We had been recommended to stay the first night at a place called Esparza, where there is a decent inn. But before we left Punta-arenas we learnt that Don Juan Rafael Mora, the President of the Republic, was coming down the same road with a large retinue of followers to inaugurate the commencement of the works of the canal. He would be on his way to meet his brother-president of the next republic, Nicaragua, at San Juan del Sur; and at a spot some little distance from thence this great work was to be begun at once. He and his party were to sleep at Esparza. Therefore we decided on going on further before we halted; and in truth at that place we did meet Don Juan and his retinue.
As both Costa Rica and Nicaragua are chiefly of importance to the eastern and western worlds, as being the district in which the isthmus between the two Americas may be most advantageously pierced by a canal—if it be ever so pierced—this subject naturally intrudes itself into all matters concerning these countries. Till the opening of the Panamá railway the transit of passengers through Nicaragua was immense. At present the railway has it all its own way. But the subject, connected as it has been with that of filibustering, mingles itself so completely with all interests in Costa Rica, that nothing of its present doings or politics can be well understood till something is understood on this canal subject. Sooner or later I must write a chapter on it; and it would almost be well if the reader would be pleased to take it out of its turn and get through it at once. The chapter, however, cannot well be brought in till these, recording my travels in Costa Rica, are completed.
Don Juan Mora and his retinue had arrived some hours before us, and had nearly filled the little hotel. This was kept by a Frenchman, and as far as provisions and beer were concerned seemed to be well kept. Our requirements did not go beyond these. On entering the public sitting-room a melodiously rich Irish brogue at once greeted my ears, and I saw seated at the table, joyous in a semi-military uniform, The O'Gorman Mahon, great as in bygone unemancipated days, when with head erect and stentorian voice he would make himself audible to half the County Clare. The head was still as erect, and the brogue as unexceptionable.
He speedily introduced us to a brother-workman in the same mission, the Prince Polignac. With the President himself I had not the honour of making acquaintance, for he speaks only Spanish, and my tether in that language is unfortunately very short. But the captain of the 'Vixen' was presented to him. He seemed to be a courteous little gentleman, though rather flustered by the magnitude of the work on which he was engaged.
There was something singular in the amalgamation of the three men who had thus got themselves together in this place to do honour to the coming canal. The President of the Republic, Prince Polignac, and The O'Gorman Mahon! I could not but think of the heterogeneous heroes of the 'Groves of Blarney.'
"There were Nicodemus, and Polyphemus,Oliver Cromwell, and LeslieFoster."*
[*I am not quoting the words rightly I fear; but the selection in the true song is miscellaneous in the same degree.]
[*I am not quoting the words rightly I fear; but the selection in the true song is miscellaneous in the same degree.]
"And now, boys, ate a bit of what's going, and take a dhrop of dhrink," said The O'Gorman, patting us on the shoulders with kind patronage. We did as we were bid, ate and drank, paid the bill, and went our way rejoicing. That night, or the next morning rather, at about 2a.m., we reached a wayside inn called San Mateo, and there rested for five or six hours. That we should obtain any such accommodation along the road astonished me, and of such as we got we were very glad. But it must not be supposed that it was of a very excellent quality. We found three bedsteads in the front room into which the door of the house opened. On these were no mattresses, not even a palliasse. They consisted of flat boards sloping away a little towards the feet, with some hard substance prepared for a pillow. In the morning we got a cup of coffee without milk. For these luxuries and for pasturage for the mules we paid about ten shillings a head. Indeed, everything of this kind in Costa Rica is excessively dear.
Our next day's journey was a very long one, and to my companions very fatiguing, for they had not latterly been so much on horseback as had been the case with myself. Our first stage before breakfast was of some five hours' duration, and from the never-ending questions put to the guide as to the number of remaining leagues, it seemed to be eternal. The weather also was hot, for we had not yet got into the high lands; and a continued seat of five hours on a mule, under a burning sun, is not refreshing to a man who is not accustomed to such exercise; and especially is not so when he is unaccustomed to the half-trotting, half-pacing steps of the beast. The Spaniard sits in the saddle without moving, and generally has his saddle well stuffed and padded, and then covered with a pillion. An Englishman disdains so soft a seat, and endeavours to rise in his stirrup at every step of the mule, as he would on a trotting horse at home. In these Hispano-American countries this always provokes the ridicule of the guide, who does not hesitate to tell the poor wretch who is suffering in his pillory that he does not know how to ride.
With some of us the pillory was very bad, and I feared for a time that we should hardly have been able to mount again after breakfast. The place at which we were is called Atenas, and I must say in praise of this modern Athens, and of the three modern Athenian girls who waited on us, that their coffee, eggs, and grilled fowl were very good. The houses of these people are exceedingly dirty, their modes of living comfortless and slovenly in the extreme. But there seems to be no lack of food, and the food is by no means of a bad description. Along this road from Punta-arenas to San Jose we found it always supplied in large quantities and fairly cooked. The prices demanded for it were generally high. But then all prices are high; and it seems that, even among the poorer classes, small sums of money are not valued as with us. There is no copper coin. Half a rial, equal to about threepence, is the smallest piece in use. A handful of rials hardly seems to go further, or to be thought more of, than a handful of pence with us; and a dollar, eight rials, ranks hardly higher in estimation than a shilling does in England.
At last, by the gradual use of the coffee and eggs, and by the application, external and internal, of a limited amount of brandy, the outward and the inward men were recruited; and we once more found ourselves on the backs of our mules, prepared for another stage of equal duration. These evils always lessen as we become more accustomed to them, so that when we reached a place called Assumption, at which we were to rest for the night, we all gallantly informed the muleteer that we were prepared to do another stage. "Not so the mules," said the muleteer; and as his words were law, we prepared to spend the night at Assumption.
Our road hitherto had been rising nearly the whole way, and had been generally through a picturesque country. We ascended one long severe hill, severe that is as a road, though to a professed climber of mountains it would be as nothing. From the summit of this hill we had a magnificent view down to the Pacific, Again, at a sort of fortress through which we passed, and which must have been first placed there by the old Spaniards to guard the hill-passes, we found a very lovely landscape looking down into the valley. Here some show of a demand was made for passports; but we had none to exhibit, and no opposition was made to our progress. Except at these two places, the scenery, which was always more or less, pretty, was never remarkable. And even at the two points named there was nothing to equal the mountain scenery of many countries in Europe.
What struck me most was the constant traffic on the road or track over which we passed. I believe I may call it a road, for the produce of the country is brought down over it in bullock carts; and I think that in South Wales I have taken a gig over one very much of the same description. But it is extremely rude; and only fit for solid wooden wheels—circles, in fact, of timber—such as are used, and for the patient, slow step of the bullocks.
But during the morning and evening hours the strings of these bullock carts were incessant. They travel from four till ten, then rest till three or four, and again proceed for four or five hours in the cool of the evening. They are all laden with coffee, and the idea they give is, that the growth of that article in Costa Rica must be much more than sufficient to supply the whole world. For miles and miles we met them, almost without any interval. Coffee, coffee, coffee; coffee, coffee, coffee! It is grown in large quantities, I believe, only in the high lands of San José; and all that is exported is sent down to Punta-arenas, though by travelling this route it must either pass across the isthmus railway at a vast cost, or else be carried round the Horn. At present half goes one way and half the other. But not a grain is carried, as it should all be carried, direct to the Atlantic. When I come to speak of the road from San José to Greytown, the reason for this will be understood.
