The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 33, July, 1860

The cabildo of Aramacina was very much dilapidated, and promised us but poor protection against the rain, which now began to fall every night with the greatest regularity. We nevertheless selected the corner where the roof appeared soundest, and managed to pass the night without a serious wetting. The evening was enlivened by visits from all the leading inhabitants, whom we found to be far more communicative than their neighbors of Goascoran. Our most entertaining visitor, however, was a "countryman," as he styled himself, a negro by the name of John Robinson, born in New York, and now a magnate in Aramacina, where he had resided for upwards of sixteen years. Although he had fallen into the habits of the native population, and wore neither shirt nor shoes, he entertained for them a superlative contempt, which he expressed in a strange jumble of bad English and worse Spanish. He had been with Perry on Lake Erie, and afterwards on board various vessels of war, in some capacity which he did not explain with great clearness, but which he evidently intended should be understood as but little lower than that of commander. A glass of brandy made him eloquent, and he took a position in the middle of the cabildo, and gave us an oration on the people of Honduras, in a style singularly grotesque and demonstrative. In broken and scarcely intelligible English,–for he had nearly forgotten the language of his youth,–he denounced them as "thieves and liars," and then asked them, "Is it not true?" Imagining, doubtless, that he was declaiming their praises, the enthusiastic assemblage responded, "Sí! sí!" (Yes! yes!) Not a crime so gross, nor a trait of character so degraded, but he laid it to their charge, receiving always the same vehement response, "Sí! Sí!"

We got rid of our paisano with difficulty, and only under a promise to visit his chacra, somewhere in the vicinity, next morning. But we saw no more of him,–not much to our regret; for John Robinson, I fear, was sadly addicted to brandy, of which our supply was far too small to admit of honoring many such drafts as he had made the preceding evening.

One and a half miles to the southeast of Aramacina is a ledge of sandstone rock, with a smooth vertical face, which is covered over with figures, deeply cut in outline. This ledge forms one side of a rural amphitheatre overlooking the adjacent valley, and is by nature a spot likely to be selected as a "sacred place" by the Indians. It faces towards the west, and from all parts of the amphitheatre, which may have answered the purposes of a temple, the morning sun would appear to rise directly over the rock. The engravings in some places are much defaced or worn by time, so that they cannot be made out; but generally they are deep and distinct,–so deep, indeed, that I used those which run horizontally as steps whereby to climb up the face of the ledge. I should say that they were two and a half inches deep. A portion had been effaced by a rude quarry which the people of Aramacina had opened here to obtain stone for their church.

Some of the figures are easily recognizable as those of men and animals, while others appear entirely arbitrary, or designed simply for ornament. Enough can be clearly made out to show the affiliation of the engravers with the ancient Mexican families of Nicaragua and San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred. This is another circumstance going to favor the belief that this was anciently a place of great sanctity; for it is a universal custom among all nations to bury their dead in the neighborhood of shrines and temples.

Although the immediate district in which these aboriginal traces are found does not seem to have fallen within the region occupied by the Nahuatt or Mexican tribes of Central America at the time of the Conquest, but in what was called the country of the Chontals, yet it is not difficult to suppose, that, in the various hostile encounters which we know took place between the two nations, the Nahuatts may have penetrated as far as Aramacina, and left here some record of their visit,–if, indeed, they did not succeed in effecting a temporary lodgment. At any rate, there can be but little doubt that a portion of the engravings on the rocks above described, but particularly those which seem to record dates, were made by them.

From Aramacina to Caridad, the next town on our course, and four leagues distant, the road is laid out on Spanish principles, which are the very reverse of scientific. Instead of keeping along the river-valley, it passes directly over a high, rocky spur of the lateral mountains, through a pass called El Portillo, (The Portal,) elevated fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The view from its summit, whence we were enabled to trace our course up to this point, as if on a map, in some degree compensated us for the labor of the ascent. From here we could also look ahead, beyond the town of Caridad; and we saw, with some misgivings, that there the lateral ranges of mountains seemed to send down their spurs boldly to the river, leaving only what the Spaniards call a canon or narrow gorge, walled in with precipitous rocks, for its passage. A shadow came over every face, in view of the possible obstacles in our path; and although we tried to reassure ourselves by the reflection, that, where so large a stream could pass, there must certainly be room enough for a road, yet, it must be confessed, we wound down the hill of El Portillo to Caridad with spirits much depressed. Moreover, a drizzling rain set in before we reached the village, and clouds and vapor settled down gloomily on the surrounding hills and mountains, rendering us altogether more dismal than we had been since leaving New York. We rode up to the cabildo of Caridad in silence, and fortunately found it new, neat, and comfortable, with cover for our mules, ample facilities for cooking, and an abundance of dry wood for a fire, now rendered necessary to comfort by the damp, and the proximity of high mountains. Fortunately, also, we experienced no difficulty in getting fodder for our animals and food for ourselves,–a bright-eyed Señora, wife of the principal alcalde, volunteering to send us freshly baked and crisp tortillas, which were brought to us hot, in the folds of the whitest of napkins. After dinner and coffee, and under the genial influences of a fire of the pitch-pine, which gave us both light and heat, our spirits returned, and we did not refuse a hearty laugh, when H. read from a dingy paper, which he found sticking on the wall of the cabildo, the report of the day's transactions on the Caridad Exchange, "marked by a great and sudden decline in railway shares, caused by the timidity of holders, and by an equally sudden reaction, occasioned by two dozen of soft-boiled eggs and a peck of tortillas."

