In 1839, curious as to the rumours of general anarchy prevailing throughout most of the Central American countries, the United States Government sent a young Foreign Office official—Mr. John Lloyd Stephens—to find out the truth of the matter. At first glance there seems nothing specially alarming or hazardous about such a mission, nor would there be nowadays; but, at the date of which we are speaking, there were no means of rapid communication between the towns, and many of the roads, rivers, and forest or mountain tracks were in the hands of strong parties of Carib and Mosquito Indians, Zambos, and Mestizos (white and Indian half-bloods), who would have no more respect for an agent of the American Government than for the colonists of their own country, against whom many of them were uniting their forces.

Under the circumstances, Mr. Stephens thought it wisest to land at Belize, and learn from the English officials there the best plan to pursue. British Honduras at that time was not strictly a Crown Colony, but was governed by the executive in Jamaica. The commanding officer of the garrison, Colonel McDonald, 129 received him with great geniality, and entertained him for a couple of days. But he could promise him no material help, he said, when once he was off British soil; he had no authority even to lend him a boat or launch, and dared not take upon himself to send an armed escort beyond the frontier.

“There is a Guatemala steamer starting up the Belize river to-morrow night,” he said. “I will send down and book you a passage. After you land you must not rely on us”—the Colonel laughed—“in our official capacity, that is to say. Of course, some of the staff are often up country after game, and if we should happen to find you in a tight corner on somebody else’s ground, we couldn’t, as private individuals, leave you in the lurch. You’ve got a nasty job; Guatemala and Honduras are both more or less in rebellion; so’s Mexico for that matter; and the Indians are plundering Government and revolutionaries alike. We’ve had a little trouble of our own with the Caribs; you’ll probably meet some of our firing-parties, any of whom will guarantee you protection as long as you’re our side of the boundary.”

The next evening, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Catherwood, went on board the little steamer—a boat which an American or English owner would send round the world with a ship’s company of six, but which, here, was manned by no less than twenty Mestizos, an English engineer, and a Spanish skipper. The only other passenger was a young Irish Franciscan, who proved very jovial company, and who professed to regard the Indian risings as a mere idle scare. He, too, was going into the first native territory 130 through which the travellers must pass, and offered himself as their guide thus far.

They could not have had a better, for his “cloth” was of more use to them than a small escort might have been. Soon after leaving the steamer they came to the first of the Carib camps. The Irishman baptised all the babies in the place, good-humouredly “chaffed” the warriors over their unwisdom in taking part in white men’s squabbles, procured a supply of provisions for himself and his companions, and all three set off across the boundary into the more dangerous territory.

They should by right have reached a Spanish village that night, where they would have been able to obtain horses; but a storm came on, and there was nothing for it but to wait on the plain till it was over. A question arose as to shelter and fuel, and this was solved by their seeing a sheep-fold in the distance. They came up to it and found it untenanted; there was a hut big enough for three persons to sit in, but too small for even one to lie in. For a fire, they broke down some of the rails of the fold, from which they cut kindling wood, and soon had a cosy blaze which defied the rain; they ate their supper and slept on the floor of the hut, huddled together.

In the morning they were awakened by a loud chattering of men, and Stephens, who was nearest the door, found himself being dragged forcibly into the open, while he was rubbing his eyes and trying to remember where he was. Catherwood sprang out after him, pistol in hand, only to be overpowered and relieved of it by a crowd of Caribs.

But, at sight of the friar, the Indians hesitated and became less noisy. He spoke to them in their own language, and demanded to know the cause of this violence.

“These men have broken up and burnt our sheep-fold,” exclaimed one of the Caribs.

“Well, well; leave go and I’ll explain. Give that gentleman his pistol back; he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

“Tell them we’ll pay for our night’s lodging,” added Stephens.

An explanation was offered and accepted, as were five dollars (about the value of the whole enclosure in a country where wood was plentiful) from the Americans; and the mollified Caribs led the way to their camp, gave the strangers a good breakfast, and put them on their road for the Spanish village. There they found everything quiet and orderly, though reports were rife as to terrible doings farther west; the Irishman obtained two good horses for his friends and bade them good-bye, as their ways divided here.

“We’re on our own resources now, and no mistake,” said Stephens when, coming to the end of the plain, they found themselves in the hilly district which grows higher and higher till it becomes the Central Guatemala Range, 13,000 feet high. “Let’s have a look at the chart.”

Colonel McDonald had warned them of the mountains, and had given them a plan showing one or two deep river valleys, here and in Salvador, by following which they could reach the Pacific coast without any climbing that a horse could not manage. Upon this 132 an Indian village was marked at a distance of about six miles from where they now were; and they might expect to reach it easily by nightfall, after allowing themselves ample time for making notes of the country by the way. They were tolerably sure of a civil reception and a night’s lodging, for their thoughtful Irish friend had given them a letter of introduction to the resident Spanish padre of the place.