The bivouacs made on the roadside by the bullock drivers for their night and noon accommodation are very picturesque when seen filled by the animals. A piece of flat ground is selected by the roadside, about half an acre in size, and close to a river or some running water. Into this one or two hundred bullocks are taken, and then released from their carts. But they are kept yoked together to prevent their straying. Here they are fed exclusively on sugar-canes, which the men carry with them, and buy along the road. The drovers patiently cut the canes up with their knives, and the beasts patiently munch them. Neither the men nor the animals roar, as they would with us, or squabble for the use of the water-course, or curse their own ill luck or the good luck of their neighbours. Drivers and driven are alike orderly, patient, and slow, spending their lives in taking coffee down to Punta-arenas, and in cutting and munching thousands of sugar-canes.
We passed some of those establishments by moonlight, and they looked like large crowded fairs full of low small booths. The men, however, do not put up tents, but sleep out in their carts.
They told me that the soil in Costa Rica was very favourable to the sugar-cane, and I looked out to see some sugar among the coffee. But not a hogshead came that way. We saw patches of the cane growing by the roadside; but no more was produced than what sufficed for the use of the proprietor himself, and for such sale as the traffic on the road afforded. Indeed, I found that they do not make sugar, so called, in Costa Rica, but import what they use. The article fabricated is called by them "dulce." It comes from their hands in ugly round brown lumps, of the consistency of brick, looking, in truth, much more like a large brickbat than any possible saccharine arrangement. Nevertheless, the canes are fairly good, and the juice as sweet as that produced in first-rate sugar-growing soils.
It seemed that the only use made of this "dulce," excepting that of sweetening the coffee of the peasants, is for distillation. A spirit is made from it at San José, called by the generic name of aguardiente; and this doubtless would give considerable impulse to the growth of sugar-canes but for a little law made on the subject by the present President of the republic. The President himself is a cane-grower, and by this law it is enacted that the only person in Costa Rica entitled to supply the distillery with dulce shall be Don Juan Mora. Now, Don Juan Mora is the President.
Before I left the country I came across an American who was desirous of settling there with the view of producing cocoa. "Well," said I, "and what do you think of it?"
"Why, I like the diggings," said he; "and guess I could make things fix well enough. But suppose the President should choose to grow all the cocoa as well as all the gin! Where would my cacao-plants be then?" At a discount, undoubtedly. These are the effects on a country of despotism in a small way.
On my way into San José I got off my mule to look at an old peasant making dulce, or in other words grinding his sugar-canes by the roadside. It was done in the most primitive manner. One bullock turned the mill, which consisted of three vertical wooden rollers. The juice trickled into a little cistern; and as soon as the old man found that he had enough, he baled it out and boiled it down. And yet I imagine that as good sugar may be made in Costa Rica as in British Guiana. But who will put his capital into a country in which the President can pass any law he pleases on his own behalf?
In the neighbourhood of San José we began to come across the coffee plantations. They certainly give the best existing proof of the fertility and progress of the country. I had seen coffee plantations in Jamaica, but there they are beautifully picturesque, placed like hanging gardens on the steep mountain-sides. Some of these seem to be almost inaccessible, and the plant always has the appearance of being a hardy mountain shrub. But here in Costa Rica it is grown on the plain. The secret, I presume, is that a certain temperature is necessary, and that this is afforded by a certain altitude from the sea. In Jamaica this altitude is only to be found among the mountains, but it is attained in Costa Rica on the high plains of the interior.
And then we jogged slowly into San José on the third day after our departure from Punta-arenas. Slowly, sorely, and with minds much preoccupied, we jogged into San José. On leaving the saw-mill at the end of the tramway my two friends had galloped gallantly away into the forest, as though a brave heart and a sharp pair of spurs would have sufficed to carry them right through to their journey's end. But the muleteer with his pony and the baggage-mule then lingered far behind. His heart was not so brave, nor were his spurs apparently so sharp. The luggage, too, was slipping every ten minutes, for I unfortunately had a portmanteau, of which no muleteer could ever make anything. It has been condemned in Holy Land, in Jamaica, in Costa Rica, wherever it has had to be fixed upon any animal's back. On this occasion it nearly broke both the heart of the muleteer and the back of the mule.
But things were changed as we crept into San José. The muleteer was all life, and led the way, driving before him the pack-mule, now at length reconciled to his load. And then, at straggling intervals, our jibes all silenced, our showy canters all done, rising wearily in our stirrups at every step, shifting from side to side to ease the galls "That patient merit of the unworthy takes"—for our merit had been very patient, and our saddles very unworthy—we jogged into San José.
All travellers when entering unknown towns for the first time have felt that intense interest on the subject of hotel accommodation which pervaded our hearts as we followed our guide through the streets. We had been told that there were two inns in the town, and that we were to go to the Hotel San José. And accordingly we went to it.
It was quite evident that the landlord at first had some little doubt as to the propriety of admitting us; and but for our guide, whom he knew, we should have had to explain at some length who we were. But under his auspices we were taken in without much question.
The Spaniards themselves are not in their own country at all famous for their inns. No European nation has probably advanced so slowly towards civilization in this respect as Spain has done. And therefore, as these Costa Ricans are Spanish by descent and language, and as the country itself is so far removed from European civilization, we did not expect much. Had we fallen into the hands of Spaniards we should probably have received less even than we expected. But as it was we found ourselves in a comfortable second-class little German inn. It was German in everything; its light-haired landlord, frequently to be seen with a beer tankard in hand; its tidy landlady, tidy at any rate in the evening, if not always so in the morning; its early hours, its cookery, its drink, and I think I may fairly add, its prices.
On entering the first town I had visited in Central America, I had of course looked about me for strange sights. That men should be found with their heads under their shoulders, or even living in holes burrowed in the ground, I had not ventured to hope. But when a man has travelled all the way to Costa Rica, he does expect something strange. He does not look to find everything as tame and flat and uninteresting as though he were riding into a sleepy little borough town in Wiltshire.
We cannot cross from Dover to Ostend without finding at once that we are among a set of people foreign to ourselves. The first glance of the eye shows this in the architecture of the houses, and the costume of the people. We find the same cause for excitement in France, Switzerland, and Italy; and when we get as far as the Tyrol, we come upon a genus of mankind so essentially differing from our own as to make us feel that we have travelled indeed.
But there is little more interest to be found in entering San José than in driving through the little Wiltshire town above alluded to. The houses are comfortable enough. They are built with very ordinary doors and windows, of one or two stories according to the wealth of the owners, and are decently clean outside, though apparently rather dirty within. The streets are broad and straight, being all at right angles to each other, and though not very well paved, are not rough enough to elicit admiration. There is a square, the pláza, in which stands the cathedral, the barracks, and a few of the best houses in the town. There is a large and tolerably well-arranged market-place. There is a really handsome set of public buildings, and there are two moderately good hotels. What more can a man rationally want if he travel for business? And if he travel for pleasure how can he possibly find less?
