maaaWfc lflii J mmk TERWORTH I' ' ill 111! Hi! 111!' HI '|"l|!i,, 'III!!' -H, \ ,!; ,;;K) 'i'S ''III llinn jlllr V ! 1 'PiBlLjilL' Is *% ,;! I : ; ' !> ! ;';' 111 1 - ' : ' iV ^illllll '-aiiiii'iiipii!^ "IIHIII : 'Mill! 1 ' .it !! \h\0 ] TRAVEL ADVENTURE SERIES Wt If/ 1 ' 1 ''i 'I mm hh|_ 2'1 ' ililii ' . .mil if' -' :: ' l! : fylLJl 1 .: ' ' [ii ' ' ^JlKiii : lit Hi "mill lift! THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES LOST IN NICARAGUA TRAVEL-ADVENTURE SERIES. IN WILD AFRICA. Adventures of Two Boys in the Sahara Desert. By Thomas \V. Knox. 325 pages. With five Illustrations by II. Burgess. $1.50. THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO. Adventures of Two Boys in the Great Island Continent. By Colonel Thomas \V. Knox. 31S pages. Illustrated by II. Burgess. $1.50. OVER THE ANDES ; or. Our Boys in New South America. By Hezekiah Butterworth. 370 pages. With five Illustrations by Henry Sandham. $1.50. LOST IN NICARAGUA ; or. Among Coffee Farms and Banana Lands, in the Countries of the Great Canal. By Hezekiah Butterworth. 296 pages. With five Illustrations by H. Burgess. $1.50. r a LOST IN NICARAGUA AMONG COFFEE FARMS AND BANANA LANDS, IN THE COUNTRIES OF THE GREAT CANAL BY HEZEKIAH BUTTKRWORTH AUTHOR OF "OVER THE ANDES,'' ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY SANDHAM BOSTON AND CHICAGO W. A. WILDE & COMPANY Copyright, 1898, By W. A. Wii.uk & Company. All rights reserved. LOST IX NICARAGUA. Jfi* PREFACE. " Lost in Nicaragua " is a companion book to " Over the Andes," and is designed to illustrate the historical progress and industrial opportunities of Central America, the pros- pective land of the great international highway to the East. Here is to be the gate of the Pacific, where a great city of the future must arise, and become the port of the coffee, sugar, banana, and tropical fruit plantations. In 1898 the writer went to Costa Rica, and on his way met a railroad manager, who, on his explorations for a tropical railroad, fell into a cavern covered with reeds and was im- prisoned there. This explorer's experience in a neighboring country suggested the story of Leigh Frobisher's adventure in the underground idol cave of Nicaragua. The writer met at Port Limon a young German who had built up a coffee and banana plantation in Costa Rica, which he cultivated for the purpose of the industrial education of the native Indians. His work had received the approval of the government, and it furnishes a model tor like enterprises of Christian philanthropy. This incident, and like incidents, i/ave rise to the character ot Hazel. 71 8166 6 PREFACE. The writer has used his old method in the " Zigzag " books of interpolating stories within a connected narrative. These stories are pictures of the life of the country. South America is being Europeanized, the Argentine Republic is producing a new Italy, and a new Latin race seems to be forming under the Andes. Central America is becoming more American, and a great industrial opportunity is opening there. Young Americans and Germans are mak- ing coffee and tropical fruit plantations in all parts of the country, and especially in Costa Rica, in which the San Jose and Cartago region is one of the most beautiful parts of the earth. The book, like " Over the Andes," is written in the spirit and interests of Christian education, for influence, and for illustration of the best and most progressive enterprises of life. With little of the spirit of authorship, the writer has sought in " Over the Andes " and " Lost in Nicaragua " to produce two books that will correctly picture the progress of South and Central America in such a way as to interest the best thought in it, and to help life. We have used the quetzal, the paradise trogon, the sacred bird of the ancient races, as the object of the search of one of our American travellers, and have related the St. Thomas legend in connection with Quetzalcoatl, and the forest won- ders ot feathers of emerald, ruby, and pearl. The myth is one of the most pleasing of all the parables of the Western world. St. Thomas, the Doubter, probably never visited India, or founded the faith of the Xestorians of Persia, and PREFACE. 7 he certainly could never have appeared as Quetzalcoatl in Yucatan and Guatemala. But the legend, as a legend, is one of the most stimulating in prehistoric research ; for the appearance of the cross in the ruins of Palenque seems to be a Christian link between the Eastern and Western worlds. Of the quetzal, the sacred bird of these mysteries, and the most beautiful of all the birds of the world, Mr. Stephens, the explorer of the ruins of the ancient Central American cities, says, in speaking of a convent where he was enter- tained : " On a shelf over the bed were two stuffed quezalcs, the royal bird of Quiche, the most beautiful that flies, so proud of its tail that it builds its nest with two openings, to pass in and out without turning, and whose plumes were not permitted to be used except by the royal family." In making the search for this bird, the object of one of the young travellers of our narrative, we are able to introduce in story form some pictures of legendary history. We have written into our narrative a brief history of the efforts to secure an interoceanic canal, and have endeavored to picture the route through which the canal is expected to pass. It would seem that in Nicaragua the two oceans are to be wedded. We stand on the threshold of new opportunities, and these open countries await the progress of the world. The empty lands of the Southern Cross and the Republics of the Sun are on their way to great events in the future, and the time has come for our young people to know more about them. 8 PREFACE. The star of prosperity leads towards the south, and to illus- trate the educational part of this progress, in a popular way, is the aim and purpose of the two books of narratives of travel with interpolated stories. 28 Worcester Street, Boston. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Quetzal The Golden Ace of Quetzalcoatl The St. Thomas Legend and the Mysterious Cross The Story of Nicaragua, the Chief II. Tin-: Young German Coffee Planter . III. Bucking against the Climate .... IV. Hazel A Story of the Blood Snake V. A Very Odd Story Tin-: Washington of Centrai America ........ VI. Tin'. Third America: How to reach it from New York ......... VII. Costa Rica: -Thi-: Switzerland of the Tropics' VIII. Coffee Land ........ IX. Tin; Young Coffee Planter at Home Irazu X. Arlla XL Hazel's School His Methods .... XII. A Party for the Forests ..... XIII. The Wonders of the Forest regin XIY. An Army of Pigs Bitten i-.y a Jigger XV. The Wounded Monkey . ... XVI. Tin: Royal Family of Trogons Leigh finds a Tkogon ReSI'LENDENS .... <) >3 40 46 52 63 /i 84 90 100 108 "3 127 '.V '3* 142 146 IO CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXI If. XXIV. XXV XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXX VII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. The Jaguar Hunt The Lost Indian Babies ok Rio Fkio Zapatera The Mediterranean of the West The Nicaragua Canal Its Promise of the Future The Landing at Greytown A New Industry Tin-: Planting of Rubber Groves Lost ........ In an Idol Cave The Tiger Cat Apula ....... The Rubber Hunters The Wild Palm Forest and the Alligator Bird Faithful ....... Found ....... Parted . Guatemala, the Land of the Quetzal The Trick .Mule Earthquake Land . The Mystery of Palenque and the Unknown- Cities . A Philosophical Monkey A Guatemala Coffee Plantation Pequena Paris: A City of Surprise 'No Hay" and "No Si:" Cohan, the City of the Quetzal . The Royal Bird PACK 153 160 170 177 183 187 '94 198 208 213 216 229 233 237 242 247 258 262 267 275 280 289 ILLUSTRATIONS. " The people met them with rejoicing, dancing, and garlands of flowers " . . . . . . Frontispiece 39 " ' I glanced at the demon-like looking creature as I held him by his wing ' " ........ 