understood the mysteries of a lock—not the permutation, combination lock of Brahmah or Hobbs, but a simple gun-lock, the construction of which is known to every boy of twelve in the United States. But it is time to leave Leon and its helpless inhabitants. They reminded me constantly of the snail in the shell of a lobster, and of a little boy dressed in his father's clothes, and playing that he was a man.
We passed through Central America at the time of the civil war, and many of the streets of Leon were barricaded and guarded with mounted cannon. After leaving that city, we were told that we should enter the territory occupied by the hostile faction; and, to avoid all danger of ill-treatment, we were advised to keep as close together as possible. But nothing occurred to justify these apprehensions, or even to show that any war was raging. We met one day, in the thickest part of the wood, a dozen or twenty scarecrows, mounted on sorry horses, and armed with light lances and muskets; but, if these were a fair specimen of the Granadian chivalry, we should have had little to fear from their whole array. However, we were all of us desirous to avoid a collision, for it would certainly seem very ridiculous, after spending one or two years in earning perhaps as many thousands, toget killed just as we were ready to enjoy the fruits of our labour. This feeling, I have no doubt, moderated the ardour of more than one of our number who might otherwise have had no objection to the excitement of a skrimmage, or to take up arms in one or the other of the contending parties.
We left Leon about the 10th,a. m., and making only a short journey, stopped for the night at a little Indian village called Nigaroti—I am not responsible for the spelling—the population of which could not much have exceeded the number of our own caravan. It consisted of a small collection of houses or huts built of rude basket-work, daubed in some cases with clay, and covered with a shaggy thatch. Each house stood in an enclosure, formed by a hedge of most magnificent proportions. A species of cactus, planted in a single row, furnished a green marble wall of lofty columns, standing so close together that no animal larger than a squirrel could pass between. These walls were now in a dilapidated condition, reminding the spectator of the ruins of an ancient temple. Some of the columns were at least thirty feet in height, while others had been broken off at a few feet from the ground, and the fragments were still lying where they had fallen. They were all about eight inches in diameter from top to bottom, with small rings at regular intervals resembling the joints of the cane.
As there was no hotel, we quartered ourselves upon the inhabitants, who received us with the warmest demonstrations of friendship, and instantly set to work to prepare for us the best supper their limited means would allow. I here first witnessed the operation of making the tortilla, the favourite, and, as far as I could learn, the only form in which bread is eaten by the lower classes. At Acapulco and other cities we had seen them offered for sale in piles six inches high, and presenting a very tempting appearance. The natives ate them with great apparent relish, rolling them up into a cylinder, and plugging the opening with a small stopper of cheese.As we had hitherto, however, been able to obtain wheaten bread, I had only just tasted them out of curiosity, when I found they were far from being as good as they looked. But in this little village flour was, perhaps, never heard of, and in every house one or more occupants were now busy in preparing the hot and almost crispy tortilla. I watched the movements of our dusky maiden with great interest. She first crushed the corn, previously softened by boiling, into a uniform paste, by means of a common rolling-pin, then with great dexterity formed it into round balls or biscuits, one of which she placed on the bottom of a shallow earthen pan resting on a few embers. With the back of her clenched hand she spread it out over the dish, till it assumed the form of a buckwheat cake, though instead of the dimples that come and go on the surface of the latter, it was all over indented with the print of her knuckles. When one side was browned the cake was turned, and as the whole process required but a few minutes we soon had a high tower of tortillas smoking on our little table. There was the usual accompaniment of fried eggs and chicken. The tortillas served for plates as well as napkins, and the whole family stood ready to wait on us, and watching our every movement with the most ludicrous interest and delight.
