But when we had ascended to the level of the hole the wind suddenly shifted, and the column of smoke dispersing enveloped us altogether. Had it come upon us in all its thickest mass I doubt whether it would not have first stupefied and then choked us. As it was, we ran for it, and succeeded in running out of it. It affected me, I think, more powerfully than it did my companion, for he was the first to regain his speech. "Sir William, at any rate, saw nothing like that," said he, coughing triumphantly.
I hope that I may never feel or smell anything like it again. This smoke is emitted from the earth at the bottom of a deep hole very similar to that above described. The sides of it all round are so steep that it is impossible to make even an attempt to descend it. By holding each other's hands we could look over into it one at a time, and see the very jaws in the rock from which the stream of sulphur ascends. It comes out quite yellow, almost a dark yellow, but gradually blanches as it expands in its course. These jaws in the rock are not in the centre of the bottom of the pit, but in a sharp angle, as it were, so that the smoke comes up against one side or wall, and that side is perfectly encrusted with the sulphur. It was at the end of the orifice, exactly opposite to this, that we knelt down and looked over.
The smoke when it struck upon us, immediately above this wall, was hot and thick and full of brimstone. The stench for a moment was very bad; but the effect went off at once, as soon as we were out of it.
The mild voice grasped my hand very tightly as he crept to the edge and looked over. "Ah!" he said, rejoicing greatly, "Sir William never saw that, nor any of his party; I am so glad I came again with you. I wonder whether anybody ever was here before." Hundreds doubtless have been, and thousands will be. Nine out of every ten men in London, between the ages of fifteen and fifty, would think little of the trouble and less of the danger of getting there; but I could not interfere with the triumph of my friend, so I merely remarked that it certainly was a very singular place.
And then we had to reascend. It was now past eleven o'clock, and as yet we had had no breakfast, for I cannot call that cup of coffee which we took at starting a breakfast, even though the German architect handed to each of us from out of his bed a hunch of beef and a crust of bread. Luckily the air was clear for a while, so that we could see what we were about, and we began to climb up on the side opposite to that by which we had descended.
And here I happened to mention that Miss Ouseley had commissioned me to get two bits of lava, one smooth and the other rough—unfortunately, for at once the mild voice declared that he had found two morsels which would exactly suit the lady's taste. I looked round, and, lo! there was my small friend with two huge stones, each weighing about twenty pounds, which, on the side of the mountain, he was endeavouring to pack under his arms. Now, the mountain here was very steep and very friable; the burnt shingle slipped from under our feet at every step; and, to make matters worse, we were climbing in a slanting direction.
"My dear fellow, it would kill you to carry those lumps to the top," I said; "do not think of it."
But he persevered. "There were no lumps of lava such as those," he said, "to be found at the top. They were just what Miss Ouseley wanted. He thought he would be able to manage with them. They were not so very heavy, if only the ground did not slip so much." I said what I could, but it was of no avail, and he followed me slowly with his sore burden.
I never knew the weather change with such rapidity. At this moment the sun was bright and very hot, and I could hardly bear my coat on my shoulders as I crept up that hill. How my little friend followed with his shawl and the lava rocks I cannot conceive. But, to own the truth, going down hill suits me better than going up. Years and obesity tell upon the wind sooner than they do on the legs—so, at least, it is with me. Now my mild friend hardly weighed fifteen ounces, whileI—!
And then, when we were again on the ridge, it began to rain most gloriously. Hitherto we had had mist, but this was a regular down-pour of rain—such moisture as the Secretary of Legation had been praying for ever since we started. Again and again the mild voice offered me the shawl, which, when I refused it, he wrapped round the lumps of lava, scorning to be drier than his companion. From the summit to the ledge we had come down fast enough, but the ascent was very different. I, at any rate, was very tired, and my friend was by no means as fresh as he had been. We were both in want of food, and our clothes were heavy with wet. He also still carried his lumps of lava.
At last, all raining as it was, I sat down. How far we might still be from the top I could not see; but be it far or be it near, nature required rest. I threw myself on the ground, and the mild voice not unwillingly crouched down close to me. "Now we can both have the shawl," said he, and he put it over our joint shoulders; that is, he put the shawl on mine while the fringe hung over his own. In half a minute we were both asleep, almost in each other's arms.
Men when they sleep thus on a mountain-side in the rain do not usually sleep long. Forty winks is generally acknowledged. Our nap may have amounted to eighty each, but I doubt whether it was more. We started together, rubbed our eyes, jumped to our feet, and prepared ourselves for work. But, alas! where was the lava?
My impression is that in my sleep I must have kicked the stones and sent them rolling. At any rate, they were gone. Dark and wet as it was, we both went down a yard or two, but it was in vain; nothing could be seen of them. The mild voice handed me the shawl, preparing to descend in their search; but this was too much. "You will only lose yourself," said I, laying hold of him, "and I shall have to look for your bones. Besides, I want my breakfast! We will get other specimens above."
"And perhaps they will be just as good," said he, cheerfully, when he found that he would not be allowed to have his way.
"Every bit," said I. And so we trudged on, and at last reached our mules. From this point men see, or think that they see, the two oceans—the Atlantic and the Pacific—and this sight to many is one of the main objects of the ascent. We saw neither the one ocean nor the other.
We got back to the potrero about three, and found our German friends just sitting down to dinner. The architect was seated on his bed on one side of the table arranging the viands, while the doctor on the other scooped out the brains of a strange bird with a penknife. The latter operation he performed with a view of stuffing, not himself, but the animal. They pressed us to dine with them before we started, and we did so, though I must confess that the doctor's occupation rather set me against my food. "If it be not done at once," said he, apologizing, "it can't he done well;" and he scraped, and scraped, and wiped his knife against the edge of the little table on which the dishes were placed. What had become of the doctor's wife I do not know, but she was not at the potrero when we dined there.
It was evening when we got into Cartago, and very tired we were. My mind, however, was made up to go on to San José that night, and ultimately I did so; but before starting, I was bound to repeat my visit to the English lady with whom my mild friend lived. Mrs.X——was, and I suppose is, the only Englishwoman living in Cartago, and with that sudden intimacy which springs up with more than tropical celerity in such places, she told me the singular history of her married life.
The reader would not care that I should repeat it at length, for it would make this chapter too long. Her husband had been engaged in mining operations, and she had come out to Guatemala with him in search of gold. From thence, after a period of partial success, he was enticed away into Costa Rica. Some speculation there, in which he or his partners were concerned, promised better than that other one in Guatemala, and he went, leaving his young wife and children behind him. Of course he was to return very soon, and of course he did not return at all. Mrs.X——was left with her children searching for gold herself. "Every evening," she said, "I saw the earth washed myself, and took up with me to the house the gold that was found." What an occupation for a young Englishwoman, the mother of three children! At this time she spoke no Spanish, and had no one with her who spoke English.
And then tidings came from her husband that he could not come to her, and she made up her mind to go to him. She had no money, the gold-washing having failed; her children were without shoes to their feet; she had no female companion; she had no attendant but one native man; and yet, starting from the middle of Guatemala, she made her way to the coast, and thence by ship to Costa Rica.
After that her husband became engaged in what, in those countries, is called "transit." Now "transit" means the privilege of making money by transporting Americans of the United States over the isthmus to and from California, and in most hands has led to fraud, filibustering, ruin, and destruction. Mr.X——,like many others, was taken in, and according to his widow's account, the matter ended in a deputation being sent, from New York I think, to murder him. He was struck with a life-preserver in the streets of San José, never fully recovered from the blow, and then died.