83 " There seemed to be from fifty to a hundred pigs, turning hither and thither " . . . . . . .136 ' Leigh leaped into one of the mahogany dugout boats " .191 " The woman went out and stood where Leigh had slept, and pointed upward " . . . . . . . .226 LOST IN NICARAGUA. sXKc CHAPTER I. THE QUETZAL. THE GOLDEN ACE OF QUETZALCOATL. THE ST. THOMAS LEGEND AND THE MYSTERIOUS CROSS. THE STORY OF NICARAGUA, THE CHIEF. THE quetzal, or quesal, the paradise trogon (Caluras rcsplcndcns), is one of the most beautiful of the birds in the Western world. To witness the flight of one of these birds in the sun through a Nicaraguan or Guatemalan forest is an event to an ornithologist from England or North America. The paradise trogons that we see in collections give but a suggestion of the marvellous splendor of the live bird as it drifts through the tropical forests, especially when its flight is in a rift of sunlight, amid the long, glimmering shadows. The quetzal was the sacred bird of the temples of Central American Andes, and is the national emblem of Guatemala, in memory of the ancient nations and rites of a vanished em- pire that held the gems of nature as among the gifts of its gods. The bird in several species is found in the forests of Cen- >3 14 LOST IN NICARAGUA. tral America. It is not rare in the forests or the table-lands; but few, except native Americans, have ever seen it in its own haunts or witnessed the vision of the splendor of its flight. Why when this royal and sacred bird, the bird of ca- ciques and of one of the republics of the third America, is the most beautiful of all the birds of paradise on our own continent ? The bird lives in mountain forests, at a height of some three or five thousand feet, and not many white travellers go there. It is a lazy bird. It sits in bowers of bloom among the orchids and odorous plants, and seems to be dreaming. Says a lover of birds of rare plumage : " It is too lazy to turn its head ; it seems to be thinking, thinking, but of what it is thinking no man knows. I would give many pesos to know what these superb trogons are always thinking about." The bird has a fussy look about the head, as though its meditations had not been congenial. It has the appearance of a pessimist with all of its optimist plumes. He is a kind of rainbow in the cloud. He wears a mantle of golden green, a living mantle with the lustre of gems. Under this mantle burns a waist of carmine red. His eye is brown, his beak yellow, and from his little body sweeps a tail like a trail of a royal creature of nature, white and green. The feathers of this brilliant tail are usually more than two feet long. One wonders that they can ever be borne in the air by this animated beauty of the silent forest. He seems not to talk much, with all of his thinking, but what he says is like the voice of the temple of Memnon. He THE QUETZAL. I 5 speaks low, lovingly, and melodiously. Then his voice swells and drifts on the warm, fragrant air of his lazy habitudes. He is a bird of mystery. The royal bird lives on fruit, and he does not have to hunt for it in the regions of the plantains and palms. He has but to sit in the cool shadow of a tree and eat, and make love, and pipe, and think. He has been thinking for thousands of years ; he was thinking when Columbus came, and he is thinking yet. When he is tamed he falls in love with his keeper. But he does not thrive in captivity ; if you handle him, he dies. Our friends the Frobishers, from Milton, Mass., whose travels in South America we pictured in " Over the Andes," had no sooner arrived at Port Limon than they began to in- quire at the consulate in regard to the wonderful bird of the Nicaraguan, Honduran, and Guatemalan forests. Captain Frobisher and his two nephews had secured some strange birds and rare plants in South America ; they wished to add a living quetzal to their collection, and to see the bird in its native woods. " I can secure one of the birds for you," said the Consul. "The Indian women have them for sale in Central American towns." " I am going to Guatemala," said Captain Frobisher. " Our plan is to visit Costa Rica's beautiful capital, San Jose, to go to Greytown and Hluefields, and thence to Livingston in Gua- temala and to Halise in Honduras. We hope to make an excursion into Lake Nicaragua and to see the ancient ruins in the lake, go to Granada, the old town of ships in the days of Spain, and to see the route of the proposed Nicaraguan Canal. I look upon this canal as certain to be built, and to l6 LOST IN NICARAGUA. become the gateway of the Pacific, the new water high- way of the world. We are travelling in part for pleasure, but largely for education, to see the coffee plantations of Central America, the new fruit industries of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. We think that great opportuni- ties are here and a great future ; but one of my nephews has a fancy for birds, and we wish to see the home of a moun- tain quetzal, the native bird of paradise, and to secure one for our own collection of birds, and more than one live bird, if possible, for a museum from which we have received letters." " You will not find it difficult to carry out your whole plan. It seems to me a very interesting one. Our countrymen fail to see how great is the industrial opportunity in this country of the paradise bird." " My nephew Alonzo is more interested in coffee-growing and in the banana trade than in ornithology ; but his brother and I have a great love of what is wonderful in nature. The trogon is among birds what the night-blooming cereus is among plants, and we wish to see it in its native forests. Have I made our purpose of travel clear to you ? " " Very clear. I have friends who know the whole country well ; some of them are connected with the new lines of steamers to these parts ; I will introduce you to them." " Thank you, Consul. There is one man that always has a vision in his mind, a warm heart, and a ready hand. That man is the Consul, and I see that you are a true representa- tive of the liberal men whom the traveller most wishes to know."' Port Limon exists yet only in outline. It was a tropical swamp only a few years ago. It now has several hotels, a THE QUETZAL. \J Protestant and a Catholic church, a public garden in which are beautiful orchids and some wonderful plants, a fine mar- ket-place, and evidences of progress on every hand. It is a very unhealthy place, although it lies between the mountains and the foaming sea. \\ *hy it should be so, with the purple and green Caribbean Sea breaking against the new sea- wall and the palm-shaded mountains towering above it, we cannot see. But so it is. The stranger should avoid the hot sun and the frequent rains here; he should not get wet and then expose himself to the sun. lie will look upon the place as one of nature's paradises when he lands, and will be tempted to rush into the natural parks of wonderful verdure. Let him sit down under the cocoanut palms around his hotel at first, and there ask some resident how many times he has had the fever. This question Captain Frobisher asked of Mr. Sobey, the Baptist minister in the place, who had founded and helped to build up a number of churches in this republic of the future. "Some twenty times," said the good man, before whose faith and work malaria has been put to flight. " And the black vomit twice," he added. " It is this way : if a man lead a temperate life and has the fever, the chances are ninety- nine to one that he will recover; but if he be dissipated or has lowered his vitality by excesses, his hope ol recovery will not be so great," or words to this effect. Among men ol right habits, the fever is little more dreaded than :i eokl in the North. Soldiers, sailors, and fortune seekers come here, tall sick, and some of them die; but those who obevthe laws ol health, like those who follow the rion of Xun, and found here a secure asylum.' " The journey of Votan to Rome, and the vast temple which he saw being constructed in that city, are events which, accord- ing to the foregoing conclusions, should have taken place in the year 290 before the Christian era, when, after an obsti- nate and bloody war of eight years with the Samnites, the THE QUETZAL. 2J Romans granted peace to that people, and the Consul Publius Cornelius Rufus commanded to be built a sumptuous temple in honor of Romulus and Remus, an event which, according to Mexican chronology, took place in the year 'eight rab- bits' (Toxli). The seven Tzequil families which Votan encountered on his return were also Phoenicians, and prob- ably shipwrecked persons from the Phoenician embarkation mentioned by Diodorus. " According to Cabrera, the first emigration or colony of the Carthaginians in America took place in the First Punic War. The other conclusions of this author relative to the founda- tion of the kingdom of Amahnamacan by the Carthaginians, the emigration of the Toltecs, etc., are incompatible with the limits of our work ; but we cannot do less than remark here on the opinions of many learned men who think that the Toltecan god Ouetzalcoatl is identical with the apostle St. Thomas; and it is observable that the surname of this apostle, Didimus (twin), has the same significance in Creek that Ouetzalcoatl has in Mexican. It is astonishing, also, to consider the numerous and extensive regions traversed by this apostle ; for, though some confine them to Parthia, others extend them to Calamita, a doubtful city in India; others as far as Maliopur (at this day the city of St. Thomas on the Coromandel coast); others even t<> China, and, as we have seen, there are not wanting those who think that be- came even to Central America. "Wo decline making any remarks on the documents oi Votan and the interpretations of Cabrera, since, even il they arc not considered fabulous, they do not present a species ol evidence perfectly tree from suspicion." 