There was the grandfather, still hale and vigorous; the young mother, with her infant in her arms, and half a dozen others scarce big enough to go alone. When we asked about her family, she laughed and blushed and pouted with true feminine coquetry, and quite vanquished the stout heart of our gallant Ohio. Perceiving that I had some difficulty in dissecting the joints of the chicken, she took up a fragment, and tearing it to pieces with her fingers, laid them before me, one after another, with an approving smile, and an exclamation of bueno at every mouthful. I had no doubt, from this proof of her hospitality, that she would have fed me with her fingers if I had desired. And, presently, another incident showedstill more strongly her lofty disregard of what we, in our self-complacent wisdom, have styled the laws of decorum. As there was a want of plates, one of our party had cunningly appropriated to his own use that containing our scanty supply of eggs. Snatching the dish from his hands, the young señora, with the end of her forefinger, and with most amazing dexterity, divided the only remaining egg in the middle, and slid half of it on to Ohio's empty tortilla. "Bueno, bueno!" she exclaimed; and "Bueno!" faintly echoed Ohio, as he fell back on his seat, and surveyed with admiration the egg that had been so ruthlessly dissevered. The simple, unsophisticated beings around us mistook the nature of the mirth that followed this performance, and supposing it to arise from the satisfaction produced by so good a supper, joined in it with hearty good-will. But we had not yet learned all those uses of fingers which nature designed, but which civilization has discarded. A favourite beverage, with us as well as with the natives, was lemonade. To sweeten this delectable compound, they used the coarse black sugar of the country, which, to avoid the necessity of weighing, is commonly cast in small oblong cakes, as maple-sugar is often seen at home. Biting off a lump of the proper size, our hostess dropped it from her mouth into one of the little gourds that served for tumblers, and having stirred it with her finger, presented it to me with a simple grace that Hebe might have tried in vain to equal. After the scenes I had witnessed in the mines, and the far more disgusting exhibitions of life at sea, I must plead guilty of affectation in refusing anything from the hand of a woman. I courteously passed the gourd to my next neighbour, who, either not having witnessed the mode of preparation or proud of such an opportunity of displaying his gallantry, swallowed the whole at a single draught.
We rose from table in high good humour with ourselves and our entertainers, but our enthusiasm was not a littledampened by the eagerness they manifested to obtain immediate possession of our money. "Quatro reales," cried the grandfather, holding out his hand; "Quatro reales," simpered the young mother; "Quatro reales," screamed all the children in concert, and standing on tiptoe; while the sucking baby, on its mother's breast, almost threw itself into convulsions in trying to master the mysterious syllables.
As we intended to lodge and take breakfast with them, this impatience might seem to imply some doubt of our honesty. We attributed it, however, to a natural curiosity to feast their eyes on a larger sum of money than they had probably ever possessed. Though they had all their simple wants required, and might have been considered wealthy by their poorer neighbours, yet I have no doubt that fifty dollars would have been an ample equivalent for all their worldly possessions. A single glance showed us the inventory of all their household goods. Under a small open shed in one corner of the enclosure stood a rude forge—our entertainer was the village smith—with a few clumsy tools scattered around it. Their whole supply of crockery was displayed upon our little table. Gourds, of different sizes, served them for tea-cups, for coffee-pots, and for milk-pails. Their simple cookery was performed in a few vessels of earthenware. A few steps from the blacksmith's shop, stood the huge wicker basket containing their sleeping apartments. This consisted of two rooms, the first of which would undoubtedly have been the very smallest room in the world, if the second had not been still smaller. The larger one contained a rude bedstead, and a hammock was slung cornerwise across the other. There was no other furniture, and no window, but the open door and numerous cracks in the walls admitted sufficient light. As it was evident that, under ordinary circumstances, the greater part of the family would have to sleep out of doors, we had no hesitation in taking undivided possession.
We were roused by the old man two hours before day;and, going out into the yard, found the table set for breakfast, and the whole family eagerly awaiting our appearance. Secretly envying the hens and turkeys that were just settling themselves for their morning nap upon the branches of the high tree above, we sat down to breakfast by the light of the stars and an envious tallow candle. In addition to what we had for supper, they had, according to promise, provided each of us with a small gourd containing half a pint of milk—a luxury we seldom succeeded in obtaining except in the morning, either because, as Texas suggested, the heat of the day dried up the cows, or because the natives were too indolent to take the trouble.
