Mexico—Guatemala—Salvador—Panama—Colombia—Venezuela—Jamaica—Cuba—Fire in Amarillo—Rebuilding.
Among the many long trips leisure has permitted, the first was a tour through Mexico, Guatemala and Salvador to Panama; thence through Colombia and Venezuela; Jamaica and Cuba; needless to say a most interesting tour.
Mexico has a most delightful climate at any time of the year, except on the Gulf Coast, the Tierra Caliente, where the heat in summer is tropical and oppressive. She has many interesting and beautiful towns. The city itself is rapidly becoming a handsome one, indeed an imperial one. Accommodation for visitors, however, leaves much to be desired. The country's history is of course absorbingly interesting, and the many remains of Aztec and older origin appeal much to one's curiosity. There is a capital golf-course, a great bull-ring, and a pelota court. There is much wealth, and every evening a fine display of carriages and horses. The little dogs called Perros Chinos of Mexico, also "Pelon" or hairless, have absolutely no hair on the body. They are handsome, well-built little creatures, about the size of a small terrier. They are said to be identical with one of the Chinese edible dogs. Cortez found them in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. How did they get there? Popocatepetl, a magnificent conical volcano, overlooks the city and plain. I tried to ascend it but a damaged ankle failed me. A trip to Oaxaca to see wonderful Mitla should not be missed. There also is the tree of Tuli, a cypress, said to measure 154 feet round its trunk. Also a trip to Orizaba city is equally interesting, if only for the view of the magnificent Pico de Orizaba, a gigantic and most beautiful cone 18,000 feet high; but also for the beautiful scenery displayed in the descent from the high plateau of Mexico, a very sudden descent of several thousand feet in fifteen miles, with a railroad grade of one in fourteen, from a temperate climate at once into a tropical one. More than that, it leads you to the justly-celebrated little Hotel de France in Orizaba, the only good hotel in all Mexico.
The imposing grandeur of a mountain peak depends of course greatly on its elevation above its base; for instance, Pike's peak, to the top of which I have been, is some 15,000 feet above sea-level, but only 8000 above its base. The great peaks of the Andes likewise suffer, such as Volcan Misti at Arequipa, nearly 20,000 feet above the sea, but from its base only 12,000 feet. Then imagine Orizaba peak at once soaring 16,000 feet above the city, not one of a chain or range, but proudly standing alone in her radiant beauty. From Orizaba I went on to Cordova, where it is the custom of the citizens of all ranks and ages to assemble in the evenings in the plaza to engage in the game of keeno or lotto. Many tables are laid out for the purpose. The prizes are small, but apparently enough to amuse the people. Of course I joined in the game, happened to be very successful, and as my winnings were turned over to some small boys, beautiful little black-eyed rascals, my seat was soon surrounded by a merry crowd and great was the fun. How beautiful and captivating are these Spanish and even Mestizo children, the boys even more so than their sisters. From this point I took train, over the worst-built and coggliest railroad track I ever travelled on, to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to see the famous Eads Route, over which he proposed to transport bodily, without breaking cargo, ocean-going sailing ships and steamers from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. Also to visit the Tehuana tribe of Indians, whose women have the reputation of being the finest-looking of native races in the Western world. They wear a most extraordinary and unique combined headdress and shawl. In the markets could certainly be seen wonderfully beautiful faces, quite beautiful enough to justify the claim mentioned. At Rincon is the starting-point of the projected and begun Pan-American railroad, which will eventually reach to Buenos Ayres. At Salina Cruz, the Pacific end of the isthmus, and I should think one of the windiest places on earth, perhaps beating even Amarillo, I met a young American millionaire, a charming man who had large interests in Guatemala. We sailed together from Salina Cruz on a small coasting steamer bound for Panama. Except only at Salina Cruz, where a terrific wind blows most of the year, the weather was calm, but the heat very great. Not even bed-sheets were provided, nor were they needed. Sailing by night we made some port and stopping-place every day. The view of the coast is most interesting. You are practically never out of sight of volcanoes, some of them of great height and many of them active. One particularly, Santa Maria, attracted our attention because of its erupting regularly at intervals of half an hour; regularly as your watch marked the stated period a great explosion occurred and a cloud of smoke, steam and dust was vomited out and floated away slowly landwards. In the clear calm air it was a magnificent spectacle and I never tired watching it. Another volcanic peak had recently been absolutely shattered, one whole side as it were blown off it. On arriving at San JosÉ, the port of Guatemala city, we had a great reception, my friend being the owner of the railroad—the only railroad in this State. A special train took us up to the capital, splendidly-horsed carriages were put at our disposal, and we were banqueted and entertained at the Opera, my friend insisting that I should share in all this hospitality. The American minister joined our party and made himself agreeable and useful. Guatemala city was once the Paris of America, was rich, gay and prosperous; to-day it is—different, but still very interesting. You are there in a bygone world, an age of the past. Revolutions and inter-State wars have driven capital from the country; progress is at a standstill; confidence in anybody does not exist. As in the Central American States, "Ote toi de la que m'y mette" is on the standard of every ambitious general, colonel or politician. It is the direct cause of all the revolutions. At Corinto a lady, whom we became intimate with, landed for the professed purpose of "revoluting." Yet the country is a naturally rich one, having on the highlands a splendid temperate climate, and everywhere great mineral and agricultural resources. We were fortunate to see a parade of some of the State troops; and such a comical picture of military imbecility and inefficiency could surely not be found elsewhere. The officers swaggered in the gayest of uniforms; the men were shoeless, dirty and slovenly. On approaching the city one passes near by the famous volcanoes Fuego, Aqua and Picaya (14,000 feet), and mysterious Lake Anatitlan.