28 LOST IN NICARAGUA. The association of the American prophet and instructor, Quetzalcoatl, with St. Thomas, and with the emblem of the Toltec faith as found in the quetzal, gives a poetic coloring to the forest wonder of ruby, pearl, and emerald feathers and plumes. A naturalist with a poetic fancy might well search long and far for a living representation of these ancient mysteries. What the odorous cactus is to the flowers of these countries, the quetzal is to the inhabitants of the air, whose home is among the orchids of the ruins and the ancient trees. THE MYSTERIOUS CROSS. Do the lost cities of Guatemala and Yucatan themselves reveal any suggestions of a Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, or Christian origin ? There are two things found in these ruins that excite the wonder of the most literal mind. One is the arch and the other is the cross. We have seen a copy of a sculptured picture found in one of the sanctuaries of Palenque, the lost city of Yucatan. It represents a cross, and a devotee on one side praying to the cross, and another devotee on the other side making an offering to the same cross. The picture is taken from Stephens' classic and immortal work, " Incidents of Travel in Central America." In its suggestions this picture, or the sculpture represented by it, is the most remarkable ever made by a human hand in the Western world. Let the reader examine it ; every line is beauty, all the multiple forms are conceptions of the highest art. Was there ever drawn a cross of such wonderful beauty? In the cathedral windows of Europe, in St. Peter's, in the THE QUETZAL. 20, Holy Sepulchre, has anything ever appeared that can sur- pass this conception of the agent of crucifixion and sacrifice that has lifted the world ? When the Spanish padres beheld this marvellous cross, they said, " The ancient inhabitants of Palcnque were Chris- tians." Were they ? Had the religious teacher Quetzalcoatl any association with some wandering St. Thomas from the East- ern world ? As the reader is to follow the fortunes of our travellers into Nicaragua, he should, by way of introduction, know something of this great chieftain from which the country of the lakes and the projected canal received its name. A STOKV OF THE CACIQUE NICARAGUA, AND (JXE OF LAS CASAS, THE GOOD DOMINICAN*. In the old Darien days, long, however, before the Darien scheme, the Spanish governor of the wonderful country sent an adventurer named Davila to explore the coast. In 1522, a hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, this voyager sailed along the Mosquito country, and came to the harbor near where Greytown now stands, and entered the San Juan River, as the natural canal is now called. The stream was then, as now, an avenue through tropical forests, in which dwelt inquisitive parrots ami still more wondering monkeys. As Davila passed along, wonder led to wonder, until there opened before him a lake ot volcanoes, and he came to an Indian city on the lake. 30 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " It is Nicaragua," they said. The word is also written Micaragua, and the place is ealled Nicoya. The town of Rivas stands now near where ancient Nicaragua stood. " What is the name of your cacique ? " asked Davila. " Nicaragua," answered the Indians. The explorer sought an interview with the chief of this marvellous lake, over which rose mountains green with palms and enchanting with fruits and flowers. He told the chief that he came to him as a messenger from heaven, to bring him a new religion. The priests told him the tale of the Garden of Eden. " How do you know ? " said the chief. They told him the tale of the flood. " But how do you know ? " asked the chief. " God revealed it from heaven," said the priest. " But how ? " asked the cacique. " Did he come down on a rainbow ? " This was really the cacique's question, if we may trust Peter Martyr, and it shows a very poetic imagination. As the priests continued to instruct Nicaragua, they found him a man with a very clear mind. To all that they told him he asked, " How do you know?" and as the answers did not satisfy him, they said, " We will tell you what we do know, and leave the rest to God." But, although he questioned everything, Nicaragua saw that the religion of the messengers was better than his blind idolatries. In the Gospel he found a wonderful revelation, and he rejoiced at its power, and accepted it, and desired to be baptized. THE QUETZAL. 3 I So it was arranged that, like Clovis of France, he should be baptized, and his court and arm)' with him. "But," said the invader, "you must promise never to wage war against the Spanish race." " That would be hard in case that I were to be wronged," said the king. Why this shrewd native did not demand of the Spaniards that they should not wage war against him and his people before he received baptism, we cannot tell, but the Spaniards told him that war was sin, and that he could not receive sal- vation unless he would live a life of peace. "Then I will give up war," he said, in a truly Christian spirit. Nicaragua and his people were baptized, and gave up war; but the Spaniards soon began to slaughter the Indians for their treasures, and never ceased to do this until they aban- doned the country. Their rule was a long tyranny, in which the poor Indians were enslaved and killed without mercy, and robbed without any sense or pretension of justice. The Indians became much better Christians than their masters; they saw the value of Christianity, but wondered how those who preached this sublime Gospel could imperil their own souls by cruelty and wrong. The Spaniards had hardly converted the cacicpie and his tribe before they began to show their greed lor gold. The chief wondered at this. To him gold represented but little that was essential to true happiness m lite. lie one day came to the explorer. "I am filled with surprise," he said sorrowfully. "At what 3 " asked the explorer. 32 LOST IN NICARAGUA. "That so few men should so greatly desire so much gold!" This was nearly his exact expression. Can we wonder at it? If we are surprised that the Spaniards should have put gold before justice then, can we be less so that it is so now? We love to think of the beautiful soul of this chief, so earnest to know the reason of things, and so willing to accept that which was best for him and his people when it was made clear to him. And who will not be touched by sympathy for him, at his great disappointment that men who could preach so well should so little heed their own sublime faith, but held their selfish desires above the spiritual life that promises a better world than this. So the Indians of Nacoya became a Christian race, and splendid churches and golden altars arose among the palms, fruit gardens, and orchards, and their idols sunk into the earth, where we may find them to-day. Central America was the New England of Spain, and Nica- ragua merits mention with the great and noble Massasoit in the deeds of the vanished race. THE STORY OF LAS CASAS AND THE SINGING INDIAN MER- CHANTS. 4 We must account this story as one of the best ever told in the great Latin empire of the New World. We cannot be sure of the great legends of the Golden Age in Guatemala, or of the Golden Age in Peru, but that one of the most warlike and ferocious tribes of Indians was won to a true and peace- THE QUETZAL. 33 ful faith by travelling singers, and the influence of Las Casas of blessed memory, is true, and the story is as beautiful as it is true. Of all the missionary priests in early America, Las Casas is the most ideal. He taught justice to the Indians, and the authority of the law of righteousness which applied to all men alike, kings, priests, and people. I le defended the rights of all men, and especially those of the Indians in America. He told kings and ecclesiastics that they had no right to wage war against the natives of America, or to rob them or enslave them because they were "infidels," and had never heard the Gospel. Arthur Helps says in his preface to his " Life of Las Casas," that this defender of humanity in the wilderness is the most interesting character that he had ever studied, and that he looked upon him as one of "the most interesting characters that ever appeared in history." He certainly was the truest Christian philanthropist in Spanish America. He was called the "Apostle to the Indies." Bartholomew de Las Casas was the son of Antonio de Las Casas, who was one of the companions of Columbus on the voyage of discovery. He was born in Seville, 1474. At the age ot twenty-eight he made his first voyage to America, and at the age of ninety-two this old young man contended be- fore Philip II. in favor of the Guatemalans having courts of justice of their own. In 15.36 Las Casas, then over sixty years of age, whieh was the youth of old age to him, came to Guatemala, and occu- pied a convent there. The Spanish rule over the natives ol New Spain, as Central America was then called, was most 34 LOST IN NICARAGUA. tyrannical and merciless. If Indians could not follow their new leaders into the deep forests, the latter killed them, and hundreds were known to go away with the conquerors and to never return. To rob, kill, and pay no regard to the feelings of the native races was a part