He had become possessed of a small estate in the neighbourhood of Cartago, on the proceeds of which the widow was now living. "And will you not return home?" I said. "Yes; when I have got my rights. Lookhere—"and she brought down a ledger, showing me that she had all manner of claims to all manner of shares in all manner of mines. "Aurum irrepertum et sic melius situm!" As regards her, it certainly would have been so.
For a coined sovereign, or five-dollar piece, I have the most profound respect. It is about the most faithful servant that a man can have in his employment, and should be held as by no means subject to those scurrilous attacks which a pharisaically moral world so often levels at its head. But of all objects of a man's ambition, uncoined gold, gold to be collected in sand, or picked up in nuggets, or washed out of earth, is, to my thinking, the most delusive and most dangerous! Who knows, or has known, or ever seen, any man that has returned happy from the diggings, and now sits contented under his own fig-tree?
My friend Mrs.X——was still hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, the hidden gold of the Central American mountains. She slapped her hands loudly together, for she was a woman of much energy, and declared that she would have her rights. When she had gotten her rights she would go home. Alas! alas! poor lady!
"And you," said I, to the mild voice, "will not you return?"
"I suppose so," said he, "when Mrs.X——goes;" and he looked up to the widow as though confessing that he was bound to her service, and would not leave her; not that I think they had the slightest idea of joining their lots together as men and women do. He was too mild for that.
I did ride back to San José that night, and a most frightful journey I had of it. I resumed, of course, my speechless, useless, dolt of a guide—the man whom the Secretary of Legation had selected for me before I started. Again I put my spur on his foot, and endeavoured to spirit him up to ride before me, so that I might know my way in the dark; but it was in vain; nothing would move him out of a walk, and I was obliged to leave him.
And then it became frightfully dark—pitch dark as men say—dark so that I could not see my mule's ears. I had nothing for it but to trust to her; and soon found, by being taken down into the deep bed of a river and through deep water, that we had left the road by which I had before travelled. The beast did not live in San José I knew, and I looked to be carried to some country rancho at which she would be at home. But in a time sufficiently short, I found myself in San José. The creature had known a shorter cut than that usually taken.
My purpose was to go right through Central America, from ocean to ocean, and to accomplish this it was necessary that I should now make my way down to the mouth of the San Juan river—to San Juan del Norte as it was formerly called, or Greytown, as it is now named by the English. This road, I was informed by all of whom I inquired, was very bad,—so bad as to be all but impracticable to English travellers.
And then, just at that moment, an event occurred which added greatly to the ill name of this route. A few days before I reached San José, a gentleman resident there had started for England with his wife, and they had decided upon going by the San Juan. It seems that the lady had reached San José, as all people do reach it, by Panamá and Punta-arenas, and had suffered on the route. At any rate, she had taken a dislike to it, and had resolved on returning by the San Juan and the Serapiqui rivers, a route which is called the Serapiqui road.
To do this it is necessary for the traveller to ride on mules for four, five, or six days, according to his or her capability. The Serapiqui river is then reached, and from that point the further journey is made in canoes down the Serapiqui river till it falls into the San Juan, and then down that river to Greytown.
This gentleman with his wife reached the Serapiqui in safety; though it seems that she suffered greatly on the road. But when once there, as she herself said, all her troubles were over. That weary work of supporting herself on her mule, through mud and thorns and thick bushes, of scrambling over precipices and through rivers, was done. She had been very despondent, even from before the time of her starting; but now, she said, she believed that she should live to see her mother again. She was seated in the narrow canoe, among cloaks and cushions, with her husband close to her, and the boat was pushed into the stream. Almost in a moment, within two minutes of starting, not a hundred yards from the place where she had last trod, the canoe struck against a snag or upturned fragment of a tree and was overset. The lady was borne by the stream among the entangled branches of timber which clogged the river, and when her body was found life had been long extinct.
This had happened on the very day that I reached San José, and the news arrived two or three days afterwards. The wretched husband, too, made his way back to the town, finding himself unable to go on upon his journey alone, with such a burden on his back. What could he have said to his young wife's mother when she came to meet him at Southampton, expecting to throw her arms round her daughter?
I was again lucky in having a companion for my journey. A young lieutenant of the navy,Fitzm——by name, whose vessel was lying at Greytown, had made his way up to San José on a visit to the Ouseleys, and was to return at the same time that I went down. He had indeed travelled up with the bereaved man who had lost his wife, having read the funeral service over the poor woman's grave on the lonely shores of the Serapiqui. The road, he acknowledged, was bad, too bad, he thought, for any female; but not more than sufficiently so to make proper excitement for a man. He, at any rate, had come over it safely; but then he was twenty-four, and I forty-four; and so we started together from San José, a crowd of friends accompanying us for the first mile or two. There was that Secretary of Legation prophesying that we should be smothered in the mud; there was the Consul and the Consul's brother; nor was female beauty wanting to wish us well on our road, and maybe to fling an old shoe after us for luck as we went upon our journey.
We took four mules, that was one each for ourselves, and two for our baggage; we had two guides or muleteers, according to bargain, both of whom travelled on foot. The understanding was, that one mule lightly laden with provisions and a pair of slippers and tooth-brush should accompany us, one man also going with us; but that the heavy-laden mule should come along after us at its own pace. Things, however, did not so turn out: on the first day both the men and both the mules lagged behind, and on one occasion we were obliged to wait above an hour for them; but after that we all kept in a string together, having picked up a third muleteer somewhere on the road. We had also with us a distressed British subject, who was intrusted to my tender mercies by the Consul at San José. He was not a good sample of a Britisher; he had been a gold-finder in California, then a filibuster, after that a teacher of the piano in the country part of Costa Rica, and lastly an omnibus driver. He was to act as interpreter for us, which, however, he did not do with much honesty or zeal.
Our road at first lay through the towns of Aredia and Barba, the former of which is a pleasant-looking little village, where, however, we found great difficulty in getting anything to drink. Up to this, and for a few leagues further, the road was very fair, and the land on each side of us was cultivated. We had started at eighta.m., and at about three in the afternoon there seemed to be great doubt as to where we should stop. The leading muleteer wished to take us to a house of a friend of his own, whereas the lieutenant and I resolved that the day's work had not been long enough. I take it that on the whole we were right, and the man gave in with sufficient good humour; but it ended in our passing the night in a miserable rancho. That at the potrero, on the road to the volcanic mountain, had been a palace to it.
And here we got into the forest; we had hitherto been ascending the whole way from San José, and had by degrees lost all appearance of tillage. Still, however, there had been open spaces here and there cleared for cattle, and we had not as yet found ourselves absolutely enveloped by woods. This rancho was called Buena-vista; and certainly the view from it was very pretty. It was pretty and extensive, as I have seen views in Baden and parts of Bavaria; but again there was nothing about which I could rave.
I shall not readily forget the night in that rancho. We were, I presume, between seven and eight thousand feet above the sea-level; and at night, or rather early in the morning, the cold was very severe.Fitzm——and I shared the same bed; that is, we lay on the same boards, and did what we could to cover ourselves with the same blankets. In that country men commonly ride upon blankets, having them strapped over the saddles as pillions, and we had come so provided; but before the morning was over I heartily wished for a double allowance.