It so happened that at the time of my visit to Costa Rica Sir William Ouseley was staying at San José with his family. He had been sent, as all the world that knows anything doubtless knows very well, as minister extraordinary from our Court to the governments of Central America, with the view of settling some of those tough diplomatic questions as to the rights of transit and occupation of territory, respecting which such world-famous Clayton-Bulwer treaties and Cass-Yrrisari treaties have been made and talked of. He had been in Nicaragua, making no doubt an equally famous Ouseley-something treaty, and was now engaged on similar business in the capital of Costa Rica.
Of the nature of this August work,—for such work must be very august,—I know nothing. I only hope that he may have at least as much success as those who went before him. But to me it was a great stroke of luck to find so pleasant and hospitable a family in so outlandish a place as San José. And indeed, though I have given praise to the hotel, I have given it with very little personal warrant as regards my knowledge either of the kitchen or cellar. My kitchen and cellar were beneath the British flag at the corner of the pláza, and I had reason to be satisfied with them in every respect.
And I had abundant reason to be greatly gratified. For not only was there at San José a minister extraordinary, but also, attached to the mission, there was an extra-ordinary secretary of legation, a very prince of good fellows. At home he would be a denizen of the Foreign Office, and denizens of the Foreign Office are swells at home. But at San José, where he rode on a mule, and wore a straw hat, and slept in a linendraper's shop, he was as pleasant a companion as a man would wish to meet on the western, or indeed on any other side of the Atlantic.
I shall never forget the hours I spent in that linendraper's shop. The rooms over the shop, over that shop and over two or three others, were occupied by Sir W. Ouseley and his family. There was a chemist's establishment there, and another in the possession, I think, of a hatter. They had been left to pursue their business in peace; but my friend the secretary, finding no rooms sufficiently secluded for himself in the upper mansion, had managed to expel the haberdasher, and had located himself not altogether uncomfortably, among the counters.
Those who have spent two or three weeks in some foreign town in which they have no ordinary pursuits, know what it is to have—or perhaps, more unlucky, know what it is to be without—some pleasant accustomed haunt, in which they can pretend to read, while in truth the hours are passed in talking, with some few short intervals devoted to contemplation and tobacco. Such to me was the shop of the expelled linendraper at San José. In it, judiciously suspended among the counters, hung a Panamá grass hammock, in which it was the custom of my diplomatic friend to lie at length and meditate his despatches. Such at least had been his custom before my arrival. What became of his despatches during the period of my stay, it pains me to think; for in that hammock I had soon located myself, and I fear that my presence was not found to be a salutary incentive to composition.
The scenery round San José is certainly striking, but not sufficiently so to enable one to rave about it. I cannot justly go into an ecstasy and sing of Pelion or Ossa; nor can I talk of deep ravines to which the Via Mala is as nothing. There is a range of hills, respectably broken into prettinesses, running nearly round the town, though much closer to it on the southern than on the other sides. Two little rivers run by it, which here and there fall into romantic pools, or pools which would be romantic if they were not so very distant from home; if having travelled so far, one did not expect so very much. There are nice walks too, and pretty rides; only the mules do not like fast trotting when the weight upon them is heavy. About a mile and a half from the town, there is a Savanah, so-called, or large square park, the Hyde Park of San José; and it would be difficult to imagine a more pleasant place for a gallop. It is quite large enough for a race-course, and is open to everybody. Some part of the mountain range as seen from here is really beautiful.
The valley of San José, as it is called, is four thousand five hundred feet above the sea; and consequently, though within the tropics, and only ten degrees north of the line, the climate is good, and the heat, I believe, never excessive. I was there in April, and at that time, except for a few hours in the middle of the day, and that only on some days, there was nothing like tropical heat. Within ten days of my leaving San José I heard natives at Panamá complaining of the heat as being altogether unendurable. But up there, on that high plateau, the sun had no strength that was inconvenient even to an Englishman.
Indeed, no climate can, I imagine, be more favourable to fertility and to man's comfort at the same time than that of the interior of Costa Rica. The sugar-cane comes to maturity much quicker than in Demerara or Cuba. There it should be cut in about thirteen or fourteen months from the time it is planted; in Nicaragua and Costa Rica it comes to perfection in nine or ten. The ground without manure will afford two crops of corn in a year. Coffee grows in great perfection, and gives a very heavy crop. The soil is all volcanic, or, I should perhaps more properly say, has been the produce of volcanoes, and is indescribably fertile. And all this has been given without that intensity of heat which in those southern regions generally accompanies tropical fertility, and which makes hard work fatal to a white man; while it creates lethargy and idleness, and neutralizes gifts which would otherwise be regarded as the fairest which God has bestowed on his creatures. In speaking thus, I refer to the central parts of Costa Rica only, to those which lie some thousand feet above the level of the sea. Along the sea-shores, both of the Atlantic and Pacific, the heat is as great, and the climate as unwholesome as in New Granada or the West Indies. It would be difficult to find a place worse circumstanced in this respect than Punta-arenas.
But though the valley or plateau of San José, and the interior of the country generally is thus favourably situated, I cannot say that the nation is prosperous. It seems to be God's will that highly-fertile countries should not really prosper. Man's energy is brought to its highest point by the presence of obstacles to be overcome, by the existence of difficulties which are all but insuperable. And therefore a Scotch farm will give a greater value in produce than an equal amount of land in Costa Rica. When nature does so much, man will do next to nothing!
Those who seem to do best in this country, both in trade and agriculture, are Germans. Most of those who are carrying on business on a large scale are foreigners,—that is, not Spanish by descent. There are English here, and Americans, and French, but I think the Germans are the most wedded to the country. The finest coffee properties are in the hands of foreigners, as also are the plantations of canes, and saw-mills for the preparation of timber. But they have a very uphill task. Labour is extremely scarce, and very dear. The people are not idle as the negroes are, and they love to earn and put by money; but they are very few in number; they have land of their own, and are materially well off. In the neighbourhood of San José, a man's labour is worth a dollar a day, and even at that price it is not always to be had.
It seems to be the fact that in all countries in which slavery has existed and has been abolished, this subject of labour offers the great difficulty in the way of improvement. Labour becomes unpopular, and is regarded as being in some sort degrading. Men will not reconcile it with their idea of freedom. They wish to work on their own land, if they work at all; and to be their own masters; to grow their own crops, be they ever so small; and to sit beneath their own vine, be the shade ever so limited. There are those who will delight to think that such has been the effect of emancipation; who will argue,—and they have strong arguments on their side,—that God's will with reference to his creatures is best carried out by such an order of things. I can only say that the material result has not hitherto been good. As far as we at present see, the struggle has produced idleness and sensuality, rather than prosperity and civilization.
It is hardly fair to preach this doctrine, especially with regard to Costa Rica, for the people are not idle. That, at least, is not specially their character. They are a humdrum, contented, quiet, orderly race of men; fond of money, but by no means fond of risking it; living well as regards sufficiency of food and raiment, but still living very close; anxious to effect small savings, and politically contented if the security of those savings can be insured to them. They seem to be little desirous, even among the upper classes, or what we would call the tradespeople, of education, either religious or profane; they have no enthusiasm, no ardent desires, no aspirations. If only they could be allowed to sell their dulce to the maker of aguardiente,—if they might be permitted to get their little profit out of the manufacture of gin! That, at present, is the one grievance that affects them, but even that they bear easily.