After breakfast, the same scene was repeated as on the previous evening. Having obtained their quatro reales, and a medio apiece for lodging, we saw them huddling together round the forge, and counting their gains with an immense deal of jabbering and gesticulation. All of our companions were aroused at the same unseasonable hour, and, like ourselves, devoured with curiosity to learn the cause of so strange a phenomenon, but our ignorance of Spanish defeated all our efforts, and the subject yet remains in all its original obscurity.
We stopped the fourth night at a town called San Pablo, containing many substantial buildings and several thousand inhabitants. We were obliged, however, to throw ourselves, as before, upon the hospitality of private families. Our search for some time proved unsuccessful,—the citizens were wealthier and more aristocratic, and were not always disposed to receive such a set of ragamuffins into their houses. But, at length, one of the principal storekeepers consented to provide us with supper and lodging, and then the following conversation took place:
"Have you any eggs—huevos?"
"Si, Señor! huevos."—"Gallina?" "Si, Señor! gallina."—"Pan?" "Si, pan."—"Milk?" (here our Spanish was at fault.) "Si, mañaña."—"Frijoles?" "Si, Señor! frijoles." "Bueno! quantos reales?" "Quantos reales?"—and at this important question he hesitated, while he consulted with his wife by signs—"Cinquo reales."—"Cinquo reales por uno?" "Si, Señor! bueno?" "Si! bueno! quantos horas?"
This question completely staggered him, as well it might; but we at length succeeded in making him comprehend that we wished to know at what hour we could have supper; and, this being satisfactorily arranged, he again ran over our bill of fare:—"Huevos, gallina, pan, frijoles, cinquo reales, esta bueno?"
"Si, Señor," we replied, "esta bueno," and set out on astroll through the town in search of a Panama hat Ohio was anxious to obtain. We failed to find any sufficiently large, but going into what seemed a shop, we found a fat padre swinging in his hammock, with one foot lazily patting the floor, and an expression of entire complacency in his little twinkling eyes and broad, good-humoured countenance. His library was arranged on one or two small shelves, and consisted mostly of ancient Latin folios written, probably, some hundreds of years ago. The padre received us with the utmost courtesy; and, in spite of his sluggish temper, really looked as if he would have liked to converse with us if he could. But signs and single words, though they sometimes answered a very good purpose in enabling us to make a bargain for supper, or something equally simple, were of little service in carrying on an abstract conversation; we therefore soon made our adios, the padre returned to his hammock to meditate over his dinner, and we continued our walk.
After an excellent supper, which, besides the dishes included in our bill of fare, contained several that were entirely new to us, we threw ourselves into the hammocks that were slung in the little shop and composed ourselves to sleep. But the fumes of garlic and aguadiente, the glancing of lights before my half-shut eyes,—I have the misfortune to sleep, like the weasel, with one eye half open,—and an interrupted note of preparation buzzing in my ears, kept all my senses on the alert. At two in the morning we were summoned to breakfast, and this time with a reason; for a long march was before us, and our hombres desired to make an early start. The breakfast exceeded in variety and abundance anything that had been set before us for months; and, if our entertainers had understood English, they would have been highly amused by our involuntary exclamations of delight.
The language of inarticulate sounds, however, is pretty much the same the world over; and Dr. Johnson over hisleg of mutton, and Sidney Smith's South Sea islander over his slice of broiled missionary, would have had no difficulty in responding to each other's emotions. When our repast was ended, our host, with an enlarged and comprehensive liberality, of which we had hitherto found no specimen among his countrymen, insisted upon our drinking his health in a glass of his own aguadiente; and we parted from him, his wife, and daughter, with expressions of mutual good-will, which lasted on our part as long as the smack of his hospitality still lingered on our palate.