of the Spanish policy, which was justified as waging war against "infidels." Las Casas became a defender of the rights of the Indians of Guatemala, both in name and spirit. Las Casas, in 1533, wrote a treatise, which then excited the world, in which he claimed that men must be brought to Christianity by spiritual persuasion, and not by force of arms, and that it was not lawful to make war against infidels merely because they Were infidels. He was to New Spain, or Cen- tral America, what Roger Williams was to New England. The Spanish conquerors, who enslaved Indians because they were infidels, were greatly incensed by these doctrines. The colonists of Guatemala derided Las Casas. " Put your faith into practice," they said. " Convert one of the tribes of Indians by personal appeal and love, and we will then consider your theories." "That I will do in God's name," said Las Casas. There was a province in Guatemala called Tuzalatan, which bore the name of Tierra de Guerra, or the Land of War. The Indian tribe here was most untamable and savage. No Spaniards dared to go near them, for they were as merciless against them as the Spaniards were themselves cruel to all the Indian races. In May, 1537, Las Casas made an agreement with the gov- ernor of Guatemala that if he could Christianize these Indians they should be made subject to their own rulers under the THE QUETZAL. 35 Spanish crown, and be treated with justice as a Christian people. But how was the benevolent Las Casas to find a way to the savage hearts of these people ? The Indians looked upon the monks as their enemies. He could not go there. He thought on the subject. There were certain Indian merchants that went freely among the tribes of Guatemala and Nicaragua, carrying with them choice goods to sell. These could travel freely in the terrible Land of War. Their coming to any place made a holiday. Las Casas saw that through these men he might approach the revengeful savages. How ? These Indians loved music. Their ears were open to sweet sounds, and gentle music reached their hearts through their ears. Music was to them a language of the soul. It made them kindly ; it tended to love, and help, and tears. A band of these trading Indians were friends of the good Las Casas. They could sing and play on rude native instru- ments. Las Casas was familiar with the methods of the troubadours, of whom one may read in Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature." He would teach these Indian mer- chants to sing the Gospel, and to accompany their songs on musical instruments, and would send them into the Land ot War. The songs must be short and many ; the) - must con- sist ot some two lines each. They must tell of how the world was created; how men sinned; how Christ came into the world to redeem men from sin. They must say that idols are not uods. 36 LOST IN NICARAGUA. As, for example, although we have no copies of these songs : The idols cannot see, God only man can see ! " or or "The idols cannot hear. God only man can hear I'' " The idols have no power, 'Tis God alone has power ! " Such couplets they would sing over and over, playing on the musical instruments. The king and his subjects were so susceptible to music that they would listen. So they would wonder at the words in the evening shadows of the moun- tains of Guatemala. Now, when the Indian merchants should have sung that idols were not gods, the Indians of the Land of War would say, " How do you know ? " and ask, " Who taught you that ? " To the last question the traders would answer, " We learned our songs from the monks. You must send for them to answer your questions." Happy thought! The Indian merchants went away. The result of this admirable plan is beautifully told by Arthur Helps in his " Life of Las Casas." We know of no more beautiful story anywhere. Mr. Helps says: " The merchants were received, as was the custom in a country without inns, into the palace of the cacique, where they met with a better reception than usual, being enabled to make him presents of these new things from Castile. The}' then set up their tent and began to sell their goods as they THE QUETZAL. 37 were wont to do, their customers thronging about to see the Spanish novelties. When the sale was over for that day, the chief men amongst the Indians remained with the cacique to do him honor. In the evening the merchants asked for a "teplanastle," an instrument of music which we may suppose to have been the same as the Mexican teponazli, or drum. They then produced some timbrels and bells which they had brought with them, and began to sing the verses which they had learned to sing by heart, accompanying themselves on the musical instruments. The effect produced was very great. The sudden change of character, not often made, from a merchant to a priest, at once arrested the attention of the assemblage. Then, if the music was beyond anything that these Indians had heard, the words were still more extraor- dinary ; for the good fathers had not hesitated to put into their verses the questionable assertion that idols were demons, and the certain fact that human sacrifices were abominable. The main bod)' of the audience was delighted, and pro- nounced these merchants to be ambassadors from new gods. "The cacique, with the caution of a man in authority, sus- pended his judgment until he had heard more of the matter. The next da)', and for seven succeeding days, this sermon in song was repeated. In public and in private the person who insisted most on this repetition was the cacique; and he expressed a wish to fathom the matter, and to know the origin and meaning ot these things. The prudent merchants replied that they only sang what the)- had heard; that it was not their business to explain these verses, for that office belonged to certain padres, who instructed the people. '.And who are the padres?' asked the chief. In answer to this 38 LOST IN NICARAGUA. question, the merchants painted pictures of the Dominican monks, in their robes of black and white, and with their tonsured heads. The merchants then described the lives of these padres: how they did not eat meat, and how they did not desire gold, or feathers, or cocoa ; that they were not married, and had no communication with women ; that night and day they sang the praises of God ; and that they knelt before very beautiful images. Such were the persons, the merchants said, who could and would explain these couplets ; they were such good people, and so ready to teach, that if the cacique were to send for them they would most willingly come. "The Indian chief resolved to see and hear these marvellous men in black and white, with their hair in the form of a gar- land, who were so different from other men ; and for this purpose, when the merchants returned, he sent in company with them a brother of his, a young man twenty-two years of age, who was to invite the Dominicans to visit his brother's country, and to carry them presents. The cautious cacique instructed his brother to look well to the ways of these padres, to observe whether they had gold and silver like the other Christians, and whether there were women in their houses. These instructions having been given, and his brother having taken his departure, the cacique made large offerings of in- cense and great sacrifices to his idols for the success of the embassage." I low beautiful this mission of singing merchants and peace- ful monks must have been ! So the monks came to preach where the wandering mer- chants had been singing in the Land of War. Their journey u THE QUETZAL. W 39 into the country was a triumph. The people met them with rejoicing, dancing, and garlands of flowers. The singers sang and the monks explained the songs. The king received the Gospel through them, cast down his idols, and was bap- tized, and the people followed him and learned the songs of the missionaries. A church arose where the idol temple had been. The Indians became Christians and accepted the authority of the King of Spain. There was a kind-hearted pope at this time, Paul III. Now Las Casas was a Dominican monk, and when this pope heard of the singing merchants, and what the Dominicans had accomplished, he was greatly pleased, and he pronounced a sentence of excommunication against any who "reduce these Indians to slavery, or rob them of their goods." So there came a Golden Age to the Indian church at Guatemala. CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG GERMAN - COFFEE PLANTER. AS we have described our travellers in " Over the Andes," one of the boys, Leigh Frobisher, was greatly inter- ested in botany and ornithology, and the other in coffee raising, tropical fruits, and commercial opportunities. They were happy in the acquaintances that they made on the ship that came by the way of Bocas del Toro to Port Limon. In one of these they were particularly fortunate. He was a young German who owned a coffee plantation near the ancient city of Cartago, at the foot of the once terrible vol- cano Irazu. Cartago, where are the wonderful hot springs of Costa Rica, famous for the cure of rheumatism and blood diseases, is a very ancient city, some fourteen miles from San Jose. It has an elevation of some five thousand feet, and Irazu rises above it, looking like a simple hill green with farms, but which is really nearly as high as Mt. Washing- ton from this point, in all eleven thousand to twelve thousand feet high, and some six thousand from the valley of Cartago. Irazu is a well-behaved mountain now. Perhaps it has been baptized, for misbehaving volcanoes were once baptized in Central America, and some holy fathers who went over a threatening pass to sprinkle one of the smoking peaks never returned again. 