It will perhaps be considered my duty to express an opinion whether or no they are an honest people. In one respect, certainly. They steal nothing; at any rate, make no great thefts. No one is attacked on the roads; no life is in danger from violence; houses are not broken open. Nay, a traveller's purse left upon a table is, I believe, safe; nor will his open portmanteau be rifled. But when you come to deal with them, the matter is different. Then their conscience becomes elastic; and as the trial is a fair one between man and man, they will do their best to cheat you. If they lie to you, cannot you lie to them? And is it not reasonable to suppose that you do do so? If they, by the aid of law, can get to the windy side of you, is not that merely their success in opposition to your attempt—for of course you do attempt—to get to the windy side of them? And then bribes are in great vogue. Justice is generally to be bought; and when that is in the market, trade in other respects is not generally conducted in the most honest manner.
Thus, on the whole, I cannot take upon myself to say that they are altogether an honest people. But they have that kind of honesty which is most essential to the man who travels in a wild country. They do not knock out the traveller's brains, or cut his throat for the sake of what he has in his pocket.
Generally speaking, the inhabitants of Costa Rica are of course Spanish by descent, but here, as in all these countries, the blood is very much mixed: pure Spanish blood is now, I take it, quite an exception. This is seen more in the physiognomy than in the colour, and is specially to be noticed in the hair. There is a mixture of three races, the Spanish, the native Indian, and the Negro; but the traces of the latter are comparatively light and few. Negroes, men and women, absolutely black, and of African birth or descent, are very rare; and though traces of the thick lip and the woolly hair are to be seen—to be seen in the streets and market-places—they do not by any means form a staple of the existing race.
The mixture is of Spanish and of Indian blood, in which the Spanish no doubt much preponderates. The general colour is that of a white man, but of one who is very swarthy. Occasionally this becomes so marked that the observer at once pronounces the man or woman to be coloured. But it is the colouring of the Indian, and not of the negro; the hue is rich, and to a certain extent bright, and the lines of the face are not flattened and blunted. The hair also is altogether human, and in no wise sheepish.
I do not think that the inhabitants of Costa Rica have much to boast of in the way of personal beauty. Indeed, the descendant of the Spaniard, out of his own country, seems to lose both the manly dignity and the female grace for which old Spain is still so noted. Some pretty girls I did see, but they could boast only the ordinary prettiness which is common to all young girls, and which our friends in France describe as being the special gift of the devil. I saw no fine, flaming, flashing eyes; no brilliant figures, such as one sees in Seville around the altar-rails in the churches: no profiles opening upon me struck me with mute astonishment.
The women were humdrum in their appearance, as the men are in their pursuits. They are addicted to crinoline, as is the nature of women in these ages; but so long as their petticoats stuck out, that seemed to be everything. In the churches they squat down on the ground, in lieu of kneeling, with their dresses and petticoats arranged around them, looking like huge turnips with cropped heads—like turnips that, by their persevering growth, had got half their roots above the ground. Now women looking like turnips are not specially attractive.
I was at San José during Passion Week, and had therefore an opportunity of seeing the processions which are customary in Roman Catholic countries at that period. I certainly should not say that the Costa Ricans are especially a religious people. They are humdrum in this as in other respects, and have no enthusiasm either for or against the priesthood. Free-thinking is not the national sin; nor is fanaticism. They are all Roman Catholics, most probably without an exception. Their fathers and mothers were so before them, and it is a thing of course.
There used to be a bishop of Costa Rica; indeed, they never were without one till the other day. But not long since the father of their church in some manner displeased the President: he had, I believe, taken it into his sacred head that he, as bishop, might make a second party in the state, and organize an opposition to the existing government; whereupon the President banished him, as the President can do to any one by his mere word, and since that time there has been no bishop. "And will they not get another?" I asked. "No; probably not; they don't want one. It will be so much money saved." Looking at the matter in this light, there is often much to be said for the expediency of reducing one's establishment. "And who manages the church?" "It does not require much management. It goes on in the old way. When they want priests they get them from Guatemala." If we could save all our bishoping, and get our priests as we want them from Guatemala, or any other factory, how excellent would be the economy!
The cathedral of San José is a long, low building, with side aisles formed by very rickety-looking wooden pillars—in substance they are hardly more than poles—running from the ground to the roof. The building itself is mean enough, but the internal decorations are not badly arranged, and the general appearance is neat, orderly, and cool. We all know the usual manner in which wooden and waxen virgins are dressed and ornamented in such churches. There is as much of this here as elsewhere; but I have seen it done in worse taste both in France and Italy. The façade of the church, fronting the pláza is hardly to be called a portion of the church; but is an adjunct to it, or rather the church has been fixed on to the façade, which is not without some architectural pretension.
In New Granada—Columbia that was—the cathedrals are arranged as they are in old Spain. The choir is not situated round the altar, or immediately in front of it, as is the custom in Christian churches in, I believe, all other countries, but is erected far down the centre aisle, near the western entrance. This, however, was not the case in any church that I saw in Costa Rica.
During the whole of Passion Week there was a considerable amount of religious activity, in the way of preaching and processions, which reached its acme on Good Friday. On that day the whole town was processioning from morning—which means four o'clock—till evening—which means two hours after sunset. They had three figures, or rather three characters,—for two of them appeared in more than one guise and form,—each larger than life; those, namely, of our Saviour, the Virgin, and St. John. These figures are made of wax, and the faces of some of them were excellently moulded. These are manufactured in Guatemala—as the priests are; and the people there pride themselves on their manufacture, not without reason.
The figures of our Saviour and the Virgin were in different dresses and attitudes, according to the period of the day which it was intended to represent; but the St. John was always represented in the dress of a bishop of the present age. The figures were supported on men's shoulders, and were carried backwards and forwards through every portion of the town, till at last, having been brought forth in the morning from the cathedral, they were allowed at night to rest in a rival, and certainly better built, though smaller church.
I must notice one particularity in the church-going population of this country. The women occupy the nave and centre aisle, squatting on the ground, and looking, as I have said, like turnips; whereas the men never advance beyond the side aisles. The women of the higher classes—all those, indeed, who make any pretence to dress and finery—bring with them little bits of carpet, on which they squat; but there are none of those chairs with which churches on the Continent are so commonly filled.
It seemed that there is nothing that can be called society among the people of San José. They do not go out to each other's homes, nor meet in public; they have neither tea-parties, nor dinner-parties, nor dancing-parties, nor card-parties. I was even assured—though I cannot say that the assurance reached my belief—that they never flirt! Occasionally, on Sundays, for instance, and on holidays, they put on their best clothes and call on each other. But even then there is no conversation among them; they sit stiffly on each other's sofas, and make remarks at intervals, like minute guns, about the weather.
"But whatdothey do?" I asked. "The men scrape money together, and when they have enough they build a house, big or little according to the amount that they have scraped: that satisfies the ambition of a Costa Rican. When he wishes to amuse himself, he goes to a cock-fight." "And the women?" "They get married early if their fathers can give them a few ounces"—the ounce is the old doubloon, worth here about three pounds eight shillings sterling—"and then they cook, and have children." "And if the ounces be wanting, and they don't get married?" "Then they cook all the same, but do not have the children,—as a general rule." And so people vegetate in Costa Rica.