Caridad is a neat little town, of about three hundred inhabitants, situated on a level plateau nearly surrounded by high mountains,–the valley of the river, both above and below, being reduced to its narrowest limits. To the northeastward of the town, and on a shelf of the Lepaterique Mountains, which rise abruptly in that direction, and are covered with pine forests to their summits, is distinctly visible the Indian town of Lauterique,–its position indicating clearly that it had been selected with reference to defensive purposes. We had seen its white church from El Portillo, looking like a point of silver on the dark green slope of the mountain.

Rain fell heavily during the night; but the morning broke bright and clear. The increased roar of the river, however, made known to us that it was greatly swollen, and when we walked down to its brink we found it a rapid and angry torrent, with its volume of water more than double that of the previous day. This was not an encouraging circumstance; for we had learned, that, if we intended following up the stream, instead of making a grand détour over the mountains, it would be necessary to ford the river, about a mile above the town. All advised us against attempting the passage. "Mañana," (Tomorrow,) they said, would do as well, and we had better wait. Meanwhile the waters would subside. Nobody had ever attempted the passage after such a storm; and the river was "muy bravo" (very angry). I have said that all advised us against moving; but I should except the second alcalde, who had taken a great fancy to us, and wanted to enter our service. His dignity did not rebel at the position of arriero or muleteer; any place would suit him, so that we would agree to take him finally to "El Norte,"–for such is the universal designation of the United States among the people of Central America. He shared in none of the fears of his townsmen, and told them, that, fortunately, all the world was not as timid as themselves, and wound up by volunteering to accompany us and get us across. We gladly accepted his offer, and started out with the least possible delay. I need not say that we made rather an anxious party. The unpromising observations of the preceding day, and the possibilities of the mountains' closing down on the river so as to forbid a passage, were uppermost in every mind; but all sought to hide their real feelings under an affectation of cheerfulness, not to say of absolute gayety. As we advanced, and rounded the hills which shut in the little plateau of Caridad on the north, we saw that the high lateral mountains sent down their rocky spurs towards each other like huge buttresses, lapping by, and, so far as the eye could discern, forming a complete and insurmountable barrier. Over the brow of one of these, a zigzag streak of white marked the line of the mule-path. Our guide traced it out to us with his finger, and assured us that it traversed a bad portillo, over which the wind sometimes sweeps with such force as to take a loaded mule off his feet, and dash him down the steep sides of the mountain. Half a mile of level ground still intervened between us and the apparent limit of our advance, and we trotted over it in silence, pulling up on the abrupt bank of the deep trough of the river, which foamed and chafed among the great boulders in its bed, and against its rocky shores, nearly a hundred feet below us. A break-neck path wound down to a little sandpit; and on the opposite side of the stream another path wound up, in like manner, to a narrow plateau, on which stood a single hut, with its surroundings of plantain-trees and maize-fields. I looked anxiously up the stream, but a sudden bend, a few hundred yards above, shut off the view; and there the flinty buttresses of the mountain rose sheer and frowning, perpendicularly from the water's edge.

The eyes of the Lieutenant had followed mine, and we exchanged a glance which expressed as plainly as words, that, unless the mountain-spur which projected into the bend of the river should prove sufficiently narrow to be tunnelled, or should fall off so as to admit of a side-cutting in the rock, our project might be regarded as at an end. To determine that point was our next and most important step. Down the steep descent, scrambling amongst rocks and bushes, where it seemed a goat would hardly dare to venture,–down we plunged to the water's edge. Here the stream was not less than a hundred yards broad, flowing over a rocky bed full of rolling stones and boulders, with a velocity which it seemed impossible for man or beast to stem. But our alcalde was equal to the emergency.