We had brought with us a wallet of provisions, certainly not too well arranged by Sir William Ouseley's most reprehensible butler. Travellers should never trust to butlers. Our piece de résistance was a ham, and lo! it turned out to be a bad one. When the truth of this fact first dawned upon us it was in both our minds to go back and slay that butler: but there was still a piece of beef and some chickens, and there had been a few dozen of hard-boiled eggs. ButFitzm——would amuse himself with eating these all along the road: I always found when the ordinary feeding time came that they had not had the slightest effect upon his appetite.
On the next morning we again ascended for about a couple of leagues, and as long as we did so the road was still good; the surface was hard, and the track was broad, and a horseman could wish nothing better. And then we reached the summit of the ridge over which we were passing; this we did at a place called Desenganos, and from thence we looked down into vast valleys all running towards the Atlantic. Hitherto the fall of water had been into the Pacific.
At this place we found a vast shed, with numberless bins and troughs lying under it in great confusion. The facts, as far as I could learn, were thus: Up to this point the government, that is Don Juan Mora, or perhaps his predecessor, had succeeded in making a road fit for the transit of mule carts. This shed had also been built to afford shelter for the postmen and accommodation for the muleteers. But here Don Juan's efforts had been stopped; money probably had failed; and the great remainder of the undertaking will, I fear, be left undone for many a long year.
And yet this, or some other road from the valley of San José to the Atlantic, would be the natural outlet of the country. At present the coffee grown in the central high lands is carried down to Punta-arenas on the Pacific, although it must cross the Atlantic to reach its market; consequently, it is either taken round the Horn, and its sale thus delayed for months, or it is transported across the isthmus by railway, at an enormous cost. They say there is a point at which the Atlantic may be reached more easily than by the present route of the Serapiqui river; nothing, however, has as yet been done in the matter. To make a road fit even for mule carts, by the course of the present track, would certainly be a work of enormous difficulty.
And now our vexations commenced. We found that the path very soon narrowed, so much so that it was with difficulty we could keep our hats on our heads; and then the surface of the path became softer and softer, till our beasts were up to their knees in mud. All motion quicker than that of a walk became impossible; and even at this pace the struggles in the mud were both frequent and uncomfortable. Hitherto we had talked fluently enough, but now we became very silent; we went on following, each at the other's tail, floundering in the mud, silent, filthy, and down in the mouth.
"I tell you what it is," saidFitzm——at last, stopping on the road, for he had led the van, "I can't go any further without breakfast." We referred the matter to the guide, and found that Careblanco, the place appointed for our next stage, was still two hours distant.
"Two hours! Why, half an hour since you said it was only a league!" But what is the use of expostulating with a man who can't speak a word of English?
So we got off our mules, and draped out our wallet among the bushes. Our hard-boiled eggs were all gone, and it seemed as though the travelling did not add fresh delights to the cold beef; so we devoured another fowl, and washed it down with brandy and water.
As we were so engaged three men passed us with heavy burdens on their backs. They were tall, thin, muscular fellows, with bare legs, and linen clothes,—one of them apparently of nearly pure Indian blood. It was clear that the loads they carried were very weighty. They were borne high up on the back, and suspended by a band from the forehead, so that a great portion of the weight must have fallen on the muscles of the neck. This was the post; and as they had left San José some eight hours after us, and had come by a longer route, so as to take in another town, they must have travelled at a very fast pace. It was our object to go down the Serapiqui river in the same boat with the post. We had some doubt whether we should be able to get any other, seeing that the owner of one such canoe had been drowned, I believe in an endeavour to save the unfortunate lady of whom I have spoken; and any boat taken separately would be much more expensive.
So, as quick as might be, we tied up our fragments and proceeded. It was after this that I really learned how all-powerful is the force of mud. We came at last to a track that was divided crossways by ridges, somewhat like the ridges of ploughed ground. Each ridge was perhaps a foot and a half broad, and the mules invariably stepped between them, not on them. Stepping on them they could not have held their feet. Stepping between them they came at each step with their belly to the ground, so that the rider's feet and legs were trailing in the mud. The struggles of the poor brutes were dreadful. It seemed to me frequently impossible that my beast should extricate himself, laden as he was. But still he went on patiently, slowly, and continuously; splash, splash; slosh, slosh! Every muscle of his body was working; and every muscle of my body was working also.
For it is not very easy to sit upon a mule under such circumstances. The bushes were so close upon me that one hand was required to guard my face from the thorns; my knees were constantly in contact with the stumps of trees, and when my knees were free from such difficulties, my shins were sure to be in the wars. Then the poor animal rolled so from side to side in his incredible struggles with the mud that it was frequently necessary to hold myself on by the pommel of the saddle. Added to this, it was essentially necessary to keep some sort of guide upon the creature's steps, or one's legs would be absolutely broken. For the mule cares for himself only, and not for his rider. It is nothing to him if a man's knees be put out of joint against the stump of a tree.
Splash, splash, slosh, slosh! on we went in this way for hours, almost without speaking. On such occasions one is apt to become mentally cross, to feel that the world is too hard for one, that one's own especial troubles are much worse than those of one's neighbours, and that those neighbours are unfairly favoured. I could not help thinking it very unjust that I should be fifteen stone, whileFitzm——was only eight. And as for that distressed Britisher, he weighed nothing at all.
Splash, splash, slosh, slosh! we were at it all day. At Careblanco—the place of thewhite-faced pigsI understood it to mean;—they say that there is a race of wild hogs with white faces which inhabit the woods hereabouts—we overtook the post, and kept close to them afterwards. This was a pasture farm in the very middle of the forest, a bit of cleared land on which some adventurer had settled himself and dared to live. The adventurer himself was not there, but he had a very pretty wife, with whom my friend the lieutenant seemed to have contracted an intimate acquaintance on his previous journey up to San José.
But at Careblanco we only stopped two minutes, during which, however, it became necessary that the lieutenant should go into the rancho on the matter of some article of clothes which had been left behind on his previous journey; and then, again, on we went, slosh, slosh, splash, splash! My shins by this time were black and blue, and I held myself on to my mule chiefly by my spurs. Our way was still through dense forest, and was always either up or down hill. And here we came across the grandest scenery that I met with in the western world; scenery which would admit of raving, if it were given to me to rave on such a subject.
We were travelling for the most part along the side of a volcanic mountain, and every now and then the declivity would become so steep as to give us a full view down into the ravine below, with the prospect of the grand, steep, wooded hill on the other side, one huge forest stretching up the mountain for miles. At the bottom of the ravine one's eye would just catch a river, looking like a moving thread of silver wire. And yet, though the descent was so great, there would be no interruption to it. Looking down over the thick forest trees which grew almost from the side of a precipice, the eye would reach the river some thousand feet below, and then ascend on the other side over a like unbroken expanse of foliage.
Of course we both declared that we had never seen anything to equal it. In moments of ecstasy one always does so declare. But there was a monotony about it, and a want of grouping which forbids me to place it on an equality with scenery really of the highest kind, with the mountains, for instance, round Colico, with the head of the Lake of the Four Cantons, or even with the views of the upper waters of Killarney.
And then, to speak the truth, we were too much engulfed in mud, too thoughtful as to the troubles of the road, to enjoy it thoroughly. "Wonderful that; isn't it?" "Yes, very wonderful; fine break; for heaven's sake do get on." That is the tone which men are apt to adopt under such circumstances. Five or six pounds of thick mud clinging round one's boots and inside one's trousers do not add to one's enjoyment of scenery.