And now I must say a word or two about the form of government in this country. It is a republic, of course, arranged on the model plan. A president is elected for a term of years,—in this case six. He has ministers who assist him in his government, and whom he appoints; and there is a House of Congress, elected of course by the people, who make the laws. The President merely carries them out, and so Utopia is realized.
Utopia might perhaps be realized in such republics, or at any rate the realization might not be so very distant as it is at present, were it not that in all of them the practice, by some accident, runs so far away from the theory.
In Costa Rica, Don Juan Rafael Mora, familiarly called Juanito, is now the president, having been not long since re-elected (?) for the third time. "We read in the 'Gazette' on Tuesday morning that the election had been carried on Saturday, and that was all we knew about it." It is thus they elect a president in Costa Rica; no one knows anything about it, or troubles his head with the matter. If any one suggested a rival president, he would be banished. But such a thing is not thought of; no note is taken as to five years or six years. At some period that pleases him, the President says that he has been re-elected, and he is re-elected. Who cares? Why not Juanito as well as any one else? Only it is a pity he will not let us sell our dulce to the distillers!
The President's salary is three thousand dollars a year; an income which for so high a position is moderate enough. But then a further sum of six thousand dollars is added to this for official entertainment. The official entertainments, however, are not numerous. I was informed that he usually gives one party every year. He himself still lives in his private house, and still keeps a shop, as he did before he was president. It must be remembered that there is no aristocracy in this country above the aristocracy of the shopkeepers.
As far as I could learn, the Congress is altogether a farce. There is a congress or collection of men sent up from different parts of the country, some ten or dozen of whom sit occasionally round a table in the great hall; but they neither debate, vote, nor offer opinions. Some one man, duly instructed by the President, lets them know what law is to be made or altered, and the law is made or altered. Should any member of Congress make himself disagreeable, he would, as a matter of course, be banished; taken, that is, to Punta-arenas, and there told to shift for himself. Now this enforced journey to Punta-arenas does not seem to be more popular among the Costa Ricans than a journey to Siberia is among the Russians.
Such is the model republic of Central America,—admitted, I am told, to be the best administered of the cluster of republics there established. This, at any rate, may certainly be said for it—that life and property are safe. They are safe for the present, and will probably remain so, unless the filibusters make their way into the neighbouring state of Nicaragua in greater numbers and with better leaders than they have hitherto had.
And it must be told to the credit of the Costa Ricans, that it was by them and their efforts that the invasion of Walker and the filibusters into Central America was stopped and repelled. These enterprising gentlemen, the filibusters, landed on the coast of Nicaragua, having come down from California. Here they succeeded in getting possession of a large portion of the country, that portion being the most thickly populated and the richest; many of the towns they utterly destroyed, and among them Granada, the capital. It seems that at this time the whole state of Nicaragua was paralyzed, and unable to strike any blow in its own defence.
Having laid waste the upper or more northern country, Walker came down south as far as Rivas, a town still in Nicaragua, but not far removed from the borders of Costa Rica. His intention, doubtless, was to take possession of Costa Rica, so that he might command the whole transit across the isthmus.
But at Rivas he was attacked by the soldiery of Costa Rica, under the command of a brother of Don Juan Mora. This was in 1856, and it seems that some three thousand Costa Ricans were taken as far as Rivas. But few of them returned. They were attacked by cholera, and what with that, and want, and the intense heat, to which of course must be added what injuries the filibusters could do them, they were destroyed, and a remnant only returned.
But in 1857 the different states of Central America joined themselves in a league, with the object of expelling these filibusters. I do not know that either of the three northern states sent any men to Rivas, and the weight of the struggle again fell upon Costa Rica. The Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans together invested Rivas, in which five hundred filibusters under Walker for some time maintained themselves. These men were reduced to great straits, and might no doubt have been taken bodily. But the Central Americans also had their difficulties to contend with. They did not agree very well together, and they had but slender means of supporting themselves. It ended in a capitulation, under which Walker and his associates were to walk out with their arms and all the honours of war; and by which, moreover, it was stipulated that the five hundred were to be sent back to America at the expense of the Central American States. The States, thinking no doubt that it was good economy to build a golden bridge for a flying enemy, did so send them back; and in this manner for a while Central America was freed from the locusts.
Such was the capitulation of Rivas; a subject on which all Costa Ricans now take much pride to themselves. And indeed, honour is due to them in this matter, for they evinced a spirit in the business when their neighbours of Nicaragua failed to do so. They soon determined that the filibusters would do them no good;—could indeed by no possibility do them anything but harm; consequently, they resolved to have the first blow, and they struck it manfully, though not so successfully as might have been wished.
The total population of Central America is, I believe, about two millions, while that of Costa Rica does not exceed two hundred thousand. Of the five states, Guatemala has by far the largest number of inhabitants; and indeed the town of Guatemala may still be regarded as the capital of all the isthmus territories. They fabricate there not only priests and wax images, but doctors and lawyers, and all those expensive luxuries for the production of which the air of a capital is generally considered necessary. The President of Guatemala is, they say, an Indian, nearly of pure descent; his name is Carrera.
I have spoken of the army of Costa Rica. In point of accoutrement and outward show, they are on ordinary days somewhat like the troops that were not fit to march through Coventry. They wear no regimentals, and are only to be known when on duty by a very rusty-looking gun. On Sundays, however, and holidays they do wear a sort of uniform, consisting of a neat cap, and a little braiding upon their best clothes. This dress, such as it is, they are obliged to find for themselves. The clothing department, therefore, is not troublesome.
These men are enrolled after the manner of our militia. The full number should be nine thousand, and is generally somewhat above six thousand. Of this number five hundred are kept in barracks, the men taking it by turns, month by month. When in barracks they receive about one shilling and sixpence a day; at other times they have no pay.
I cannot close my notice of San José without speaking somewhat more specially of the range of public buildings. I am told that it was built by a German, or rather by two Germans; the basement and the upper story being the work of different persons. Be this as it may, it is a handsome building, and would not disgrace any European capital. There is in it a throne-room—in England, at least, we should call it a throne; on this the President sits when he receives ambassadors from foreign countries. The velvet and gilding were quite unexceptionable, and the whole is very imposing. The sitting of Congress is held in the same chamber; but that, as I have explained, is not imposing.
The chief produce of Costa Rica is coffee. Those who love statistics may perhaps care to know that the average yearly export is something under a hundred thousand quintals; now a quintal weighs a hundred pounds, or rather, I believe, ninety-nine pounds exact.
In the neighbourhood of San José there is a volcanic mountain, the name of which is Irazu. I was informed that it still smoked, though it had discontinued for the present the ejection of flames and lava. Indeed, the whole country is full of such mountains. There is one, the Monte Blanco, the summit of which has never yet been reached—so rumour says in Costa Rica—far distant, enveloped among other mountains, and to be reached only through dense aboriginal forests, which still emits, and is always emitting fire and burning floods of molten stones.
Different excursions have been made with the object of ascending the Monte Blanco, but hitherto in vain. Not long since it was attempted by a French baron, but he and his guide were for twenty days in the woods, and then returned, their provisions failing them.
"You should ascend the Monte Blanco," said Sir William Ouseley to me. "You are a man at large, with nothing to do. It is just the work for you." This was Sir William's satire on the lightness of my ordinary occupations. Light as they might be, however, I had neither time nor courage for an undertaking such as that; so I determined to satisfy myself with the Irazu.