4 o THE YOUNG GERMAN COFFEE PLANTER. 41 Irazii blew off its head at the last eruption, and left it, over the summit from Cartago, in a quiet valley, where, we are told, it may still be seen. The ancient town of Cartago was largely destroyed in this eruption ; but the people who re- mained picked up the rocks that the giant had thrown down upon them, and built beautiful churches with them ; and the traveller to-day can hardly believe that the cool and peace- ful mountain, whose farms rise above the many towers of Cartago, is the terrible Irazu. The climate here is like Xew England in June, or Swit- zerland in September, all the year. People who have had malarial fevers in the cities on the coast flee to Cartago for recovery. The young German, whom our travellers met on the steamer, owned a coffee plantation between Cartago and San Jose, a little apart from the magnificent farms or haciendas on the public ways. He was returning to his coffee farm, and taking his father with him. The young man had been in the country some seven years, lie spoke English and Spanish, and was interested in the educational progress of the country. One day, on deck, the English captain of the ship, who had a very friendly heart, came and sat down by Captain Erobisher, Alonzo, and Leigh. "Captain Morris," said Captain Erobisher, "what do you know about coffee raising in Costa Rica?" "Ask young Aleman there, the German; I have for- gotten what the purser said his name was. I call him young Aleman, and his father who is with him old Airman, tor short. He is making money at coffee raising, I am told, 42 LOST IN NICARAGUA. though the price of coffee has fallen ; these young Germans, they would make money anywhere." "Captain Morris," said Captain Frobisher, "is it your view that a young American, like one of my boys here, would do well to settle down on a coffee plantation in Costa Rica?" " No ; positively not." "Why, Captain Morris? You say that the German young Aleman is prosperous, although the price of coffee is low. If he is doing well, why should not my boys, as I call my nephews, be successful ? " " For the reason that they are Americans." Captain Frobisher looked surprised. " Hut what of that, Captain ? " " What ? Everything they are educated wrong." " I am surprised to hear you say that, Captain. Explain to me what you mean. Why are my nephews educated differ- ently from the German student ? " " Captain Frobisher, your nephews are educated to habits of extravagance. That young German has been trained to habits of economy. He knows the value of a dollar; your nephews do not. Excuse me, my good friend, for plain speak- ing in answer to your own question. Old Aleman there knows the value of a dollar you do not; you think you do your New England ancestors did." He continued, "Excuse me, my boys, if I talk plain to you in regard to life in Costa Rica. If there be any true republic on earth, it is Costa Rica. The races there mingle on an equality, and when the young German goes there and slowly makes for himself a coffee farm or a banana plantation, and becomes worth ten thousand to fifty thousand dollars, he does THE YOUNG GERMAN COFFEE PLANTER. 43 not go over to England to spend it making a fool of himself. He does not go to the dissipated cities to make a show of himself, or to gratify his appetites and passions in places where he fancies himself a social leader, but where in reality he amounts to nothing at all where he is really of no more consequence than a last year's gadfly. He perhaps goes to Germany, as young Aleman has done, and brings over his old father to his growing plantation, as young Aleman is now doing. Young Aleman has missionary ideas ; these mean the good of the country. He will stay there. " When young Aleman there shall be worth say fifty thou- sand dollars, he will not greatly change his present mode of life. The Costa Rieans are proud of their simple living, as much so as your people are fond of show and ot exciting the envy of others by putting those who are less favored at a social disadvantage." Captain Frobisher was touched. He pounded his cane on the deck and said, " Show ! that cannot be so. You are prejudiced, Captain Morris." "No, pardon me; I am not," said the captain. " Have I not carried thousands of newly rich Americans across the .Atlantic? Your country was once proud of its democracy and social worth and justice and character. You had great men then. A few of your people now become rich, and these take upon themselves almost court airs, and set a low and vulgar example for those who toil and struggle. These people, as a rule, have no place among men ol true worth ;is their ancestors had. They give their children a superficial education in many arts, most of which amounts to nothing; but they are not schooled in the restraints ol honest thrift 44 LOST IN NICARAGUA. and to the fact that integrity is everything. Much of what you call a high social standing, the Old World looks upon as a cheap, vulgar show." Captain Frobisher puffed out his cheeks and pounded his cane again on the deck, and said, " Hoys, if I thought that what the captain has been saying applied to you, I would get you educated over again. "You are a little too hard, Captain," he added. "I wish that you would introduce us to young Aleman. There may be a grain of salt in what you say, but my boys arc as good as any young German. There ! " Captain Frobisher brought his cane down on the deck with a vigorous thump, after which followed the desired introduc- tion. "These people, my young German friend," said Captain Morris, "are Americans of the true Washington and Jeffer- son type of real common sense, who have not forgotten their democratic ancestry. They want to know how to plant coffee, and how to live in the country and make money, as you do, and, I hope, how to benefit the country, as you desire to do." Young Aleman was a bright-faced German, and his face lighted up at the odd introduction. lie brought his father to the company, and introduced him to Captain Frobisher and Alonzo and Leigh. The two Germans, young Aleman and old Aleman, were given to story telling, and to illustrating what they had to sav by narrative and anecdote. "We are about to go into Costa Rica," said Captain Frobisher, "and we wish to know how to visit the country THE YOUNG GERMAN COFFEE PLANTER. 45 most intelligently. The captain here has been criticising our habits and customs somewhat severely. He thinks we have too large heads ; isn't that it, Captain ? My good German friend, tell us what we should first shun in visiting the country." " Well," said young Aleman, " I had much to learn when I first came to Costa Rica ; let me tell you a little story, if you care to hear me; it may prove useful to you." CHAPTER III. BUCKING AGAINST THE CLIMATE. I CAM K down to the Mosquito Coast from Hamburg, like a young American from the New England hills and shores, full of hardy vigor, and as well supplied with ambi- tion and resolution. I took this native force into the palm lands, and maintained it for some months. I was full of admiration for the dazzling seas, the green palm groves, the fruits, and the resources of life on every hand; and I looked down with contempt on what seemed to me a lazy and incom- petent people, unwilling to profit by opportunity, and more thoughtful of ease than of progress. I had come here in the hope of helping these people in an educational way ; every one should have a purpose beyond money making. " In the glowing hours of the day, they lay under the palms, the sea-walls, or bowery verandas. The great giants of negroes, as well as people of resources and competence, did this. I thought of establishing a mid-day school for them. " 'They spend the best part of the day in idleness,' I used to saw ' Idleness is the curse of the country.' My German blood was yet thick. I put on a felt hat, and went forth into the sun in the noonday hours, and into the dews in the evening. " They rode lazily on little mules; I walked. They did their marketing in the early morning hours, and then de- 46 BUCKING AGAINST THE CLIMATE. 