Mud, mud; mud, mud! At about five o'clock we splashed into another pasture farm in the middle of the forest, a place called San Miguel, and there we rested for that night. Here we found that our beef also must be thrown away, and that our bread was all gone. We had picked up some more hard-boiled eggs at ranchos on the road, but hard-boiled eggs to my companion were no more than grains of gravel to a barn-door fowl; they merely enabled him to enjoy his regular diet. At this place, however, we were able to purchase fowls—skinny old hens which were shot for us at a moment's warning. The price being, here and elsewhere along the road, a dollar a head. Tea and candles a ministering angel had given to me at the moment of my departure from San José. But for them we should have indeed been comfortless, thirsty, and in utter darkness. Towards evening a man gets tired of brandy and water, when he has been drinking it since six in the morning.
Our washing was done under great difficulties, as in these districts neither nature nor art seems to have provided for such emergencies. In this place I got my head into a tin pot, and could hardly extricate it. But even inside the houses and ranchos everything seemed to turn into mud. The floor beneath one's feet became mud with the splashing of the water. The boards were begrimed with mud. We were offered coffee that was mud to the taste and touch. I felt that the blood in my veins was becoming muddy.
And then we had another day exactly like the former, except that the ground was less steep, and the vistas of scenery less grand. The weather also was warmer, seeing that we were now on lower ground. Monkeys chattered on the trees around us, and the little congo ape roared like a lion. Macaws flew about, generally in pairs; and we saw white turkeys on the trees. Up on the higher forests we had seen none of these animals.
There are wild hogs also in these woods, and ounces. The ounce here is, I believe, properly styled the puma, though the people always call them lions. They grow to about the size of a Newfoundland dog. The wild cat also is common here, the people styling them tigers. The xagua is, I take it, their proper name. None of these animals will, I believe, attack a man unless provoked or pressed in pursuit; and not even then if a way of escape be open to him.
We again breakfasted at a forest clearing, paying a dollar each for tough old hens, and in the evening we came to a cacao plantation in the middle of the forest which had been laid out and settled by an American of the United States residing in Central America. This place is not far from the Serapiqui river, and is called Padregal. It was here that the young lieutenant had read the funeral service over the body of that unfortunate lady.
I went with him to visit the grave. It was a spot in the middle of a grass enclosure, fenced off rudely so as to guard it from beasts of prey. The funeral had taken place after dusk. It had been attended by some twelve or fourteen Costa Rican soldiers who are kept in a fort a little below, on the banks of the Serapiqui. Each of these men had held a torch. The husband was there, and another Englishman who was travelling with him; as was also, I believe, the proprietor of the place. So attended, the body of the Englishwoman was committed to its strange grave in a strange country.
Here we picked up another man, an American, who also had been looking for gold, and perhaps doing a turn as a filibuster. Him too the world had used badly, and he was about to return with all his golden dreams unaccomplished.
We had one more stage down to the spot at which we were to embark in the canoe—the spot at which the lady had been drowned—and this one we accomplished early in the morning. This place is called the Muelle, and here there is a fort with a commandant and a small company of soldiers. The business of the commandant is to let no one up or down the river without a passport; and as a passport cannot be procured anywhere nearer than San José, here may arise a great difficulty to travellers. We were duly provided, but our recently-picked-up American friend was not; and he was simply told that he would not be allowed to get into a boat on the river.
"I never seed such ad——dcountry in my life," said the American. "They would not let me leave San José till I paid every shilling I owed; and now that I have paid, I ain't no better off. I wish I hadn't paid ad——dcent."
I advised him to try what some further operation in the way of payment would do, and with this view he retired with the commandant. In a minute or two they both returned, and the commandant said he would look at his instructions again. He did so, and declared that he now found it was compatible with his public duty to allow the American to pass. "But I shall not have a cent left to take me home," said the American to me. He was not a smart man, though he talked smart. For when the moment of departure came all the places in the boat were taken, and we left him standing on the shore. "Well, I'm darned!" he said; and we neither heard nor saw more of him.
That passage down the Serapiqui was not without interest, though it was somewhat monotonous. Here, for the first time in my life, I found my bulk and size to be of advantage to me. In the after part of the canoe sat the master boatman, the captain of the expedition, steering with a paddle. Then came the mails and our luggage, and next to them I sat, having a seat to myself, being too weighty to share a bench with a neighbour. I therefore could lean back among the luggage; and with a cigar in my mouth, with a little wooden bicher of weak brandy and water beside me, I found that the position had its charms.
On the next thwart sat, cheek by jowl, the lieutenant and the distressed Britisher. Unfortunately they had nothing on which to lean, and I sincerely pitied my friend, who, I fear, did not enjoy his position. But what could I do? Any change in our arrangements would have upset the canoe. And then close in the bow of the boat sat the two natives paddling; and they did paddle without cessation all that day, and all the next till we reached Greytown.
The Serapiqui is a fine river; very rapid, but not so much so as to make it dangerous, if care be taken to avoid the snags. There is not a house or hut on either side of it; but the forest comes down to the very brink. Up in the huge trees the monkeys hung jabbering, shaking their ugly heads at the boat as it went down, or screaming in anger at this invasion of their territories. The macaws flew high over head, making their own music, and then there was the constant little splash of the paddle in the water. The boatmen spoke no word, but worked on always, pausing now and again for a moment to drink out of the hollow of their hands. And the sun became hotter and hotter as we neared the sea; and the musquitoes began to bite; and cigars were lit with greater frequency. 'Tis thus that one goes down the waters of the Serapiqui.
About three we got into the San Juan. This is the river by which the great lake of Nicaragua empties itself into the sea; which has been the channel used by the transit companies who have passed from ocean to ocean through Nicaragua; which has been so violently interfered with by filibusters, till all such transit has been banished from its waters; and which has now been selected by M. Belly as the course for his impossible canal. It has seen dreadful scenes of cruelty, wrong, and bloodshed. Now it runs along peaceably enough, in its broad, shallow, swift course, bearing on its margin here and there the rancho and provision-ground of some wild settler who has sought to overcome
"The whips and scorns of time—The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,"
by looking for bread and shelter on those sad, sunburnt, and solitary banks.
We landed at one such place to dine, and at another to sleep, selecting in each place some better class of habitation. At neither place did we find the owner there, but persons left in charge of the place. At the first the man was a German; a singularly handsome and dirty individual, who never shaved or washed himself, and lived there, ever alone, on bananas and musk-melons. He gave us fruit to take into the boat with us, and when we parted we shook hands with him. Out here every one always does shake hands with every one. But as I did so I tendered him a dollar. He had waited upon us, bringing water and plates; he had gathered fruit for us; and he was, after all, no more than the servant of the river squatter. But he let the dollar fall to the ground, and that with some anger in his face. The sum was made up of the small silver change of the country, and I felt rather little as I stooped under the hot sun to pick it up from out the mud of the garden. Better that than seem to leave it there in anger. It is often hard for a traveller to know when he is wished to pay, and when he is wished not to pay. A poorer-looking individual in raiment and position than that German I have seldom seen; but he despised my dollar as though it had been dirt.