The length of this day's journey was rendered more fatiguing by the various delays that we encountered. Among the other ingenious novelties in the construction of our conveyance, we found that the axle, now worn almost in two, was secured to the body simply by strips of hide. These gradually loosened by the alternations of wet and dry, and the violent strain to which they were subjected, till at length the axle turned completely over, and thus brought so large a portion of the load on to the heads of the oxen as fairly forced their noses into the dirt. But our hombre proved himself equal to the emergency; and, unyoking the oxen, he stationed Ohio at the pole to hold it as high as possible, while he slipt under the cart and went to work in restoring the axle to its proper place with a readiness and dexterity for which we had not given him credit.
This nice and difficult operation was at length completed, but our hombre still showed no inclination to set forward. We questioned,—we bribed,—we expostulated in vain. Ohio bitterly lamented his ignorance of Spanish; which prevented him from cursing the fellow in his own vocabulary, but belaboured him with all the sturdy English oaths he could muster, which fell on his imperturbable stupidity like drops of rain on the hide of a rhinoceros. In the midst of the shower he took from the cart an axe no bigger than a hatchet, with a handle four feet long, and disappeared in the woods, leaving us sittingon a rotten log and hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Si examined his revolver and walked on ahead, under the pleasing illusion that he should find some game; the others soon followed, leaving us in charge of the cart. The wheezing sounds of the hombre's axe were the only sounds that disturbed the immense silence; except, now and then, we heard the far-off halloo of some half frantic driver urging on his weary cattle. These gradually died away in the distance, and we were left entirely alone. But such hours are often the most delightful periods of a journey like ours. We forgot the cities we had past, and the road by which we had come so far; our connection with the world seemed broken, and we felt like a man who had climbed to the moon and then thrown down the ladder by which he had ascended. Robinson Crusoe in his desert island,—a frog at the bottom of his well,—hardly a toad in his lump of granite, could be enclosed in a profounder solitude. I tried to image to myself the great cities, the mighty empires, that had once an existence in my brain; but the feverish pulsation of their hearts, and the hum and stir of their ceaseless bustle, were neither felt in the ground nor visible in the sleeping leaves.
But our hombre now returned, and put to flight my agreeable fancies. Like Robinson Crusoe's man Friday, his appearance on the scene at once dispelled the delightful illusion—there was another man in the world, and if one, why not a thousand? He carried on his shoulder a rough stick some six feet long, which we at once conjectured to be designed for an axle. Our fears were now excited lest he intended to finish it before proceeding any farther, but he speedily put an end to our apprehensions by stowing it in the cart; and, then, reyoking his oxen, we once more found ourselves in motion.
The road, since leaving Realejo, had been remarkably level. We had not met with a single hill worthy of the name,and were not a little surprised, on leaving the forest, to find ourselves on the very edge of a lofty and precipitous elevation and overlooking an immense extent of country. As far as we could see, the surface of the ground was broken into black irregular ridges, as if it had been occupied, for ages, by successive generations of charcoal burners, or had been turned up into huge furrows by the careless ploughing of some clumsy Brobdingnagian boor. The road under our feet was almost as hard as iron, and seemed macadamized with scoria from a blacksmith's forge. At a little distance on the left we discovered what seemed, at first sight, the ruins of an oven or forge. The arch yet remained nearly entire, resting on a pile of fragments; and it required no great effort of the imagination to suppose that I was surveying the ruins of a vast and magnificent city, that, by some fearful convulsion of nature, had been reduced to this state of utter desolation. This fancy was partly true. At some period, apparently not very remote, the volcanoes that stood around the horizon had combined to lay waste the beautiful plain at their feet. In place of the cool green forest, a mass of black, naked lava now presented itself, that seemed hardly to want the touch of the match to burst again into a mighty conflagration. The arch that we had seen, was formed by the lava cooling round the prostrate trunk of a huge tree, that had perished in its embrace like Semele in the arms of Jove.