They made very few notes, for they had no fancy for a second night over a fire of palings; another storm was threatening, and they spurred for the village without further delay, arriving at the same time as the rain. It was just at the end of the invierno, or wet season, which consists, in Central America, of lengthy thunderstorms at very irregular intervals. The priest happened to be absent, but letters of recommendation were superfluous here; the travellers had landed on a tribe of Caribs as different from the others as yeoman-farmers are from gypsies. The others had been one part shepherds and nine parts brigands; these were the agricultural Guatemalans, descendants of the most highly civilised of the ancient Indians, whom—by reason of their very civilisation—Cortez could easily subdue in war, while the other tribes rendered his march through the country anything but safe or triumphant. Their inoffensive disposition made the Spaniards treat them rather as protÉgÉs than as victims.

The only difficulty that presented itself was that few of the inhabitants spoke any language but their own, for the tribe had, for four centuries, resisted all attempts to force a new language or new laws upon them; 133 even their Christianity was but a hundred years old. They entertained the visitors well, but could give them no information as to the state of the country; they were not interested in the doings of the outer world; they cultivated their cochineal insects, grew their coffee, tended their cattle, and minded their own business. They gave the Americans an unoccupied hut, brought them a generous supply of meat, wine, and cakes, and left them to amuse themselves for the night, with instructions to ring if they wanted anything; the ringing, by the way, to be performed by beating a drum which they hung outside the hut door.

Just before it was light, Stephens waked to hear a low cry from his friend. He sat up and struck a light. Catherwood was lying with his knees drawn up, hands clenched, and eyes staring, and, in reply to the other’s questionings, answered only in an incoherent babble. Stephens crossed over to him and saw that his teeth were chattering and his face almost scarlet; there was no doubt as to his condition; he was in a burning fever. Nothing could have been more unlucky. He had brought the young fellow with him purely on his own account, and unauthorised by his department. He was not in Government service, but merely a personal friend whom Stephens’ private means enabled him to keep in constant employment as amanuensis; therefore, to lose several days, or weeks, nursing him, at such a time, would be to bring himself into serious disgrace with the ministry. Yet how could he leave him in an Indian camp, to the tender mercies of some mad witch-doctor, who would charm and physic him to death with the most generous intentions?

He paced up and down for a while, and, at daylight, went out into the open, forced by his own ignorance of medicine, and his anxiety for his friend’s safety, to stoop to ask advice of a people whom his American upbringing had taught him to despise. And it was just possible that the Spanish padre might have returned by now, and he would be sure to possess some knowledge of drugs and minor surgery. In the village street he met the chief, one of the few natives who spoke Spanish.

“I will call the physician of the tribe,” he said, when Stephens, learning to his dismay that the priest was not expected till night-time, had communicated his difficulty.

The native doctor was a little old man who had no small opinion of his own importance, and was as contemptuously ignorant of Spanish as the Yankee was of Huaxtecan and Cariban. He passed his hand over the patient’s brow, breathed on him, muttered incantations, and then walked round the hut about a dozen times, solemnly talking to himself, till Stephens could scarcely resist the temptation to give him a lift into the street with his foot. After a time the piache, doctor, conjurer, or whatever he called himself, took out two powders from his girdle, poured water on them, sipped the drink, breathed and mumbled over it, opened the sufferer’s mouth, and poured it down his throat before the spectator could make up his mind whether to interfere or no. Then the old image strutted out of the hut, as proud as Punch.

This was all very well, but Stephens’ mind was ill at ease. He followed the man of medicine into the 135 street, and found the chief waiting modestly but expectantly outside.

“Ask him what he has given my friend,” he said, curtly. The chief bowed, but shook his head.

“These are mysteries into which I may not inquire. The physician’s secrets are sacred. You may rest assured that the young white man will soon be well.”

Of course, Stephens did anything but rest assured of this. He turned into the hut again, and lo! Catherwood was sleeping as peacefully as a child, with no sign of indisposition except the flush on his face. The chief peeped in apologetically.

“He says that the sick seÑor will be well enough to travel by midday,” he whispered. It was now four o’clock; Stephens ate some breakfast fretfully, looked at the patient, walked about the village, and sought to kill time as best he could. Every time he re-entered the hut, Catherwood’s temperature was less high; and, about the middle of the day, he awoke of his own accord, ravenous for some breakfast. The old medicine-man had known his business; had administered two, out of the thousand and two, healing drugs which the American forests and valleys produce—probably quinine and some preparation of poppy—and had nipped in the bud what was doubtless an attack of malarial fever.

Catherwood paid his doctor’s bill by the gift of a four-bladed pen-knife, his friend forced a similar present on the chief, and early in the afternoon they rode away about their business. The next few weeks were passed in hurried journeys from town to town, in false alarms, in being potted at by revolutionaries, and 136 humbugged by officials; and by the time they had crossed once more to the Bay of Honduras and the Guatemala coast, they had found out all that there was to learn.