We slept at the house of a Greytown merchant, who had maintained an establishment up the river, originally with the view of supplying the wants of the American travellers passing in transit across the isthmus. The flat-bottom steamers which did some five or six years since ply upon the river used to take in wood here and stop for the night. And the passengers were wont to come on shore, and call for rum and brandy; and in this way much money was made. Till after a time filibusters came instead of passengers; men who took all the wood that they could find there—hundreds of dollars' worth of sawn wood, and brandy also—took it away with them, saying that they would give compensation when they were established in the country, but made no present payment. And then it became tolerably clear that the time for making money in that locality had passed away.
They came in great numbers on one such occasion, and stripped away everything they could find. Sawn wood for their steam-boilers was especially desirable, and they took all that had been prepared for the usual wants of the river. Having helped themselves to this, and such other chattels as were at the moment needed and at hand, they went on their way, grimly rejoicing. On the following day most of them returned; some without arms, some without legs, some even without heads; a wretched, wounded, mutilated, sore-struck body of filibusters. The boiler of their large steamer had burst, scattering destruction far and near. It was current among the filibusters that the logs of wood had been laden with gunpowder in order to effect this damage. It is more probable, that being filibusters, rough and ready as the phrase goes, they had not duly looked to their engineering properties. At any rate, they all returned. On the whole, these filibusters have suffered dire punishment for their sins.
At any rate, the merchant under whose roof we slept received no payment for his wood. Here we found two men living, not in such squalid misery as that independent German, but nevertheless sufficiently isolated from the world. One was an old Swedish sailor, who seemed to speak every language under the sun, and to have been in every portion of the globe, whether under the sun or otherwise. At any rate, we could not induce him to own to not having been in any place. Timbuctoo; yes, indeed, he had unfortunately been a captive there for three years. At Mecca he had passed as an Arab among the Arabs, having made the great pilgrimage in company with many children of Mahomet, wearing the green turban as a veritable child of Mahomet himself. Portsmouth he knew well, having had many a row about the Head. We could not catch him tripping, though we put him through his facings to the best of our joint geographical knowledge. At present he was a poor gardener on the San Juan river, having begun life as a lieutenant in the Swedish navy.Hehad seen too much of the world to refuse the dollar which was offered to him.
On the next morning we reached Greytown, following the San Juan river down to that pleasant place. There is another passage out to the sea by the Colorado, a branch river which, striking out from the San Juan, runs into the ocean by a shorter channel. This also has been thought of as a course for the projected canal, preferable to that of the San Juan. I believe them to be equally impracticable. The San Juan river itself is so shallow that we were frequently on the ground even in our light canoe.
And what shall I say of Greytown? We have a Consul-General there, or at least had one when these pages were written; a Consul-General whose duty it is, or was, to have under his special care the King of Mosquitia—as some people are pleased to call this coast—of the Mosquito coast as it is generally styled. Bluefields, further along the coast, is the chosen residence of this sable tyrant; but Greytown is the capital of his dominions. Now it is believed that, in deference to the feelings of the United States, and to the American reading of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and in deference, I may add, to a very sensible consideration that the matter is of no possible moment to ourselves, the protectorate of the Mosquito coast is to be abandoned. What the king will do I cannot imagine; but it will be a happy day I should think for our Consul when he is removed from Greytown. Of all the places in which I have ever put my foot, I think that is the most wretched. It is a small town, perhaps of two thousand inhabitants, though this on my part is a mere guess, at the mouth of the San Juan, and surrounded on every side either by water or impassable forests. A walk of a mile in any direction would be impossible, unless along the beach of the sea; but this is of less importance, as the continual heat would prevent any one from thinking of such exercise. Sundry Americans live here, worshipping the almighty dollar as Americans do, keeping liquor shops and warehouses; and with the Americans, sundry Englishmen and sundry Germans. Of the female population I saw nothing except some negro women, and one white, or rather red-faced owner of a rum shop. The native population are the Mosquito Indians; but it seems that they are hardly allowed to live in Greytown. They are to be seen paddling about in their canoes, selling a few eggs and chickens, catching turtle, and not rarely getting drunk. They would seem from their colour and physiognomy to be a cross between the negro and the Indian; and such I imagine to be the case. They have a language of their own, but those on the coast almost always speak English also.
My gallant young friend,Fitzm——,was in command of a small schooner inside the harbour of Greytown. As the accommodation of the city itself was not inviting, I gladly took up my quarters under his flag until the English packet, which was then hourly expected, should be ready to carry me to Colon and St. Thomas. I can only say that if I was commander of that schooner I would lie outside the harbour, so as to be beyond the ill-usage of those frightful musquitoes. The country has been well named Mosquitia.
There was an American man-of-war and also an English man-of-war—sloops-of-war both I believe technically—lying off Greytown; and we dined on board them both, on two consecutive days. Of the American I will say, speaking in their praise, that I never ate such bacon and peas. It may be that the old hens up the Serapiqui river had rendered me peculiarly susceptible to such delights; but nevertheless, I shall always think that there was something peculiar about the bacon and peas on board the American sloop-of-war 'St. Louis.'
And on the second day the steamer came in; the 'Trent,' Captain Moir; we then dined on board of her, and on the same night she sailed for Colon. And when shall I see that gallant young lieutenant again? Putting aside his unjust, and I must say miraculous consumption of hard-boiled eggs, I could hardly wish for a better travelling companion.
How best to get about this world which God has given us is certainly one of the most interesting subjects which men have to consider, and one of the most interesting works on which men can employ themselves.
The child when born is first suckled, then fed with a spoon; in his next stage, his food is cut up for him, and he begins to help himself; for some years after that it is still carved under parental authority; and then at last he sits down to the full enjoyment of his own leg of mutton, under his own auspices.
Our development in travelling has been much of the same sort, and we are now perhaps beginning to use our own knife and fork, though we hardly yet understand the science of carving; or at any rate, can hardly bring our hands to the duly dexterous use of the necessary tools.
We have at least got so far as this, that we perceive that the leg of mutton is to be cooked and carved. We are not to eat hunks of raw sheep cut off here and there. The meat to suit our palates should be put on a plate in the guise of a cleanly slice, cut to a certain thickness, and not exceeding a certain size.
And we have also got so far as this, that we know that the world must be traversed by certain routes, prepared for us originally not by ourselves, but by the hand of God. We were great heroes when we first got round the Cape of Good Hope, when we first crossed the Atlantic, when we first doubled Cape Horn. We were then learning to pick up our crumbs with our earliest knives and forks, and there was considerable peril in the attempt. We have got beyond that now, and have perceived that we may traverse the world without going round it. The road from Europe to Asia is by Egypt and the Isthmus of Suez, not by the Cape of Good Hope. So also is the road from Europe to the West of America, and from the east of America to Asia by the isthmus of Central America, and not by Cape Horn.
We have found out this, and have, I presume, found out also that this was all laid out for us by the hands of the Creator,—prepared exactly as the sheep have been prepared. It has been only necessary that we should learn to use the good things given us.
That there are reasons why the way should not have been made absolutely open we may well suppose, though we cannot perhaps at present well understand. How currents of the sea might have run so as to have impeded rather than have assisted navigation, had the two Americas been disjoined; how pernicious winds might have blown, and injurious waters have flowed, had the Red Sea opened into the Mediterranean, we may imagine, though we cannot know. That the world's surface, as formed by God, is best for God's purposes, and therefore certainly best for man's purposes, that most of us must believe.