Stripping himself naked, he took a long pole shod with iron, which seemed to be kept here for the purpose, and started out boldly into the stream, for the purpose of making a preliminary survey of the line of passage. Planting his pole firmly down the stream, so as to support himself against the current, he cautiously advanced, step by step, "prospecting" the bottom with his feet, so as to ascertain the shallowest ford, and that freest from rocks and stones. Sometimes he slipped into deep holes and disappeared beneath the surface, but be always recovered himself, and went on with his work with the greatest deliberation and composure. After crossing and recrossing the river in this manner three or four times, he succeeded in fixing on a serpentine line, where the water, except for a few yards near the opposite bank, was only up to his shoulders, and which he pronounced "muy factible" (very feasible).

"But, amigo" exclaimed H., in an excited tone, "you forget that you are six feet high, and that I am but five feet five!"

"No hay cuidado!" (Have no care!) was the reassuring reply of the alcalde, as he slapped his broad chest with his open palm; "soy responsable!" (I am responsible!)

The mules were now unsaddled, and the trunks taken over, one by one, on the alcalde's head. Next, the animals were forced into the water, and, after vehement flounderings, now swimming, now stumbling over rolling stones, they were finally, bruised and bleeding and the forlornest of animals, got across in safety. Next came our turn, and I led the way, with a thong fastened around my body below the armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart alcalde. Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what the French call un croquis, but it would hardly bear reproduction in the pages of a narrative so staid as this.

Intent on determining, with the least possible delay, the important question, whether the mountains really opposed an insurmountable obstacle to our project, I left my companions and Dolores to resaddle and get under way at their leisure, and pushed ahead with the alcalde. Striking off from the mule-path, we climbed up, among loose rocks and dwarf-trees and bushes, to the top of the mountain. My excitement gave me unwonted vigor, and my sturdy guide, streaming with perspiration long before we reached the summit, prayed me, "in the name of all the saints," to moderate my rate of speed, and give him a trago of Cognac. My suspense was not of long duration; for, on reaching the crest of the eminence, I found that we were indeed on a narrow spur, easily tunnelled, or readily turned by galleries in the rock, and that, beyond, the country opened out again in a broad table-land sloping gently from the north, and traversed nearly in its centre by the gorge of the river. The break in the Cordilleras was now distinct, and I could look quite through it, and see the blue peaks of the mountains on the Atlantic slope of the continent. A single glance sufficed to disclose all this to my eager vision, and the next instant six rapid shots from my revolver conveyed the intelligence to my companions, who were toiling up the narrow mule-path, half a mile to my right. The Teniente dismounted, evidently with the intention of joining us, but soon got back again into his saddle,–having experienced, as H. explained, "a sudden recurrence of palpitation." Rejoining my companions, I dismissed our guide with a reward which surprised him, and we pursued our way to the Portillo. This name is given to the point where the path, after winding up the side of the mountain half-way to its summit, suddenly turns round its brow, and commences its descent. It is a narrow shelf, in some places scarcely more than a foot wide, rudely worked in the living rock, which falls off below in a steep and almost precipitous descent to the river; and although it did not quite realize the idea we had formed of it from the description of our guide, it was sufficiently pokerish to inspire the most daring mountaineer with caution. At any rate, most of our party dismounted, preferring to lead their mules around the point to having their heads turned in riding past it. Exposed to the full force of the winds, which are drawn through this river-valley as through a funnel, and with a foothold so narrow, it was easy to believe that neither man nor beast could pass here during the season of the northers, except at great risk of being dashed down the declivity.

A little beyond the Portillo, the road diverges from the valley proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain, of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran. We had intended stopping here for the night; but the cabildo was already filled with a motley crowd of arrieros and others on their way to San Miguel. A tall mestizo, covered with ulcers, sat in the doorway, and two or three culprits extended their claw-like hands towards us through the bars of their cage and invoked alms in the name of the Virgin and all things sacred. We therefore contented ourselves with a lunch under the corridor of a neighboring house, and, notwithstanding it was late in the afternoon, pressed forward towards the little Indian town of San Juan, three leagues distant.

It was a long and rough and weary way, and as night fell without any sign of a village in front, we began to have a painful suspicion that we had lost our road,–if a narrow mule-path, often scarcely traceable, can be dignified by that name. So we stopped short, to allow a man on foot, whom we had observed following on our track for half an hour, to come up. He proved to be a bright- eyed, good-natured Indian, who addressed us as "Vuestras Mercedes," and who informed us not only that we were on the right road to San Juan, but also that he himself belonged there and was now on his way home.

"Good, amigo! –but how far is it?"

"Hay no mas" (There is no more,) was the consoling response.

"But where is the town?"

"Allá!" (There!)

And he threw his hand forward, and projected his lips in the direction he sought to indicate,–a mode of indication, I may add, almost universal in Central America, and explicable only on the assumption that it costs less effort than to raise the hand.

Our new friend was communicative, and told us that he had been all the way to Caridad to bring a priest to San Juan, "para hacer cosas de familia," (to attend to family affairs,) which he explained as meaning "to marry, baptize, and catechize." The people of San Juan, he added, were too poor to keep a priest of their own; they couldn't pay enough; and, moreover, their women were all old and ugly. And he indulged in a knowing wink and chuckle.