The road now suddenly descended by a long irregular flight of stairs worn in the crumbling stone. There was no possibility of riding even if we had been willing to lose the strange novelty of the scenery—the wheels fell with the regularity, and almost with the force, of trip-hammers, and with a decided, uncompromising jolt that threatened the immediate dislocation of the axle. Near the bottom, the path had been worn, as if by a winter torrent, into a deep and narrow channel, just wide enough for a single cart;—caves had been hollowed in the sides, and we involuntarily quickened ourpace, lest we should be crushed beneath the overhanging banks. Having thus reached the foot of the lofty table land on which we had been travelling, we found ourselves on the edge of a wide valley that held the lakes Leon and Nicaragua in its lap, and stretched one arm, by the San Juan river, away to the Atlantic. Little of the country, however, was now visible, for in addition to the thickening twilight, a thunder cloud was coming rapidly up from the horizon, and soon filled the whole heavens. The first big drops began to fall. Ohio, Texas, and New York hastily scrambled into the cart and, as Si and myself followed, a flash of lightning gave the signal for the contest to commence, and was instantly extinguished in the flood itself had created. The rain, the thunder, and the lightning that now followed hard after us, were such as are met with only in the tropics;—the road soon became a river in earnest, and as the lightning flashed on the swollen and turbid waters, and the cart rocked and pitched with even more than its usual violence, it required but a slight exercise of imagination to feel that we were in a storm at sea. But the cloud having given us this taste of its quality, swept away, and the stars came out, old and young, in their pleasant family circles. There was yet no sign of human habitation. "Quantos ligos a Managua?" we had demanded twenty times, of a few chance travellers, and of our own invaluable hombre. One replied that Managua was four leagues off; and, after travelling steadily for half an hour, we met another who told us it was six.
At length we discovered the lights of a village, and Ohio, in his eagerness, walked on before. But our hombre, instead of stopping, as we expected, held straight on his course, and to our impatient inquiries, "What place is this? Where is Managua?" as curtly answered, "Marteiris,—Managua,—quatro ligos." Another hour we dragged on, and finally crossed the plaza at Managua just as the moon had climbed to the topmost tower of the cathedral.
Managua is a pleasant city of ten or fifteen thousand inhabitants. The great cathedral is situated, like that at Leon, on one side of the plaza, but is far inferior in extent and magnificence. Our hotel also stood on the plaza; but lest the reader should form from this a too exalted notion of its appearance, I would add that it contained but two apartments, of moderate dimensions, one of which was occupied by the family, while the other served as a store-room and poultry house. There was, however, in the rear, a broad and spacious verandah where we ate our supper—after which we spread our blankets in a corner of the poultry house with a hen and brood of chickens in my right ear, and a duck quacking softly in my left.
At this place a part of our fellow-passengers becoming impatient of the slow rate at which we travelled, and fearful lest they should not reach San Juan in season, hired horses for the remainder of the journey—New York and Texas were among the number; but we were encumbered with too much baggage to follow their example, and Ohio had bought a whole regiment of parrots and paroquets that required his constant supervision, besides costing him a fortune in cages and bananas, which they ate with apparently equal relish.
Our hombre was occupied several hours the next morning in making a new axle. For want of an auger, the use of which simple instrument seemed unknown to him, he was obliged to cut the holes for the linchpins with a chisel; and this, in his hands, was a long and tedious operation. It was some satisfaction, however, to reflect that the work would not require to be done over again until he reached Granada, and might even last through the whole of his homeward journey.
Our road led to-day for several miles along the shore of Lake Leon. This is a large body of water resembling an inland sea; and some of our party, deceived by its extent, supposed it, at first, to be an arm of the ocean. A general halt was here ordered, and our hombres and muchachos, throwingoff their light garments, were soon disporting themselves in the shallow water. They enjoyed this exercise so keenly, that it was with great difficulty we persuaded them to resume their march.