47 sorted the streets. I visited the stores in the afternoon to find them empty, or filled with sleeping people lying about on coffee sacks or boxes of merchandise. " But it was not only the native inhabitants who were addicted to these unthrifty habits and easy ways, the foreign population did the same ; and I was accustomed to berate them all. " 'There never was a land so unworthy of its inhabitants,' " said I one day to the British consul. " ' My friend,' said he, ' how old are you in this country ? ' " ' Not three months yet,' said I ; ' but I have lived as much in those three months as your people do in as many years.' " ' My German friend, when you have lived here six months, if you should live as many, you will be wiser. Your blood will have to grow thinner, and the change will come to you with a shock some day if you don't get a sombrero, and avoid the noontide sun. People sleep twice a day here. We have two nights every day one of them is night of the shade at noon.' " ' But these people do nothing,' said I. " ' Providence has provided that they shall not be compelled to work hard,' said the consul. ' Look around you.' " I did ; there were cocoanut palms everywhere, burning in the ail - . Orange trees laden with fruit were bending coolly over the fences of sugar-cane. The gardens were green with sweet potato vines. ( )n the hills were sugar plantations. The sea was full of fish. The sails hung loosely over the sleeping forms of negroes on the boats, some ol which were brown, some black, but all of whom were sleeping. " Everywhere were water jars with small necks and big 48 LOST IN NICARAGUA. bodies, and the lime trees seemed to be as numerous as the jars in the corners of the shadows. " ' I see,' said I, 'everybody seems to be asleep on the land and on the sea, negroes as well as the planters, sailors as well as the white pantalooned masters of ships. The land itself seems to be resting.' " ' You are right, my German friend,' said the consul. ' The whole land is resting, except a few Americans. They will be likely to find a long siesta soon.' " A great strapping negro from one of the ships, who had been in the States and among the islands of the Antilles, here showed his white teeth, and ventured to remark, "'It am no use to buck against the climate, sir. It am like going for a mad bull with a red rag, sir ; bucking against the climate don't pay in these parts, sir. The person who does that has a poor show.' " ' Oh, go about your work and don't stand there, giant that you are, wasting your time. Bucking against the climate, bucking against the climate ; what do you mean by that ? ' " 'The Americans and Germans who come down here, all so mighty chipper and smart, as they say, and who begin to feel a little chilly in the hot sun, and to drink a little beer and then a little more, a little brandy and then a little more, forget all about life some morning, boss, and turn up their toes in the night in the unconsecrated ground.' "I glared at him. lie showed his white teeth, gave a shrug of the shoulders, and lolled slowly and idly away, and sunk down among his own people in a huge bower of green leaves and red blooms, where parrots were scolding. " The port doctor passed by. BUCKING AGAINST THE CLIMATE. 49 "'One might as well be dead as to try to live in such a country as this,' said I. ' Doctor, it is high noon, and you and I seem to be the only people who are awake.' " ' And I would not be awake had I not been called to a case of fever.' " ' What was the cause of the fever ? ' asked I. " ' Bucking against the climate,' said he. " ' You do not burden yourself with scientific terms,' said I, laughing. " ' No, not at this time of day,' he answered. ' The climate forbids much exertion of the mind.' " He passed on, holding a large umbrella over his head. I did not carry any umbrella in my customary walks in the mid- day sun. " After a time I began to experience a cold heat, coming on between my shoulder blades. My body ran with streams of perspiration that came from some unknown fountain, and yet with the heat there would come a slight and unaccount- able chilliness. I had little shivers here and there, when otherwise I seemed to be melting. My head felt quecrly at times, my mouth was dry, and my tongue turned white. My landlady showed some alarm at these disquieting sensa- tions as I described them to her. "One night I went to my bed - a good solid old I Eng- lish bed, although my friends had advised me to sleep in a hammock at a late hour. The thermometer was in the nineties. The land seemed to steam with heat, and the sea lay purple, without a ripple. " My landlady had offered me some cool cocoanut water before retiring. E 50 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " ' You look yellow and tired,' she said. "'No,' said I, 'that is too tasteless and tame. I am a temperance man at home, but to-night I will take a little brandy and some ice water, not as a beverage, but as a medicine.' " My poor landlady shook her head. But I followed my own counsel and prescription. I was not to be influenced by the examples of these indolent people. "When I woke up, not on the next, but on some other morning, I seemed to be in a very strange place. " My face was moist. I put my hand up to it, and found that it was covered with blood. " My heart seemed to bound when I found blood flowing from my nose, ears, eyes, and gurgling in my mouth. " The doctor of whom I have spoken came into the room hurriedly, and raising his hands, exclaimed, "'Thank God, the crisis is past; you are bleeding; it is a good sign ; you will recover ! ' "A negro girl was kneeling at the foot of my bed; she seemed to be praying. " ' In the name of heaven, doctor, where am I ? what is this ? ' " ' You are in the hospital, my friend.' " ' How came I here ? ' " 'The authorities so ordered, my friend.' " ' Have I been sick, doctor?' " ' For some days, my friend.' " ' Have I been unconscious ? ' " 'That question is for you to answer, my friend.' " ' What is the matter with me, doctor ? ' BUCKING AGAINST THE CLIMATE. 5 I "'Oh, the fever the usual fever. Your life has been balancing, but the danger is past now, provided you favor yourself as the natives here do, in order to live.' " ' What was the cause of the fever, doctor ? ' " ' Oh, the usual cause in the case of new-comers to this country, and especially of Americans: bucking against the climate, sir, bucking against the climate.' " I now follow the manners and customs of the natives. I carry an umbrella in the morning', drink cocoanut water in the evening, and rest under the trees in the noonday hours. I go to sleep after a light lunch every day, hearing the parrots scold on my way to dreamland, and waking up when the trade-winds begin to cause the waves to beat against the sands under the cocoanut groves. " I ride a little donkey in the cool of the day, holding an umbrella over my head. I sleep in a hammock, swinging in the open air. " I do not worry. I recall a proverb of the inhabitants, which reads, ' Think not, my friend ; to think is to grow old.' " The young German had a poetic sense, and he had come to use the picturesque language of the country very much in contrast with the vocabulary of the Northern lands. The tropics make new words for the pioneer. CHAPTER IV. HAZEL A STORY OF THE BLOOD SNAKE. THE young German's name was Hazel, Frank Hazel. He was slow and cautious in making acquaintances, but he saw that the Frobishers were true people, and he became greatly attracted to Leigh. He was a lover of natural his- tory, of birds, and flowers, as many German students are, and when he heard Leigh describe the quetzal, after the manner that the latter had read of it and studied its history in books, he found that they had a common ground of tastes, and cautious as he was he liked his new friend's enthusi- asm. He had the theory that the ancient races of these countries were Jews. They grew together and gave themselves up to each other's company on the boat, which had stopped at Bocas del Toro, one of the most beautiful places on the coast. While waiting here on the boat, in the sunny, purple sea, Leigh said to Mr. Hazel, the young Aleman, " I have a purpose that I want to confide to you. You may smile at it, but I am a Yankee, as New England people of invention are called. I am told that no one ever was able to take a live quetzal to the States. The bird is so delicate that it has never been found able to endure confinement and transportation. Now, Mr. Hazel " "Call me 'young Aleman,' as do the rest." 52 A STORY OF THE BLOOD SNAKE. 