But it is for us to carve the good things which are put before us, and to find out the best way in which they may be carved. We may, perhaps, fairly think that we have done much towards acquiring this knowledge, but we certainly know that there is more yet to be done. We have lines of railways from London to Manchester; from Calais across France and all the Germanies to Eastern Europe; from the coast of Maine, through the Canadas, to the central territories of the United States; but there are no lines yet from New York to California, nor from the coast of the Levant to Bombay and Calcutta.
But perhaps the two greatest points which are at this moment being mooted, with reference to the carriage about the world of mankind and man's goods, concern the mode in which we may most advantageously pass across the isthmuses of Suez and Panama. These are the two land obstacles in the way of navigation, of direct water carriage round the earth's belt—obstacles as they appear to us, though in truth so probably locks formed by the Almighty for the assistance of our navigation.
For many years, it is impossible to say how many, but for some few centuries as regards Panama, and for many centuries as regards Suez, this necessity has been felt, and the minds of men in those elder days inclined naturally to canals. In the days of the old kings of Egypt, antecedent to Cleopatra, attempts were made to cut through the sands and shallow lakes from the eastern margin of the Nile's delta to the Red Sea; and the idea of piercing Central America in some point occurred to the Spaniards immediately on their discovering the relative position of the two oceans. But in those days men were infants, not as yet trusted with the carving-knife.
The work which unsuccessfully filled the brains of so many thoughtful men for so many years has now been done—at any rate to a degree. Railways have been completed from Alexandria on the Mediterranean to Suez on the Red Sea, and from Panama on the Pacific, to Aspinwall or Colon on the Caribbean Sea. These railways are now at work, and passengers are carried across with sufficient rapidity. The Isthmus of Suez, over which the line of railway runs for something over two hundred miles, creates a total delay to our Indian mails and passengers of twenty-four hours only, and the lesser distance of the American isthmus is traversed in three hours. Were rapidity here as necessary as it is in the other case—and it will doubtless become so—the conveyance from one sea to the other need not create a delay of above twelve hours.
But not the less are many men—good and scientific men too—keenly impressed with the idea that the two isthmuses should be pierced with canals, although these railways are at work. All mankind has heard much of M. Lesseps and his Suez canal. On that matter I do not mean to say much here. I have a very strong opinion that such canal will not and cannot be made; that all the strength of the arguments adduced in the matter are hostile to it; and that steam navigation by land will and ought to be the means of transit through Egypt. But that matter is a long way distant from our present subject. It is with reference to the transit over the other isthmus that I propose to say a few words.
It is singular, or perhaps if rightly considered not singular, that both the railways have been constructed mainly by Anglo-Saxon science and energy, and under the pressure of Anglo-Saxon influence; while both the canal schemes most prevalent at the present day owe their repute to French eloquence and French enthusiasm. M. Lesseps is the patron of the Suez canal, and M. Belly of that which is, or is not to be, constructed from San Juan del Norte, or Greytown, to the shores of the Pacific.
There are three proposed methods of crossing the isthmus, that by railway, that by canal, and a third by the ordinary use of such ordinary means of conveyance as the land and the waters of the country afford.
As regards railway passage, one line being now open and at work, has those nine points in its favour which possession gives. It does convey men and goods across with great rapidity, and is a reality, doing that which it pretends to do. Its charges, however, are very high; and it would doubtless be well if competition, or fear of competition, could be made to lower them. Five pound is charged for conveying a passenger less than fifty miles; no class of passengers can cross at a cheaper fare; and the rates charged for goods are as high in comparison. On the other side, it may be said that the project was one of great risk, that the line was from its circumstances very costly, having been made at an expense of about thirty-two thousand pounds a mile—I believe, however, that a considerable portion of the London and Birmingham line was equally expensive—and that trains by which money can be made cannot run often, perhaps only six or seven times a month each way.
It is, however, very desirous that the fares should be lowered, and the great profits accruing to the railway prove that this may be done. Eventually they doubtless will be lowered.
The only other line of railway which now seems to be spoken of as practicable for the passage of the isthmus is one the construction of which has been proposed across the republic of Honduras, from a spot called Port Cortez, in the Bay of Honduras, on the northern or Atlantic side, to some harbour to be chosen in the Bay of Fonseca, on the southern or Pacific side. Mr. Squier, who was Chargé d'Affaires from the United States to Central America, and whose work on the republics of Central America is well known, strongly advocates this line, showing in the first place that from its position it would suit the traffic of the United States much better than that of Panama; as undoubtedly it would, seeing that the transit from New York to California, viâ Panama, must go down south as far as latitude 7° north; whereas, by the proposed route through Honduras it need not descend below lat. 13° north, thus saving double that distance in the total run eachway.*Mr. Squier then goes on to prove that the country of Honduras is in every way suited for the purposes of a railway; but here I am not sure that he carries me with him. The road would have to ascend nearly three thousand feet above the sea-level; and though it may be true that the grades themselves would not be more severe than many that are now to be found on railways in full work in other countries, nevertheless it must be felt that the overcoming such an altitude in such a country, and the working over it when overcome, would necessarily add greatly to the original cost of the line, and the subsequent cost of running. The Panama line goes through a country comparatively level. Then the distance across Honduras is one hundred and fifty miles, and it is computed that the line would be two hundred miles: the length of the Panama line is forty-seven or forty-eight miles.
[*Not that we may take all that Mr. Squier says on this subject as proved. His proposed route for the traffic of the United States is from the western coast of Florida to the chosen port, Port Cortez, in Honduras; and he attempts to show that this is pretty nearly the only possible passage in those seas free from hurricanes and danger. But this passage is right across the Gulf of Mexico, and vessels would have to stem the full force of the gulf-stream on their passage down from Florida.In all such matters where a man becomes warm on a scheme he feels himself compelled to prove that the gods themselves have pointed out the plan as the only one fit for adoption, as the only one free from all evil and blessed with every advantage. We are always over-proving our points.]
[*Not that we may take all that Mr. Squier says on this subject as proved. His proposed route for the traffic of the United States is from the western coast of Florida to the chosen port, Port Cortez, in Honduras; and he attempts to show that this is pretty nearly the only possible passage in those seas free from hurricanes and danger. But this passage is right across the Gulf of Mexico, and vessels would have to stem the full force of the gulf-stream on their passage down from Florida.
In all such matters where a man becomes warm on a scheme he feels himself compelled to prove that the gods themselves have pointed out the plan as the only one fit for adoption, as the only one free from all evil and blessed with every advantage. We are always over-proving our points.]
The enormous cost of the Panama line arose from the difficulty of obtaining the necessary sort of labour. The natives would not work as they were wanted, and Europeans died there; so that, at last, labour was imported from the coast of New Granada. At the high level named as the summit of the Honduras route, the climate would no doubt be comparatively mild, and labour easy to be borne; but near the coast of the Bays, both of Honduras and Fonseca, the heat would be as great as at Aspinwall and Panama, and the effects probably the same.
As regards our British traffic, the route by the Isthmus of Panama is the better situated of the two. Looking at a map of the world—and it is necessary to take in the whole world, in order that the courses of British trade may be seen—it does not seem to be of much consequence, as regards distance, whether a bale of goods from London to Sydney should pass the isthmus by Honduras or Panama; but in fact, even for this route, the former would labour under great disadvantages. A ship in making its way from Honduras up to Jamaica has to fight against the trade winds. On this account our mail steamer from Belize to Jamaica is timed only at four miles an hour, though the mail to Honduras is timed at eight miles an hour. This would be the direct route from the terminus of the Honduras line to Europe, and matters would be made only worse if any other line were taken. But the track from Panama to Jamaica is subject to what sailors call a soldier's wind; even working to St. Thomas, and thereby getting a stronger slant of the trade winds against them, our mail steamers can make eight or nine miles an hour.