It happened, rather unfortunately for me, that at the moment of my arrival at San José, a large party, consisting of Sir William's family and others, were in the very act of visiting the mountain. Those, therefore, who were anxious to see the sight, and willing to undergo the labour, thus had their opportunity; and it became impossible for me to make up a second party. One hope I had. The Secretary of Legation had not gone. Official occupation, joined to a dislike of mud and rough stones, had kept him at home. Perhaps I might prevail. The intensity of that work might give way before a week's unremitting labour, and that Sybarite propensity might be overcome.
But all my eloquence was of no avail. An absence of a day and a half only was required; and three were spent in proving that this could not be effected. The stones and mud too were becoming worse and worse, for the rainy season had commenced. In fact, the Secretary of Legation would not budge. "Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle," said the Secretary of Legation; whereupon he lighted another cigar, and took a turn in the grass hammock. Now in my mind it must be a very bad game indeed that is not worth the candle; and almost any game is better than no game at all.
I was thus in deep trouble, making up my mind to go alone, or rather alone with my guide;—for the due appreciation of which state of loneliness it must be borne in mind that, as I do not speak a word of Spanish, I should have no possible means of communication with the guide,—when a low and mild voice fell upon my ear, offering me its proprietor as my companion.
"I went up with Sir William last week," said the mild voice; "and if you will permit me, I shall be happy to go with you. I should like to see it twice; and I live at Cartago on the way."
It was quite clear that the owner of the voice was sacrificing himself, and offering to repeat this troublesome journey merely out of good nature; but the service which he proposed to render me was too essential, and I could not afford to reject the offer. He lived in the country and spoke Spanish, and was, moreover, a mild, kind-hearted little gentleman, very suitable as a companion, and not given too pertinaciously to a will of his own. Now the Secretary of Legation would have driven me mad half a score of times during the journey. He would have deafened me with politics, and with such politics too! So that on the whole I knew myself to be well off with the mild voice.
"You must go through Cartago," said the mild voice, "and I live there. We will dine there at the inn to-morrow, and then do a portion of our work the same evening." It was so arranged. I was to be with him the next day at three, with a guide and two mules.
On the next morning it rained provokingly. I ought to have started at twelve; but at that time it was pouring, and neither the guide nor the mules showed themselves. "You will never get there," said the Secretary of Legation, looking up to the murky clouds with a gleam of delight. "The game is never worth such a candle as that." "I shall get there most assuredly," said I, rather sulkily, "let the candle cost what it may." But still the mules did not come.
Men have no idea of time in any country that is or has been connected with Spain. "Yes, señor; you said twelve, and it is now only two! Well, three. The day is long, señor; there is plenty of time. Vaminos? Since you are in such a hurry, shall we make a start of it?"
At half-past two o'clock so spoke—not my guide, for, as will be seen by-and-by, he never spoke at all—but my guide's owner, who came accompanying the mules. In huge hurry, with sundry mute exclamations, uttered by my countenance since my tongue was unintelligible, and with appeals to my watch which should have broken the man's heart as I thrust it into his face, I clomb into my saddle. And then a poor-looking, shoeless creature, with a small straw hat tied on to his head by a handkerchief, with difficulty poised himself on the other beast "Vamos," I exclaimed, and trotted down the street; for I knew that in that direction lay the road to Cartago. "God be with you," said the Secretary of Legation. "The rainy season has set in permanently, I know; but perhaps you may have half an hour of sunshine now and again. I hope you will enjoy yourself."
It was not raining when I started, and in fact did not rain again the whole afternoon. I trotted valiantly down the street, knowing my way so far; but at the bottom of the town the roads divided, and I waited for my guide. "Go on first," said I, pointing along the road. But he did not understand me, and stood still. "Go on," said I, getting behind his mule as though to drive him. But he merely stared, and shuffled himself to the other side of the road. "Cartago," I shouted, meaning that he was to show me the way there. "Si, señor," he replied; and backed himself into the ditch out of my way. He was certainly the stupidest man I ever met in my life, and I believe the Secretary of Legation had selected him on purpose.
I was obliged to choose my own road out of two, and luckily chose the right one. Had I gone wrong, I doubt whether the man would have had wit enough to put me right. I again trotted on; but in a quarter of an hour was obliged to wait, for my attendant was behind me, out of sight, and I felt myself bound to look after my traps, which were fastened to his mule. "Come on," I shouted in good broad English as soon as I saw him. "Why the mischief don't you come on?" And my voice was so pitched, that on this occasion I think he did understand something of what I meant.
"Co-o-ome along," I repeated, as he gently drew up to me. And I hit his mule sharply on the crupper with my stick. "Spur him," I said; and I explained what I meant by sticking my own rowels into my own beast. Whereupon the guide showed me that he had no spurs.
Now if there be one rule of life more strictly kept in Costa Rica than another, it is this, that no man ever mounts horse or mule without spurs. A man in England would as soon think of hunting without breeches. No muleteer was ever seen without them. And when a mule is hired, if the hirer have no saddle, he may chance to have to ride without one; but if he have no spurs, he will always be supplied.
I took off one of my own, which, by-the-by, I had borrowed out of the Secretary of Legation's establishment, and offered it to the man, remembering the well-known doctrine of Hudibras. He then showed me that one of his hands was tied up, and that he could not put the spur on. Consequently I was driven to dismount myself, and to act equerry to this knight. Thrice on the road I had to do so, for twice the spur slipped from off his naked foot. Even with this I could not bring him on. It is four leagues, or about sixteen miles, from San José to Cartago, and with all my hastening we were three hours on the road.
The way lay through a rich and finely-cultivated country. The whole of this is now called the valley of San José, and consists, in truth, of a broad plateau, diversified by moderate hills and valleys, but all being at a considerable height; that is, from three to four thousand feet above the sea. The road also is fairly good; so good that a species of omnibus runs on it daily, there being some considerable traffic between the places; for Cartago is the second town in the republic.
Cartago is now the second town, but not long since it was the capital. It was, however, destroyed by an earthquake; and though it has been rebuilt, it has never again taken its former position. Its present population is said to be ten thousand; but this includes not only the suburbs, but the adjacent villages. The town covers a large tract of ground, which is divided into long, broad, parallel streets, with a large pláza in the middle; as though it had been expected that a fine Utopian city would have sprung up. Alas! there is nothing fine about it, and very little that is Utopian.
Lingering near the hotel door, almost now in a state of despair, I met him of the mild voice. "Yes; he had been waiting for three hours, certainly," he mildly said, as I spurred my beast up to the door. "Now that I was come it was all right; and on the whole he rather liked waiting—that is, when it did not result in waiting for nothing." And then we sat down to dinner at the Cartago hotel.
This also was kept by a German, who after a little hesitation confessed that he had come to the country as a filibuster. "You have fallen on your legs pretty well," said I; for he had a comfortable house, and gave us a decent dinner. "Yes," said he, rather dubiously; "but when I came to Costa Rica I intended to do better than this." He might, however, remember that not one in five hundred of them had done so well.
And then another guide had to be found, for it was clear that the one I had brought with me was useless. And I had a visit to make; for my friend lived with a widow lady, who would be grieved, he said, if I passed through without seeing her. So I did call on her. I saw her again on my return through Cartago, as I shall specify.