A shooting-trip had been arranged for us: a steam launch on the lake, Indians as carriers, mules, etc. etc., but my friend declined for want of time. Among the fauna of the country are common and black jaguars, tapirs, manatees, peccaries, boas, cougars or pumas, and alligators. Also the quetzal, the imperial bird of the great Indian Quiche race, and the Trogan resplendens. Poinciana regia and P. pulcherrima are common garden shrubs or trees, but the finest Poinciana I ever saw was in Honolulu. Vampire bats are more common in Nicaragua, but also exist in Guatemala. They have very sharp incisors and bite cattle and horses on the back or withers, men on the toes if exposed, and roosters on the comb. They live in caves, and not as the large fruit bats of India, which repose head downwards, hanging from trees in great colonies. Vampires live on blood, having no teeth suitable for mastication.
It is a strange fact that Germans, who now have the great bulk of the trade throughout Central America, are very unpopular. Nor are the Americans popular. "Los Americanos son Bestias," "Esos Hombres son Demonios" express the feeling.
I was told that in Guatemala there exists a tribe of Indians which does not permit the use of alcoholic drink and actually pays the State compensation instead.
Among other places we called at were Esquintla, Acajutla, and La Libertad, from which point we got a magnificent view of the Atatlan volcano in full activity; also at San Juan del Sur. From Leon, in Nicaragua, some fourteen active volcanoes can be seen. In Salvador only two of the eleven great volcanoes of the State are now "vivo," viz., San Miguel and Izalco. The latter is called the Lighthouse of Salvador, because it explodes regularly every twenty minutes. The lesser living vents are called infernillos—little hells. Altogether it looks like Central America, as a whole, with its revolutions and its physical and political instability, must be a very big hell.
Salvador, though the smallest of the Central American States, is the most prosperous, enterprising and densely-populated. She was the first to become independent and the first to defy the Church of Rome.
It had been my intention to sail through Lake Nicaragua and down the river San Juan to San Juan del Norte. But accommodation at that port and steamer communication with Colon was so bad and irregular that the trip was regretfully abandoned, and I went on to Panama with my friend. This gentleman possessed a personal letter from President Roosevelt addressed to the canal officials, ordering (not begging) them to permit a full inspection of the works, and to tell the "truth and the whole truth." Consequently we saw the works under unusual and most favourable conditions. The Americans have made remarkable progress, assisted by their wonderful labour-saving appliances, chief among which are the 100-ton shovels, the Lidgerwood car-unloaders, and the track-shifters. But chiefly, of course, by their sanitary methods, the protection afforded the employees against mosquitoes, and the abolition of mosquito conditions. The natives and negroes are immune to yellow fever, but not to malaria. As most of us know, Major Ross of the I.M.S., in 1896, proved the connection of malaria with the anopheles mosquito; and in 1902 Mr Reed of the U.S. Health Commission tracked the yellow fever to the stegomyia mosquito. Yellow fever requires six days to develop. It should be noted that the stegomyia insect is common in India, but luckily has not yet been infected with the germ of yellow fever. And it may also be here mentioned that the connection between bubonic plague and rats, and the fleas that infest them, was discovered by the Japanese scientist, Kitasato.