About a mile from the British boundary they encountered their most exciting adventure. Outside a Carib village were a dozen Indians and Mestizos, all armed with guns, and in heated argument with five young men, who were obviously British officers in mufti; these also had guns, and two of them carried well-filled game-bags.

“You intend to keep us here? It will be the worse for you if you try it,” the eldest of the white men was saying in Spanish.

“Unless you give us what we ask,” replied a Mestizo insolently. “You have no right to be over the border.”

The Americans pulled up their horses, and Stephens drew a pistol.

“All right,” he said. “We’re going to be in this.”

“Then pray begin by putting that pistol out of the way, there’s a good fellow,” said Major Walrond, the young man who had spoken to the half-caste. “We shall be very glad if you’ll back us up. We want to get out of it without firing on them if we can.”

“What’s the row?”

“These Mestizos belong to the rebels, and are recruiting among the Indians; promising them all sorts of plunder, no doubt, and they rather think of practising on us for a start; want us to empty our pockets and game-bags, and give up our guns and ammunition. Look out, you fellows.”

Seeing a reinforcement for the white men, yet not 137 one that need be feared so far as they could see, the ruffians were becoming impatient, and one or two had cocked their guns.

“Ride ’em down; use your whips, but for goodness’ sake don’t fire a shot while we’re on this side of the boundary,” said the senior officer hurriedly. “Bravo, Spencer; over with him”; for a subaltern had seized the rifle of one of the half-breeds and was wrenching it out of his hands. “Thank you, Mr. Stephens.”

The last remark was occasioned by the American’s felling with his pistol-stock an Indian who was taking aim at the Major. Then the white men began to hit out, shoulder to shoulder. The Indians were quickly overpowered, for they were more than half afraid of the guns they held, and, on these being wrested from them, fled to the nearest ravine. But the Mestizos were more of a handful. There had been five of them to begin with; the subaltern had disarmed one, and he had fled; Major Walrond had just knocked another down with his fist, and he lay unconscious; but the other three, artful enough to reflect that even if their opponents decided to fire on them, their guns were only charged with bird-shot, harmless at any appreciable distance, were running away with the evident intention of using their own ball-cartridges from some point of vantage.

Stephens’ matter-of-fact Yankee way of looking at things now became a valuable asset.

“We’re no British subjects,” he said hurriedly, “and you’ll not be to blame if we fire on these chaps”; and, pistol in hand, he spurred after one fugitive while 138 Catherwood pursued a second. The third fired at Catherwood, the bullet carrying away his hat, but one of the subalterns was on him before he could load again, wrenched the rifle out of his hands, and gave him a complimentary tap on the head with the butt thereof. The other two, seeing that the horsemen at least would have no scruple about using firearms, stopped when called upon to do so, and sullenly gave up their guns.

But that mile back to British territory seemed a most amazingly long one. The Carib fugitives had alarmed the neighbourhood, and knots of Indians were gathering, armed with bows and arrows, which they seemed desirous of using on the white men, for the two or three venomous lies circulated all in a moment by the Mestizos had soon swelled to two or three dozen; and to the Caribs, the opportune arrival of the two men on horseback was part of a deep-laid plot against their liberties.

“Shall we ride in and disperse them?” suggested Catherwood.

“Better not; it’ll only make matters worse,” said one of the Englishmen gloomily. “They’ll let go with their bows if you do. I think we look fools enough as it is, sneaking along like this; better not make it any worse.”

“No; we can’t afford to have Guatemala declaring war against Great Britain,” laughed Walrond. “If they attempt to shoot we must let them have it; but it mustn’t be said that we fired first.”

It was a queer procession; every man felt that he was cutting a hang-dog figure; he was not afraid of 139 an arrow, but he was mortally afraid of looking ridiculous. All knew, too, that if serious trouble arose, the commanding officer would forbid their crossing the frontier any more, and there was no shooting to be had on their own side of it that could compare with that here.

“All right, my chickens,” muttered Walrond at last; “if you follow us just fifty yards farther, we may be able to deal with you.”

The fifty yards were covered; the white men were on their own ground again, but still the Indians—proudly indifferent to frontiers other than those recognised by their own tribe—followed at a distance of about forty paces, debating their tactics in low tones, and by no means unwilling to make a rush for the Englishmen and rob them of their guns.

“Now let’s tickle them a little,” said Major Walrond; and he turned sharply and sent a charge of small shot among the Indians. “Down, quick; ’ware arrows.”

The two horsemen jumped out of their stirrups and fell on the grass, and the little shower of arrows passed harmlessly over the heads of all. The other four officers fired in quick succession. This was too much for the Caribs, many of whom were peppered right painfully; and, with no further pretence at shooting, they turned and fled towards their village, leaving the white men masters of the field.