With all these delays it was dark when we started. Our plan was to ride up to an upland pasture farm at which visitors to the mountain generally stop, to sleep there for a few hours, and then to start between three and four so as to reach the top of the mountain by sunrise. Now I perfectly well remember what I said with reference to sunrises from mountain-tops on the occasion of that disastrous visit to the Blue Mountain Peak in Jamaica; how I then swore that I would never do another mountain sunrise, having always failed lamentably in such attempts. I remember, and did remember this; and as far as the sunrise was concerned would certainly have had nothing to do with the Irazu at five o'clock,a.m.
But the volcano and the crater made the matter very different. They were my attractions; and as the mild voice suggested an early hour, it would not have become me to have hesitated. "Start at four?" "Certainly," I said. "The beds at the potrero"—such was the name they gave the place at which we stopped—"will not be soft enough to keep us sleeping." "No," said the mild voice, "they are not soft." And so we proceeded.
Our road was very rough, and very steep; and the night was very dark. It was rough at first, and then it became slippery, which was worse. I had no idea that earth could be so slippery. My mule, which was a very fine one, fell under me repeatedly, being altogether unable to keep her footing. On these occasions she usually scrambled up, with me still on her back. Once, however, near the beginning of my difficulties, I thought to relieve her; and to do so I got off her. I soon found my mistake. I immediately slipped down on my hands and knees, and found it impossible to stand on my feet. I did not sink into the mud, but slipped off it—down, down, down, as if I were going back to Cartago, all alone in the dark. It was with difficulty that I again mounted my beast; but when there, there I remained let her fall as she would. At eleven o'clock we reached the potrero.
The house here was little more than a rancho or hut; one of those log farm buildings which settlers make when they first clear the timber from a part of their selected lots, intending to replace them in a year or two by such tidy little houses; but so rarely fulfilling their intentions. All through Costa Rica such ranchos are common. On the coffee plantations and in the more highly-cultivated part of the country, round the towns for instance, and along the road to Punta-arenas, the farmers have a better class of residence. They inhabit long, low-built houses, with tiled roofs and a ground floor only, not at all unlike farmers' houses in Ireland, only that there they are thatched or slated. Away from such patches of cultivation, one seldom finds any house better than a log-built rancho.
But the rancho had a door, and that door was fastened; so we knocked and hallooed—"Dito," cried the guide; such being, I presume, the familiar sobriquet of his friend within. "Dito," sang out my mild friend with all his small energy of voice. "Dito," shouted I; and I think that my voice was the one which wakened the sleepers within.
We were soon admitted into the hut, and found that we were by no means the first comers. As soon as a candle was lighted we saw that there were four bedsteads in the room, and that two of them were occupied. There were, however, two left for my friend and myself. And it appeared also that the occupiers were friends of my friend. They were German savants, one by profession an architect and the other a doctor, who had come up into the woods looking for birds, beasts, and botanical treasures, and had already been there some three or four days. They were amply supplied with provisions, and immediately offered us supper. The architect sat up in bed to welcome us, and the doctor got up to clear the two spare beds of his trappings.
There is a luck in these things. I remember once clambering to the top of Scafell-Pike, in Cumberland—if it chance to be in Westmoreland I beg the county's pardon. I expected nothing more than men generally look for on the tops of mountains; but to my great surprise I found a tent. I ventured to look in, and there I saw two officers of the Engineers, friends of my own, sharpening their knives preparatory to the dissection of a roast goose. And beside the goose stood a bottle of brandy. Now I always looked on that as a direct dispensation of Providence. Walking down the mountain that same evening to Whitehaven, I stopped at a small public-house on the side of Enerdale, and called for some whisky and water. The article produced was not good, and so I said, appealing to an elderly gentleman in black, who sat by the hobside, very contemplative. "Ah," said he; "you can't get good drink in these parts, sir; I know that so well that I generally bring a bottle of my own." I immediately opened a warm conversation with that gentleman. He was a clergyman of a neighbouring parish; and in a few minutes a magnum of port had made its appearance out of a neighbouring cupboard. That I thought was another dispensation of Providence. It was odd that they should have come together; but the facts are as I state them.
I did venture on a glass of brandy and water and a slight morsel of bread and meat, and then I prepared to throw myself on the bed immediately opposite to the doctor's. As I did so I saw something move inside the doctor's bed. "My wife is there," said the doctor, seeing the direction of my eyes. "Oh!" said I; and I at once became very moderate in the slight change which I made in my toilet.
We were to start at four, and at four precisely I woke. As my friend had said, there was little to tempt me to sleep. The great drawback to the comfort of these ranchos is the quantity of dirt which continually falls out of the roof into one's eyes. Then the boards are hard of course, and of course, also, they are infested with vermin. They tell you indeed of scorpions and centipedes, of preternatural wasps, and musquitos as big as young ostriches; but I found none of these large-looming beasts of prey. Of beasts of a smaller size I did find more than plenty.
At four I was up, but my friend was very unwilling to stir. It was long before I could induce the mild voice to make itself heard in any way. At that time it was fine, but it was long before I could get the muleteer. When I had done so, and he had thrown their grass to the beasts, it began to rain—of course. "It rains like thed——"said I, very crossly. "Does it?" said the mild voice from the bed. "I am so sorry;" and in half a second he was again in the land of dreams. The doctor snored; but from the furthest remote comer I could see the eye of the doctor's wife looking out at me.
It was between six and seven when we started. At that time it was not raining, but the clouds looked as like rain as the Secretary of Legation could have desired. And the two Germans were anything but consolatory in their prophecies. "You'll not see a stick or a stone," said the architect; "you'd better stop and breakfast with us." "It is very dangerous to be wet in the mountains, very dangerous," said the doctor. "It is a bad morning, certainly," pleaded the mild voice piteously. The doctor's wife said nothing, but I could see her eyes looking out at the weather. How on earth was she to get herself dressed, it occurred to me then, if we should postpone our journey and remain there?
It ended in our starting just two hours after the prescribed time. The road up from the potrero is very steep almost the whole way to the summit, but it was not so muddy as that we had passed over on the preceding evening. For some little way there were patches of cultivation, the ground bearing sweet potatoes and Indian corn. Then we came into a tract of beautiful forest scenery. The land, though steep, was broken, and only partially covered with trees. The grass in patches was as good as in an English park, and the views through the open bits of the forest were very lovely. In four or five different places we found the ground sufficiently open for all the requirements of a picturesque country house, and no prettier site for such a house could well be found. This was by far the finest scenery that I had hitherto seen in Costa Rica; but even here there was a want of water. In ascending the mountain we saw some magnificent forest trees, generally of the kind called cotton-trees in Jamaica. There were oaks also—so called there—very nearly approaching our holm-oak in colour and foliage, but much larger than that tree is with us. They were all more or less covered with parasite plants, and those parasites certainly add greatly to the beauty of the supporting trunk.
By degrees we got into thick forest—forest I mean so thick that it affords no views. You see and feel the trees that are close to you, but see nothing else. And here the path became so steep that we were obliged to dismount and let the beasts clamber up by themselves; and the mist became very thick, so much so that we could hardly trace our path; and then the guide said that he thought he had lost his way.
"People often do come out and go back again without ever reaching the crater at all, don't they?" said the mild voice.