The history of the canal may be touched on, if only to show the American method of securing a desired object, certainly a quick, effective and, after all, the only practical method. The Panama railway was built by Americans in 1855 to meet the rush to California gold-fields. The De Lesseps Company bought the road for an enormous figure, and started the canal works, to be abandoned later on, but again taken up by a new French Company. In 1901 Uncle Sam got his "fine work" in when he bluffed the new French Panama Company into selling it to him for 40,000,000 dollars, simply by threatening to adopt the Nicaragua route. Yet the Company's property was well worth the 100,000,000 dollars asked for it. To carry out the bluff, the Isthmian Canal Commission (U.S.) actually reported to Congress that the Nicaragua route was the most "practical and feasible" one, when it was well known to the Commission that the route was so impracticable as not to be worthy of consideration. At least common report had it so. In 1903 Colombia refused the United States offer to purchase the enlarged canal zone. At once Panama province seceded from the State, and sold the desired zone to the United States for 10,000,000 dollars, conditionally on the United States recognizing and guaranteeing the young Republic. The deal was cleverly arranged, and was again perhaps the only effective method to obtain possession.
The tide at Panama measures 20 feet, at Colon only 2 feet. In 1905 the International Board of Consulting Engineers, summoned by President Roosevelt, recommended, by eight to five, a sea-level canal (two locks). But Congress adopted the minority's 85-feet-level plan (6 locks), with an immense dam at Gatun, which dam will not be founded on rock, but have a central puddled core extending 40 feet below the bottom of the lake, and sheet piling some 40 feet still deeper. At least that is as I then understood it.
De Lesseps was not an engineer and knew little of science. His Company's failure was directly due to his ignorance and disregard of the advice of competent men.
Manual labour on the canal has been done mostly by Jamaica negroes. As said before, they are immune to yellow fever; and, speaking of the negro, it may be said here that his susceptibility to pain, compared to that of the white man, is as one to three, but the effect of a fair education is to increase it by one-third. What then is that of the monkey, the bird, the reptile or the fish? May I dare the statement, though most of us perhaps know it, that the sensitiveness of woman to that of man is as fifty-three to sixty-four. Even the woman's sense of touch, as in the finger-tips, being twice as obtuse as man's. The Bouquet D'Afrique, of course, is perceptible to us and offensive, but it is said that to the Indians of South America both black and white men are in this respect offensive. The "Foetor Judaiicus" must be noticeable also to have deserved the term.
But this is sad wandering from the subject in hand and not exactly "reminiscences." I only hope that this and other departures, necessary for stuffing purposes, may be excused, especially as they are probably the most entertaining part of the book.
To return to the town of Panama. In the bay and amongst the islands were quite a number of whales and flocks of pelicans. More curious to observe was an enormous number of small reddish-brown-coloured snakes, swimming freely on the surface of the sea, yet not seemingly heading in any particular direction. I could get no information regarding them. The famous Pearl Islands lie forty miles off Panama. The pearls are large and lustrous.
On reaching harbour the health officials came on board, and to my surprise selected me alone among the passengers for quarantine. The explanation was that I had gone ashore at Corinto. So I was ordered to take up my abode during the period of incubation in the detention house, a building in an isolated position; there I was instructed, much to my relief, that I might go to town or anywhere else during daylight, but must, under severe penalty, be back and inside the protecting screens before the mosquitoes got to work. The object was that no mosquito after biting me should be able to bite anyone else. We had been some two and a half days out of Corinto, so my period of detention was not of long duration. I also got infinitely better messing than any hotel in Panama afforded.
The seas on either side of Darien Isthmus were at one time the scene of the many brave but often cruel deeds of the great adventurers and explorers like Drake, buccaneers like Morgan, pirates like Kidd and Wallace. Morgan, a Welshman, sacked and destroyed old Panama, a rich and palatial city, in 1670. He also captured the strong fortress town, Porto Bello. Drake captured the rich and important Cartagena. Captain Kidd, native of Greenock, was commissioned by George III. to stamp out piracy, but turned pirate himself and became the greatest of them all.