As regards our trade to Chili and Peru, it is clear that Honduras is altogether out of our way; and as regards our coming trade to Frazer River and Vancouver's Island, though the absolute distance, via Honduras, would be something shorter, that benefit would be neutralized by the disadvantageous position of the Bay of Honduras as above explained.
But the great advantage which the Panama line enjoys is the fact of its being already made.It has the nine points which possession gives it.Its forty-eight miles cost one million six hundred thousand pounds. It cannot be presumed that two hundred miles through Honduras could be made for double that sum; and seeing that the Honduras line would be in opposition to the other, and only be used if running at fares lower than those of its rival, I cannot see how it would pay, or where the money is to be procured. I am not aware that the absolute cost of the proposed line through Honduras has been accurately computed.
As regards the public interest, two lines would no doubt be better than one. Competition is always beneficial to the consumer; but in this case, I do not expect to see the second line made in our days. That there will in future days be a dozen ways of commodiously crossing the isthmus—when we have thoroughly learned how best to carve our leg of mutton—I do not at all doubt.
It may be as well to state here that England is bound by a treaty with Honduras, made in 1836, to assist in furthering the execution of this work by our countenance, aid, and protection, on condition that when made, we Britishers are to have the full use of it; as much so, at least, as any other people or nation. And that, as I take it, is the sole and only meaning of all those treaties made on our behalf with Central America, or in respect to Central America—Clayton-Bulwer treaty, new Ouseley treaty, and others; namely, that we, who are desirous of excluding no person from the benefits of this public world-road, are not ourselves to be excluded on any consideration whatever. And may we not boast that this is the only object looked for in all our treaties and diplomatic doings? Is it not for that reason that we hold Gibraltar, are jealous about Egypt, and resolved to have Perim in our power? Is it not true that we would fain make all ways open to all men? that we would have them open to ourselves, certainly; but not closed against any human being? If that, and such like, be not what our diplomatists are doing, then I, for one, misunderstand their trade.
So much for the two railways, and now as to the proposed canals. Here no happy undertaking can boast of the joys of possession. No canal is as yet open carrying men and goods with, shall we say, twenty-five per cent. profit on the outlay. Ah, that is an elysium which does not readily repeat itself. Oh, thou thrice happy Colonel Totten, who hast constructed a railway resulting in such celestial beatitude!
The name of canals projected across the isthmus has been legion, and the merits of them all have in their time been hotly pressed by their special advocates. That most to the north, which was the passage selected by Cortes, and pressed by him on the Spanish government, would pass through Mexico. The line would be from the Gulf of Campechay, up the river Coatzacoalcoz, to Tehuantepec, on the Pacific. This was advocated as lately as 1845, but has now, I believe, been abandoned as impracticable. Going south down the map, the next proposition of which I can find mention is for a canal from the head of the Lake of Dulce through the state of Guatemala; the Lake or Gulf of Dulce being at the head of the Gulf of Honduras. This also seems to have been abandoned. Then we come to the proposed Honduras railway, of which mention has been made.
Next below this we reach a cluster of canals, all going through the great inland lake of Nicaragua. This scheme, or one of these schemes, has also been in existence since the times of the early Spaniards; and has been adhered to with more or less pertinacity ever since. This Lake of Nicaragua was to be reached either direct by the river San Juan, or by entering the river San Juan from the ocean by the river Colorado, which is in effect a branch of the San Juan; the projected canal would thus ascend to the lake. From thence to the Pacific various passages for egress have been suggested; at first it was intended, naturally, to get out at the nearest practicable point, that being probably at San Juan del Sur. They have San Juans and San Josés quite at pleasure about these countries.
Then came the grand plan of the present French emperor, bearing at least his name, and first published, I think, in 1846; this was a very grand plan, of course. The route of "transit" was to be right up the Lake of Nicaragua to its northern point; there the canal was to enter the River Tipitapa, and come out again in the northern Lake of Managua; from thence it was to be taken out to the Pacific at the port of Realejo. This project included the building of an enormous city, which was to contain the wealth of the new world, and to be, as it were, a new Constantinople between the two lakes; but the scheme has been abandoned as being too costly, too imperial.
And now we have M. Belly's scheme; his scheme and pamphlet of which I will say a few words just now, and therefore I pass on to the others.
The line of the River Chargres, and from thence to the town of Panama—being very nearly the line of the present railway—was long contemplated with favour, but has now been abandoned as impracticable; as has also the line over the Isthmus of Darien, which was for a while thought to be the most feasible, as being the shortest. The lie of the land, however, and the nature of the obstacles to be overcome, have put this scheme altogether out of the question.
Next and last is the course of the River Atrato, which runs into the Gulf of Darien, but which is, in fact, the first of the great rivers of South America; first, that is, counting them as commencing from the isthmus. It runs down from the Andes parallel to the coast of the Pacific, and is navigable for many miles. The necessary surveys, however, for connecting this river with the Pacific have never yet been made; and even if this plan were practicable, the extremely low latitude at which the Pacific ocean would be reached would make such a line bad for our trade, and quite out of the question for the chief portion of the American "transit."
It appears, therefore, that there are insuperable objections to all these canal routes, unless it be to some route passing through the Lake of Nicaragua. By reference to a map of Central America it will be seen that the waters of this lake, joined to those of the San Juan river, comprise the breadth of nearly the whole isthmus, leaving a distance not exceeding twenty miles to be conquered by a canal. At first sight this appears to be very enticing, and M. Belly has been enticed. He has been enticed, or at any rate writes as though this were the case; anything worded more eloquently, energetically, and grandiloquently, than his pamphlet in favour of this route I have not met, even among French pamphlets.
M. Felix Belly describes himself as a "publiciste," and chevalier of the order of Saint Maurice and Lazarus, and of the order of Medjidie. As such he has made a convention with Don Thomas Martinez, President of the republic of Nicaragua, and with Don Juan Rafael Mora, President of the republic of Costa Rica, in accordance with which he, Chevalier Belly, is to cut a canal or water-route for ships through the territories of those potentates, obtaining thereby certain vast privileges, including the possession of no small portion of those territories, and the right of levying all manner of tolls on the world's commerce which is to pass through his canal. And the potentates above named are in return to receive from M. Belly very considerable subsidies out of these tolls. They bind themselves, moreover, to permit no other traffic or transit through their country, securing to M. Belly for ninety-nine years the monopoly of the job; and granting to him the great diplomatic privilege of constituting his canal, let it be here or there, the boundary of the realms of these two potentates.
What strikes me with the greatest wonder on reading—not the pamphlet, for that is perhaps more wonderful in other respects—but the articles of the convention, is, that these three persons, the potentates aforesaid and the chevalier, should have among them the power of doing all this; or that they should even have had the power of agreeing to do all this; for really up to this period one seems hardly to have heard in England much about any one of them.
That there should be presidents of these two republics is supposed, as there are also, doubtless, of San Salvador and Venezuela, and all the other western republics; but it is to be presumed that as presidents of republics they can have themselves no more power to give away a ninety-nine years' possession of their lands and waters than can any other citizen. Mr. Buchanan could hardly sell to any Englishman, however enterprising, the right of making a railway from New York to San Francisco. The convention does certainly bear two other signatures, which purport to be those of the ministers of foreign affairs attached to those two republics; but even this hardly seems to give us a sufficient guarantee of power. What if we should put our money into the canal, and future presidents should refuse to be bound by the agreement?