Meantime we had kept on our course, and it had become quite dark; still there was no sign of the village,–not even the flicker of lights or the barking of dogs.

"What did the fellow say about the distance?" inquired H., angrily.

"That there was no more distance."

"Ask him again; he couldn't have understood you."

"Amigo, where is your village? You said just now that it was close by."

"Hay no masita, Señor!"

"What's that?"

"He says that the distance was nothing before, and is still less now!"

"Bah! he's a fool!" Half an hour later, which to H.'s indignant imagination seemed an age, we reached the top of a high ridge, and saw the first glimmer of the lights of the village, on the farther edge of a broad plain, a mile and a half distant.

"Estamos aquí!" (Here we are!) exclaimed our guide, triumphantly.

Our mules pricked forward their ears at the welcome sight, and we trotted briskly over the plain, and, as usual, straight to the cabildo,–a newly constructed edifice of canes plastered with mud, but, for a tropical country, suffering under the slight defect of having no windows or aperture for ventilation besides the door. The drum brought us the most attentive of alguazils, and we fared by no means badly in San Juan; that is to say, we had plenty of milk and eggs.

When supper was over, H. lighted a pine splinter, and put on record his "Observations on the Standard of Measurement in Honduras," which I am allowed to copy for the information of travellers.

"Distances here are computed by what may be called Long Measure. League is a vague term, and, like x in an algebraic equation, stands for an unknown quantity. It may mean ten miles, more or less,–any distance, in fact, over five miles. The unit of measure, as fixed by law, is estamos aquí, (here we are,) which is a mile and a half; hay no masita (a little less than nothing) is five miles; hay no mas (there is no more) is ten miles; and muy cerca (very near) is a hard day's journey. As regards spirituous liquors, a trago of brandy, or 'a drink,' is whatever may be in the bottle, be the same large or small, and the quantity more or less."

San Juan is insignificant in point of size, but its population seems to be well to do in the world, in the relative sense in which that term is to be interpreted in Central America. Here we found that the river forks,–the principal branch, however, which retains the name of Goascoran, still preserving its general course north and south. The smaller branch, called Rio de San Juan, descends from high mountains to the westward, having its rise, we were told, near the secluded Indian pueblos of Similaton and Opotoro. We found the elevation of San Juan to be nine hundred feet above the sea,–an altitude sufficiently great, combined with the proximity of the Cordilleras, to give it a generally cool and delightful climate. The change in temperature from that of the sea-coast, however, is less marked than the change in scenery and vegetation. It is true, we find the ever-graceful palm, the orange, plantain, and other tropical fruit-trees; but the country is no longer loaded down with forests. It spreads out before the traveller in a succession of swelling hills and level savannas, clothed with grass, and clumped over with pines, and miniature parks of deciduous trees, sufficiently open to permit cattle and horsemen to roam freely in every direction. During the dry season, however, this open region becomes dry and parched, and the traveller passing over it then would be apt to pronounce the whole country sterile and without cultivation. But in little lateral valleys and coves among the mountains, sheltered from the sun, and watered by springs or running streams, there are many plantations of sugar-cane, maize, rice, and other standard products of the tropics, of unsurpassed luxuriance. We sometimes came on these green places unexpectedly, far away from any habitation, and all the more gem-like and beautiful from their rough setting of sere savanna and rugged mountain.

We left San Juan early in the morning, crossing to the left bank of the river, still a noble stream, a hundred and fifty feet broad, and pure as crystal. A government tambo, or rancho, opposite the town, on the bank, indicated that even here the river was sometimes unfordable. Hence the construction of this public shelter for travellers obliged to wait for the subsidence of the waters. These government ranchos are common on all the roads, in the less populous parts of the country, or where the towns are widely separated, and are the refuge of the wayfarer benighted or overtaken by a storm in his journey. They seldom consist of more than four forked posts planted in the ground, supporting a roof of paja or thatch. Occasionally one or two sides are wattled up with canes, or closed with poles placed closely together. They are usually built where some spring or stream furnishes a supply of water, and where there is an open patch of pasturage; and although they afford nothing beyond shelter, they are always welcome retreats to the weary or belated traveller. For one, I generally preferred stopping in them to passing the night in the little villages, where the cabildos are often dirty and infested with fleas, and where a horrible concert is kept up by the lean and mangy curs which throughout Central America disgrace the respectable name of dog. In fact, a large part of the romance and many of the pleasantest recollections of our adventures in Honduras are connected with these rude shelters, and with the long nights which we passed in them, far away in dark valleys, or on mountain-crests, but always amongst Nature's deepest solitudes.