It had been my intention to sail from Panama to Guayaquil, cross the Andes, and take canoe and steamer down the Amazon to Para. But the reports of yellow fever at Guayaquil, the unfinished state of the Quito railroad, and the disturbed state of the Trans-Andean Indians, through whose country there would be a week's mule ride, decided me to alter my plans once more. So, bidding good-bye to my very kind New York friend, who went home direct, I myself took steamer for a Colombian port and thence trained to Baranquillo, a considerable town on the Magdalena River. It was a novel experience to there find oneself a real live millionaire! The Colombian paper dollar (no coin used) was worth just the hundredth part of a gold dollar; so that a penny street car ride cost the alarming sum of five dollars, and dinner a perfectly fabulous amount. By Royal Mail steamer the next move was to La Guayra, the seaport of Caracas, a most romantic-looking place, where the mountains, some 9000 feet high, descend almost precipitously to the sea. There we saw the castle where Kingsley's Rose of Devon was imprisoned. At that time President Castro was so defying France that war and a French fleet were expected every day. Consequently his orders were that no one whomsoever should be allowed to enter the country. All the passengers of course, and for that very reason perhaps, were hoping to be allowed to land, if only to make the short run up to the capital and back. At Colon, assisted by my American friend and the United States consul, we "worked" the Venezuela Consul into giving me a passport (how it was done does not matter), which at La Guayra I, of course, produced. Of no avail! No one must land. But just when the steamer was about to sail a boat full of officials appeared at the steamer's side, called out my name, and lo! to the wonder of the other passengers, I was allowed to go ashore. This was satisfactory, and I at once took train to the capital, climbing or soaring as in a flying-machine the steep graded but excellent road (most picturesque) to Caracas. There I found that the Mardi Gras Carnival was just beginning. In my hotel was the war correspondent of the New York Herald, just convalescing from an attack of yellow fever and still incapable of active work. He was good enough to ask me to fill his place should hostilities ensue. No other correspondent was in the country and he himself had to put up a 10,000 dollar bond. I willingly agreed, and so stayed nearly two weeks in Caracas awaiting eventualities. During this time, owing to the Carnival, the town was "wide open"; every night some twenty thousand people danced in the Plaza Bolivar, a huge square beautifully paved with tiling. The dancers were so crowded together that waltzing simply meant revolving top-wise. A really splendid band provided the music. What a gay, merry people they are! And how beautiful these Venezuela women, and how handsome the men! In the streets presents of great value were tossed from the carriages to the signoras on the balconies. At a ball the men, the fashionables, wore blue velvet coats, not because of the season, but because it is the customary male festive attire. Caracas was delightful and extraordinarily interesting. What splendid saddle mules one here sees! Castro every day appeared with his staff all mounted on mules. All the traffic of the country is done with them, there being no feasible wagon roads. Castro had a most evil reputation. The people hated but feared him. His whole army consisted of Andean Indians, and he himself had Indian blood in his veins. The climate at Caracas is delightful. After two weeks and nothing developing, and not feeling quite well, I returned to La Guayra and took steamer back to Colon. Feeling worse on the steamer I called in the doctor, and was greatly alarmed when he pronounced yellow fever. On arriving at Colon, of course, I was not permitted to land so had to continue on the ship to Jamaica. The attack must have been a very mild one, as when we reached Jamaica I was nearly all right again.
Jamaica is a beautiful island with a delightful winter climate. Also very good roads. Among other places visited was Constant Spring Hotel, once the plantation residence and property of one of my uncles. At Port Antonio, on the north side of the island, is a very fine up-to-date American hotel, which of course was greatly appreciated after the vile caravanserais of Central America. Thence on to Cuba, the steamer passing through the famous narrows leading to Santiago. A pleasant daylight railroad run through the whole island brought me to the great city of Havana, not, as it appeared to me, a handsome or attractive city, but possessing a good climate and a polite and agreeable population. The principal shopping street in Havana is so narrow that awnings can be, and are, stretched completely across it. In the centre of the harbour was visible the wreck of the United States battleship Maine. Here in Havana, on calling at the Consulate for letters, or rather for cablegrams, as I had instructed my Amarillo agent not to write but to cable, and only in the case of urgent consequence, I found a message awaiting me. No need to open it therefore to know the contents! Yes, my building had been burnt to the ground two months ago. A cable to Caracas had not been delivered to me. So, back to Amarillo to view the ruins. In the United States of America one cannot insure for the full value of a building; or at least only three-quarters can be recovered. So my loss amounted to 8000 or 10,000 dollars. But no need of repining, and time is money, especially in such a case. So a new building was at once started, rushed and completed, in almost record time.