"Very often," said the guide.
"But we won't be such people," said I.
"Oh no!" said the mild voice. "Not if we can help it."
"And we will help it. Allons; andiamos; vamos."
The first word which an Englishman learns in any language is that which signifies a determination to proceed.
And we did proceed, turning now hither and now thither, groping about in the mist, till at last the wood was all left behind us, and we were out among long grass on a mountain-side. "And now," said the guide, "unless the mist clears I can't say which way we ought to go."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the mist did clear itself away altogether from one side of us. Looking down to the left, we could see far away into the valleys beneath, over large forests, and across a lower range of hills, till the eye could reach the cultivated plateau below. But on the other side, looking up to a mountain higher still than that on which we stood, all was not only misty, but perfectly dark and inscrutable.
The guide however now knew the spot. We were near the summit of Irazu, and a further ride of a quarter of an hour took us there; and indeed here there was no difficulty in riding. The side of the hill was covered with grass, and not over steep. "There," said the mild voice, pointing to a broad, bushy, stumpy tree, "there is the place where Lady Ouseley breakfasted." And he looked at our modest havresack. "And we will breakfast there too," I answered. "But we will go down the crater first."
"Oh, yes; certainly," said the mild voice. "But perhaps—I don't know—I am not sure I can go exactly down into the crater."
The crater of the volcano is not at the top of the mountain, or rather it is not at what is now the top of the mountain; so that at first one has to look down upon it. I doubt even whether the volcano has ever effected the absolute summit. I may as well state here that the height of the mountain on which we were now standing is supposed to be 11,500 feet above the sea-level.
Luckily for us, though the mist reached to us where we stood, everything to the left of us was clear, and we could look down, down into the crater as into a basin. Everything was clear, so that we could count the different orifices, eight in number, of which two, however, had almost run themselves into one; and see, as far as it was possible to see, how the present formation of the volcano had been brought about.
It was as though a very large excavation had been made on the side of a hill, commencing, indeed, not quite from the summit, but very near it, and leaving a vast hole—not deep in proportion to its surface—sloping down the mountain-side. This huge excavation, which I take to be the extent of the crater, for it has evidently been all formed by the irruption of volcanic matter, is divided into two parts, a broken fragment of a mountain now lying between them; and the smaller of these two has lost all volcanic appearance. It is a good deal covered with bush and scrubby forest trees, and seems to have no remaining connection with sulphur and brimstone.
The other part, in which the crater now absolutely in use is situated, is a large hollow in the mountain-side, which might perhaps contain a farm of six hundred acres. Not having been able to measure it, I know no other way of describing what appeared to me to be its size. But a great portion of this again has lost all its volcanic appendages; except, indeed, that lumps of lava are scattered over the whole of it, as they are, though more sparingly, over the mountain beyond. There is a ledge of rock running round the interior of this division of the excavation, half-way down it, like a row of seats in a Roman amphitheatre, or an excrescence, if one can fancy such, half-way down a teacup. The ground above this ledge is of course more extensive than that below, as the hollow narrows towards the bottom. The present working mouth of the volcanic, and all those that have been working for many a long year—the eight in number of which I have spoken—lie at the bottom of this lowest hollow. This I should say might contain a farm of about two hundred acres.
Such was the form of the land on which we looked down. The descent from the top to the ledge was easy enough, and was made by myself and my friend with considerable rapidity. I started at a pace which convinced him that I should break my neck, and he followed, gallantly resolving to die with me. "You'll surely kill yourself, Mr. Trollope; you surely will," said the mild voice. And yet he never deserted me.
"Sir William got as far as this," said he, when we were on the ledge, but he got no further. "We will do better than Sir William," said I. "We will go down into that hole where we see the sulphur." "Into the very hole?" "Yes. If we get to windward, I think we can get into the very hole. Look at the huge column of white smoke; how it comes all in this direction! On the other side of the crater we should not feel it."
The descent below the ledge into my smaller farm was not made so easily. It must be understood that our guide was left above with the mules. We should have brought two men, whereas we had only brought one; and had therefore to perform our climbing unassisted. I at first attempted it in a direct line, down from where we stood; but I soon found this to be impracticable, and was forced to reascend. The earth was so friable that it broke away from me at every motion that I made; and after having gone down a few feet I was glad enough to find myself again on the ledge.
We then walked round considerably to the right, probably for more than a quarter of a mile, and there a little spur in the hillside—a buttress as it were to the ledge of which I have spoken—made the descent much easier, and I again tried.
"Do not you mind following me," I said to my companion, for I saw that he looked much aghast. "None of Sir William's party went down there," he answered. "Are you sure of that?" I asked. "Quite sure," said the mild voice. "Then what a triumph we will have over Sir William!" and so saying I proceeded. "I think I'll come too," said the mild voice. "If I do break my neck nobody'll be much the worse;" and he did follow me.
There was nothing very difficult in the clambering, but, unfortunately, just as we got to the bottom the mist came pouring down upon us, and I could not but bethink me that I should find it very difficult to make my way up again without seeing any of the landmarks. I could still see all below me, but I could see nothing that was above. It seemed as though the mist kept at our own level, and that we dragged it with us.
We were soon in one of the eight small craters or mouths of which I have spoken. Looking at them from above, they seemed to be nearly on a level, but it now appeared that one or two were considerably higher than the others. We were now in the one that was the highest on that side of the excavation. It was a shallow basin, or rather saucer, perhaps sixty yards in diameter, the bottom of which was composed of smooth light-coloured sandy clay. In dry weather it would partake almost of the nature of sand. Many many years had certainly rolled by since this mouth had been eloquent with brimstone.
The place at this time was very cold. My friend had brought a large shawl with him, with which over and over again he attempted to cover my shoulders. I, having meditated much on the matter, had left my cloak above. At the present moment I regretted it sorely; but, as matters turned out, it would have half smothered me before our walk was over.
We had now nothing for it but to wait till the mist should go off. There was but one open mouth to this mountain—one veritable crater from which a column of smoke and sulphur did then actually issue, and this, though the smell of the brimstone was already oppressive, was at some little distance. Gradually the mist did go off, or rather it shifted itself continually, now ascending far above us, and soon returning to our feet. We then advanced between two other mouths, and came to that which was nearest to the existing crater.
Here the aperture was of a very different kind. Though no smoke issued from it, and though there was a small tree growing at the bottom of it,—showing, as I presume, that there had been no eruption from thence since the seed of that tree had fallen to the ground,—yet the sides of the crater were as sharp and steep as the walls of a house. Into those which we had hitherto visited we could walk easily; into this no one could descend even a single foot, unless, indeed, he descended somewhat more than a foot so as to dash himself to pieces at the bottom. They were, when compared together, as the interior of a plate compared to that of a tea-caddy. Now a traveller travelling in such realms would easily extricate himself from the plate, but the depths of the tea-caddy would offer him no hope.
Having walked round this mute volcano, we ascended to the side of the one which was now smoking, for the aperture to this was considerably higher than that of the last one mentioned. As we were then situated, the smoke was bearing towards us, and every moment it became more oppressive; but I saw, or thought I saw, that we could skirt round to the back of the crater, so as not to get its full volume upon us; and so I proceeded, he of the mild voice mildly expostulating, but always following me.