We stopped this night at Marsawa, a city of about the same size as Managua; and the next afternoon made our entry into Granada. It was Sunday, and the inhabitants, dressed in their best, were sitting in the open doors of their houses, exhibiting marks of greater opulence and refinement than we had yet witnessed. The grace and beauty of the women especially attracted our attention,—we seemed suddenly brought near to home, and to have been, all at once, set down in the midst of the nineteenth century, after so long travelling in mediæval darkness.
Granada, as already stated, is situated on Lake Nicaragua, and connected by the San Juan river with the Atlantic. It has thus become the great inland market for that part of Central America. The various goods imported into the country are brought up the river and across the lake in huge canoes, or in boats of the heaviest and most awkward construction. There were also three small schooners on the lake about the size of a common pleasure-boat, and capable of carrying thirty men apiece; but not one of these was at that time at Granada, though they had been sent for at the first intimation of our approach, and were expected to arrive in one or two days.
In the mean time a number of our companions, impatient of the delay, and deceived by the statements of interested parties, who assured them that that mode of conveyance was much to be preferred, embarked in one of the canoes for a voyage of ninety miles across a body of water famed for its sudden and capricious temper. We were strongly tempted to follow their example, but finally concluded to remain at Granada until the arrival of the schooners, which were now expected to arrive every hour. The hotel where we had takenlodgings was very spacious and commodious. It would not indeed equal the St. Nicholas in either of these particulars, but may well deserve that distinction when compared with the others we had visited during our route. There was not only a dining-room capable of accommodating one hundred guests, but there were several sleeping apartments of like generous proportions, and furnished with cot bedsteads, a luxury to which we had been lately wholly unaccustomed. Except at the little village of Nigarote, we had slept on nothing softer than the floor for weeks, and we at first felt some alarm at the thought of such an unnatural elevation. All these apartments were on the ground floor, and, with the kitchen and outhouses, entirely surrounded an open court about a hundred feet square.
The price of board at this hotel was one dollar a day, and for this we had an abundance of tough beef cooked with garlic, beans, French rolls, coffee and milk. We had also, by way of variety, a few eggs and chickens, and a very limited supply of butter.
Granada presents little attraction to the stranger—on one side was the deep forest through which we had travelled—on the other a burning plain, with a few scattered houses, stretching two miles away to the lake. Owing to the intense heat, we remained most of the time at our hotel, lounging in the hammocks slung under the veranda, or watching from the steps of the dining-room the lazy groups of the natives, or our own more fiery Saxons, as they hurried hither and thither on some important trifle.
No exhibition of passion is perhaps more amusing than that of a dispute between two Spaniards. Such volubility of utterance, such nervous flexibility of feature, such jerking spitefulness of emphasis, can nowhere find a parallel, except in the nocturnal colloquy of half a dozen enamoured grimalkins. A quarrel, the merits of which we could not determine, arose one day between our landlord and another of the same gunpowderfraternity. One of Hoe's eight-cylinder printing presses could hardly have kept pace with the impetuous torrent of words that streamed quivering from their lips—our sluggish consonants, compared with their nimble vowels, are like the mailed crusader opposed to the lithe and supple Saracen, when the greatest danger arises from the rapidity of the onset. After keeping up a continuous fire of words, like a rolling discharge of musketry or a redhot poker sizzling in a pail of water, for some ten minutes, our landlord suddenly seized a gun that stood in one corner of the bar, and levelled it with an expression of most determined ferocity at his vapouring antagonist. The admiring Californians, instantly opening to right and left, displayed a narrow lane, at the end of which was discovered the cunning Spaniard prostrate on all fours, and warily exposing to the fire of the enemy that part of his person which instinct, or perhaps experience, had taught him was best calculated to meet the assault. The next moment, by a skilful side movement, he precipitated himself down the steps into the street.—Our landlord, with a grim smile of satisfaction, restored the gun to its place, and the storm cleared away as rapidly as it commenced.