But M. Belly's name stands on his side alone. No foreign minister or aide-de-camp is necessary to back his signature. The two potentates having agreed to give the country, he will agree to make the canal—he, M. Belly, Publiciste and Chevalier. It is to cost altogether, according to his account, 120,000,000 francs—say, four million eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. Of a company, chairman, and directors we hear nothing. We cannot find that the shares are in the market. Probably they may be too valuable. On our own Stock Exchange the matter does not seem to be much known, nor do we perceive that it is quoted among French prices. Nevertheless, M. Belly has the four million eight hundred thousand pounds already in his breeches-pockets, and he will make the canal. I wonder whether he would drain London for us if we were to ask him.
But wonderful as is the fact that these three gentlemen should be about to accomplish this magnificent undertaking for the world, the eloquence of the language in which the undertaking is described is perhaps more wonderful still.
"On the first of May, 1858, at Rivas, in Nicaragua, in the midst of a concourse of circumstances full of grandeur, a convention was signed which opens to civilization a new view and unlimited horizons. The hour has come for commencing with resolution this enterprise of cutting the Isthmus of Panama. … The solution of the problem must be no longer retarded. It belongs to an epoch which has given to itself the mission of pulling down barriers and suppressing distances. It must be regarded, not as a private speculation, but as a creation of public interest—not as the work of this people or that party, but as springing from civilization itself." Then M. Belly goes on to say that this project, emanating from a man sympathetic with the cause and a witness of the heroism of Central America, namely himself, possesses advantages—which of course could not attach to any scheme devised by a less godlike being.
It may be seen that I have no great belief in the scheme of M. Belly; neither have I in many other schemes of the present day emanating from Englishmen, Americans, and others. But it is not that disbelief, but my admiration for French eloquence which urges me to make the above translation. Alas! I feel that I have lost so much of the Gallic fragrance! The Parisian aroma has escaped from the poor English words!
Is not this peculiar eloquence used in propagating all French projects for increased civilization? From the invention of a new constitution to that of a new shirt is it even wanting? We, with our stupid, unimaginative platitudes, know no better than to write up "Eureka" when we think we have discovered anything; but a Frenchman tells his countrymen that they need no longer be mortals; a new era has come; let them wear his slippers and they will walk as gods walk. How many new eras have there not been? Who is not sick of the grandiloquence of French progress? "Now—now we have taken the one great step. The dove at length may nestle with the kite, the lamb drink with the wolf. Men may share their goods, certain that others will share with them. Labour and wages, work and its reward, shall be systematized. Now we have done it, and the world shall be happy." Well; perhaps the French world is happy. It may be that the liberty which they have propagated, the equality which they enjoy, and the fraternity which they practise, is fit for them!
But when has truly mighty work been heralded by magniloquence? Did we have any grand words from old George Stephenson, with his "vera awkward for the cou"? Was there aught of the eloquent sententiousness of a French marshal about the lines of Torres Vedras? Was Luther apt to speak with great phraseology? If words ever convey to my ears a positive contradiction of the assertion which they affect to make, it is when they are grandly antithetical and magnificently verbose. If, in addition to this, they promise to mankind "new epochs, new views, and unlimited horizons," surely no further proof can be needed that they are vain, empty, and untrue.
But the language in which this proposal for a canal is couched is hardly worth so much consideration—would be worth no consideration at all, did it not come before us now as an emblem of that which at this present time is the most pernicious point in the French character; a false boasting of truth and honesty, with little or no relish for true truth and true honesty.
The present question is whether M. Belly's canal scheme be feasible; and, if feasible, whether he has or can attain the means of carrying it out.
In the first place, it has already come to pass that the convention signed with such unlimited horizons has proved to be powerless. It is an undoubted fact that it was agreed to by the two presidents; and as far as one of them is concerned, it is, I fear, a fact also that for the present he has sufficient power in his own territory to bind his countrymen, at any rate for a time, by his unsupported signature. Don Juan Rafael Mora, in Costa Rica, need care for no congress. If he were called dictator instead of president, the change would only be in the word. But this is not exactly so in Nicaragua. There, it seems, the congress has refused to ratify the treaty as originally made. But they have, I believe, ratified another, in which M. Belly's undertaking to make the canal is the same as before, but from which the enormous grant of land, and the stipulations as to the boundary line of the territories are excluded.
In M. Belly's pamphlet he publishes a letter which he has received from Lord Malmesbury, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—or rather a French translation of such a letter. It is this letter which appears to have given in Central America the strongest guarantee that something is truly intended by M. Belly's project. Both in the pamphlet, and in the convention itself, repeated reference is made to the French government; but no document is given, nor even is any positive assertion made, that the government of the emperor in any way recognizes the scheme. But if this letter be true, and truly translated, Lord Malmesbury has done so to a certain extent. "And I am happy," says the letter, "to be able to assure you that the stipulations of the treaty made between Great Britain and the United States, commonly called the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, are in my opinion applicable to your project, if you put it inexecution."*And then this letter, written to a private gentleman holding no official position, is signed by the Secretary of State himself. M. Belly holds no official position, but he is addressed in his translation of Lord Malmesbury's letter as "Concessionnaire du Canal de Nicaragua.
[*See note to page 29, 12th edition. I have not happened to meet with any earlier edition of the work.]
[*See note to page 29, 12th edition. I have not happened to meet with any earlier edition of the work.]
Such a letter from such a quarter has certainly been very useful to M. Belly. In the minds of the presidents of the republics of Central America it must have gone far to prove that England at any rate regards M. Belly as no adventurer. There are many of the clauses of the convention to which I should have imagined that the English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would not have given an assent, although he might not be called on to express dissent. In the 26th Article it is stipulated that during the making of the canal—which if it were to be made at all would be protracted over many years—two French ships of war should lie in the Lake of Nicaragua; it having been stipulated by Art. 24 that no other ships of war should be admitted; thus giving to France a military occupation of the country. And by Art. 28 it is agreed that any political squabble relative to this convention should be referred to a tribunal of seven; two to be named by the company, and one each by France, England, the United States, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. It is, I imagine, hardly probable that the English government would send one member to such a tribunal, in which France would have three voices to her one, two of which voices would be wholly irresponsible.
Of course the letter does not bind Lord Malmesbury or any secretary for foreign affairs to the different articles of the convention; but if it be a genuine letter, I cannot but think it to have beenimprudent.*
[*M. Belly speaks of his convention as having been adopted by France, England, and the United States. "Adopted, as it already is, by the United States, by England, and by France, and as it soon will be by the contracting Powers of the Treaty of Paris, it will become"—the saviour of the world, &c. &c. What basis there is for this statement, as regards France and the United States, I do not know. As regards England, I presume Lord Malmesbury's letter affords that basis.]
[*M. Belly speaks of his convention as having been adopted by France, England, and the United States. "Adopted, as it already is, by the United States, by England, and by France, and as it soon will be by the contracting Powers of the Treaty of Paris, it will become"—the saviour of the world, &c. &c. What basis there is for this statement, as regards France and the United States, I do not know. As regards England, I presume Lord Malmesbury's letter affords that basis.]