53 " Well, my friend, we have a bird house, and an orchid house in the old town of Milton, near Boston, and I have set my heart on securing a royal quetzal, a real peacock trogon, a true bird of the Aztecs, the most splendid of all the American birds of paradise, the bird of the sun, of legend, and of beauty ; I have set my heart, I say, on securing such a bird, and taking it back safely to our orchid house on Milton Hills." "You Americans do many things that seem impossible," said young Aleman ; " you form a purpose to do a thing and you accomplish it, though after many failures. The true royal trogons only live in the high mountains, and they are not offered for sale, except perhaps in some Indian towns or in Guatemala. " They are found in the mountains around Cartago, and two naturalists named Underwood, at San Jose, who prepared a collection of birds for the Guatemala exposition, and are pre- paring a like collection for the exposition to be held in Paris in 1900, sometimes offer them for sale. But they are dead birds, only their plumage unmounted, and I am sure that the paradise trogons of Cartago are the true birds of the Aztecs. There are many kinds of these birds, I have been told." " Could not the hunters who secure the birds for the natu- ralists Underwood of San Jose find me a live Aztec trogon?" asked Leigh. He added, " Xo, I would not trust a hunter to handle such a bird ; I am resolved to find one my sell ; to secure it, and bring it away, and to make the adventure and enterprise all my own." "Have you any conception of the dangers ot a tropical forest?" asked young Aleman. 54 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " I have read that there are dangers in the hot woods." "You may well say ' hot woods,' my young friend. But I am free to confess that a young American's idea, like a bullet, will find itself in strange places. " My friend, I once knew a young naturalist, an orchid hunter, who had your enthusiasm. He was a German, but he had an American mind and heart, lie had resolved to find a certain butterfly orchid which he had heard grew in the forests on the slopes of Irazu. He came to my farm and we made a home for him. "If he could secure this particular orchid, it would bring him a round sum at the estates of a German baron. This man had offered purses for rare orchids, and a fixed sum for this particular parasite, of which he had published a description. "The young orchid hunter's name was Lotze. " I have told you one story for the purpose of illustrating the value of caution in the tropical countries. Let me tell you another and it is a terrible one. Your friends may be interested in it ; it has a very useful lesson, in my view." Captain Frobisher, Alonzo, and Leigh drew their sea chairs close to Mr. Hazel. Old Mr. Hazel and Captain Morris joined them, when young Aleman related the following thrill- ing story. THE YOUNG ORCHID HUNTER AND THE BLOOD SNAKE. "I shall never forget young Lotze; his imagination was all aglow, and his heart was as warm and responsive as his fancy. He was a graduate of a botanical school in Germany. A STORY OF THE BLOOD SXAKE. 55 Leigh, here, my new friend, reminds me of him. Lotze's heart seemed to all go into an orchid, as my friend's here seems to be all set upon a certain bird. " Costa Rica is the land of orchids, and the English and German hunters go there, as to Venezuela and Surinam. To find a new orchid of any wonderful form or beauty is to secure quite a little sum, so ambitious is the rivalry among the orchid collectors of England and on the Continent. Many English and German students go to the American tropics orchid hunting; but I have never met one who had so strong a passion for the splendid parasites as Lotze. " I came to love the boy. I saw that his danger was in impulse of breaking a way without looking before. So when he came to my little coffee farm, I tried to caution him in regard to the dangers of exposure to certain condi- tions of the climate, as I have you, my young friend: may you never meet the fate of poor Lotze ; I could shed tears for him now. "He had not been in my little adobe house a day before he showed me the advertisement of the German baron, of which he had told me on introduction, and said, - " ' It is mine,' meaning the prize. "'A rare gem among flowers it must be,' said I, 'and one hard to find. I have travelled through the forest with Indians, hut have seen nothing resembling it.' " ' Hut two specimens <>f it have been found here,' he said, 'and the baron is determined that his collection ol orchids shall not be surpassed by any in the country, II I can find a specimen ol it. mv lite is made. It would give me a place as botanist in the best arboretums and botanical sec the wild lite of the forest in the manner that you recommend." Leigh clapped his hands on his knees, and iroin that time 62 LOST IX NICARAGUA. he began to dream of excursions among the rubber trees with the rubber hunters, whoever these people might be. He did not tell the captain that he had heard but little of these cu- rious people before. lie began to inquire about them, and about the rubber trees, and the life of the birds and animals among them. He began to study the country, by asking questions of all whom he chanced to meet. Que cs eso? was a key to treas- uries of wonders. He sought for stories as for orchids in the orchid land. Stories are the histories of a country ; they picture everything, the past, the future, the present, the manners, and the customs, and the heart of the people. Stories are an education. CHAPTER V. A VERY ODD STORY -THE WASHINGTON OF CENTRAL AMERICA. THE young German Hazel invited Captain Frobisher and Alonzo and Leigh to accompany him to his coffee plan- tation, a few miles from Cartago and San Jose. " I live simply," he said. " I am compelled to do so if my business is to grow, and most people do so here. But my table, my mules, and such rooms as I have will be at your service. You may have to sleep on hard beds or in hammocks. You will not find my one story adobe house, with tiles on the roof and the umbrellas of cocoanut palms over it. an American hotel ; but you shall share my heart, my good will, and all of my seven years' experience. Alonzo, you can study a small cocoanut farm there, and you, Leigh, may find quetzals in the forests, of that I cannot say. I have never hunted lor them, but the books on ornithology say that they are there, and true ones, though not as splendid as those of Guatemala. Captain Frobisher, you shall sit and dream there, and eat bananas and plantains, pine-apples and oranges, and drink cocoanut water, and sum up lite, and learn as far as I can show you whether it would be best tor you to invest in a coffee farm or banana plantation for one oi your boys." 63 64 LOST IN NICARAGUA. "My clear Hazel," said Captain Frobisher, "we accept your invitation. Only 1 am an independent now and I must pay you, and pay you well for all that you will do for us. You will give us that which is more than money, and this rare experience of yours we shall appreciate." They stopped a few days longer at Port Limon, as young Hazel had to await some farming utensils there which were to arrive on an Atlas steamer from New York. Their hotel was situated between the clashing sea and the mountains. It seemed full of adventurers. This brought a new view to our travellers. The captain of the ship joined the party at the hotel. He was to remain a few days in town, and he seemed to like Captain Frobisher, his nephews, and the young German coffee planter. One evening, as they sat on one of the verandas of the hotel, a nervous young woman passed by. She looked up to the captain, and seemed to shrink up, to wither, as it were. She gave him a second glance and darted away. "I know that woman," said the captain. "She is an ad- venturess. You are not only to avoid malaria, and poisonous things here, but adventurers. You have told some stories," he said to young Hazel, "in regard to things to be avoided in this country. The)' are good lessons for our friends. I could relate one to match yours. Hut instead of doing that, 1 will give you the moral without the story, beware of adventurers in this country people who come into your experience unexpectedly and vanish." The good captain having raised our expectation for a story and disappointed it, was asked to relate some of the THE HOUSE OF THE DWARF. 65 popular tales of the country, tie did so, and one of these we will call THE STRANGE STORY OF THE HOUSE OF THE DWARF. "There lived an old woman in Uxmal, who went about in agitation and mourning. " ' Woe is me,' she said. ' Age has overtaken me, and I have no children. The withered stalk does not bloom again, and I never will be young again. Woe, woe is me ! ' " She became more wrinkled and withered and her dis- tress grew. "She lived in a hut that became a palace and a temple and a wonder of the Indian world; but it is too soon to speak of that transformation now. " One day as she was passing to and fro in her wretched room, in her usual tremor and agitation, she found an egg on her table. She said: 'What is that? How came it here? It is as large as an eagle's.' " She took it, wrapped a cloth around it, and put it into the warm corner of her room, from which the influence of the sun's heat was never absent day or night. " Kvery day she unrolled the cloth, until weeks had passed, when one day, wonder of wonders, instead ol finding an egg in the warm cloth, she found there a criatiira, or a little boy bah)'. "The old woman danced for joy. She fondled it and gave all her time to it, and it grew one year and then its growth stopped. It was a dwarf. " \ow to be a dwarf was a sign ol wisdom. The old woman was more delighted than ever. 66 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " ' It will be a lord,' she said. " Years passed, but the dwarf grew no taller. "One day the old woman said to him: "'Go to the house of the Governor and make a trial of your strength with the Governor. See which of you can lift the most.' "The heart of the dwarf melted, and the boy began to cry. "'Go,' said the old woman. 'The time is come for us to find out who you are.' " The boy obeyed and made his challenge to the Governor, who was a giant of a man. "The Governor laughed at him, and brought him a stone of seventy-five pounds to lift. 'I can lift that,' he said. ' Let me see you lift the stone.' "The dwarf looked at it and began to cry, and ran out of the palace and home to his mother. "'Go back, go back,' said the old woman. 'Tell the Governor that he must lift the stone first, and that you will lift it afterward. Go.' " The dwarf returned to the palace, and said to the Governor, " ' If you will lift the stone first, I will lift it after you.' " The giant lifted the stone. "Then the little dwarf did the same. " ' I can lift a heavier stone than that,' said the Gov- ernor. He did so, but the dwarf did the same. " ' You rogue,' said the Governor, ' I will punish you for these tricks. You mock me. Now, hark ye, the Governor's house should be the tallest in the place. If you can lift so well, you can build a house taller than all the others, THE HOUSE OF THE DWARF. 6j and if you do not do this, then I will sever your little head from your little body, and will have done with you.' "The dwarf ran home to the old woman as fast as he could go, crying", " ' O mother, foster mother, the Governor commands me to build him a house higher than all the others.' " ' You can do it,' said the old woman. ' Go to work now.' "The dwarf went to work at once. He worked all night, and turned a stone heap into a pyramid. (This story should be true, for the pyramid is still pointed out to those who have faith in magic gifts and powers.) " The next morning the Governor went to the door of his palace, and his eyes grew big as he saw the sun rising be- hind a pyramid. " He sent for the dwarf. '"You little rogue,' he exclaimed, 'you have mocked me again. But I will be even with you yet. Go and get some bundles of sticks of cogoiol wood (a very hard wood). Fetch me two bundles. You shall beat me over the head with the sticks out of one bundle, and I will beat you from the sticks of the other.' "The dwarf ilew home to the old woman, crying as before. "'My son, do as the Governor bids you. Hut first wait a little, and I will make some dough of hard meal, and put it on your head and fit it there under the covering.' "So she made a cake, a tortilla 'v flit' same vampire' "'That would not be strange,' \ said; 'the same bat might follow one, alter the way ol the man-eating tiger.' SO LOST IN NICARAGUA. " ' They say that it is a sign for a vampire to follow a man,' he said. ' It is a sign that there is something wrong in his mind that affects the blood, that gives a certain quality to his blood that lures him on. Do you believe these bats are animals ? ' " ' Nothing more nor less than animals. They devour what their nature craves, like other animals.' " ' What their nature craves,' he said. ' You are right. But there is a hidden law in what their nature craves. There are birds whose natures crave carrion. The condor does. Nat- ure has many hidden principles. This is a strange world. There are worlds in worlds. A haunted mind makes bats' blood, they say the kind of blood that the vampire best likes. The vampire follows one who has such blood.' " ' Have you ? ' asked I, suddenly. " ' Have I ? It is not for me to talk with a stranger about my life. Have I? I only know that I have been bitten twice by the same bat. That unsettles me. I want to sleep on board the ship to-night. When does she sail ? ' " ' In the early morning,' said I. " He went into the booking office with me and secured his ticket and stateroom. " He took his supper on board, went to the smoking-room, and passed his evening among the passengers. Stories were told, and I could see that some of them caused a certain ner- vous twitching of the sympathetic nerves that was not com- mon, except in diseased, nervous states. " At about ten o'clock he went to his stateroom, whose port- holes stood open to the wharves. " It was a still, splendid night. The heat was intense, and THE STORY OF THE VAMPIRE. Si the sea lay purple under the clear moon and stars. I recall seeing the palm shadows in the fervid air, and hearing the boats of fishermen go by. " The city lay still after the gates closed. There was a deep silence on the city, sea, and palm-shadowed shores. "It was a long time before I fell asleep. When I awoke, the sun was rising in a red sky, like a chariot of fire. A fresh breeze was ruffling the purple sea ; the harbor was full of fishing boats, drifting here and there, and on some of them parrots were screaming, as they were disturbed by the move- ments of their owners. " It was a tropical sunrise. I was putting on thin clothing, in order to take a bath, when there came a rap at my door. " ' Sehor, the man who came on board when you did is sick. The doctor says that he is dying.' " I rushed out of my room and went to his. Before me lay a face of horror. " ' What has happened ? ' I asked of the stranger. " ' I have been bitten again,' he said. Me trembled and added, ' By the same bat.' "'How do you know that it was the same bat?' I asked. ' You imagine that.' " ' It was his eyes,' he said gasping. ' I saw something in them both times.' " He laid his right foot bare, and on it was a small wound, and on the bed was a large stain ot blood. "'My friend,' said I, 'you are suffering from fright, from seme nervous terror. There can be nothing in even three bites of a bat to cause such a state of exhaustion as you are in. A doctor might bleed you three times, and no G 82 LOST IN NICARAGUA. such effect would follow the loss of blood. We will he at sea in a few hours, and the bat cannot follow yon. Von will never see him again.' " He raised his thin arm to his head, and touched his forehead. " ' There is a bat here,' he said, ' a vampire.' "He turned white as he added, 'I caused him to be there; he it is that leads the other one.' "I did not comprehend. I said, " 'Well, it is all over now. They are lifting the cables.' " The ship moved out into the crimson light of the morn- ing that arched the splendid sea. " ' What is the matter with the man below ? ' asked a pas- senger of me at the table. " ' He is merely nervous. He has been bitten by a vam- pire or vampires, and he is superstitious, and the accident has unsettled his mind. He will be all right again by night.' "The voyage to Port Limon was over a placid sea. The day was one of unclouded splendor. The passengers gathered lazily on deck, read novels, and drank light beverages. "The stranger did not appear among them. The steward visited him and attended to his wants. I found him a little feverish at night, and left him, feeling assured that a single night's rest would bring about a renewal of health. "Another tropic night passed in stars, shadow, and silence. The ship drove on, ploughing the purple sea into a showery spray. " Early the next morning there fell a nervous knock on my door. " I called out, ' Who is there ? ' . N AT THE 3N-LIKE LOOK NG CREA T L-E AS HE.LC H M /. Vj.' " THE STORY OF THE VAMPIRE. 8$ " 'The steward, sir.' His voice was unsteady. " ' What has happened ? ' "'The stranger, sir.' " ' What of the stranger ? ' " ' He is lying dead.' " I leaped up and hurried to the room. "The stranger lav there lifeless. " I looked at his feet. There was a fresh wound on his right foot, and the bed under it was saturated with blood. " In a corner of the bed was a dark object, like a bundle of leather. I drew it out. It was a little bat not a huge animal like a dragon. I was about to strike him against the door in my agitation and anger. But I glanced at the demon- like looking creature as I held him by his wing. I wanted to see his eyes. I caused him to revolve slowly. " There was no expression in those eyes. The body was as eold as the skinny wing. He was already dead. " Was it superstition that caused the death of the stranger, or clues the vampire follow certain travellers of contaminated blood, and such as have cause for an unquiet conscience and dark imaginations ? " Our story teller had so used the picturesque words of the country that the narrative left the questions long in our minds, though the one in regard to contaminated blood was hut a bit of the art of vivid narration. CHAPTER VII. COSTA RICA I "THE SWITZERLAND OF THE TROPICS." COSTA RICA, or the " Rich Coast," has been called "the Switzerland of the tropics." The region around San Jose has a climate like May or June in New England, and is quite unlike most tropical countries in this respect; but there is little resemblance between the dead volcanoes here and the crystal peaks of Switzerland. Mere are no glaciers, no snows, only a white frost in very high altitudes. The hills are carpeted with flowers to the sky. A city like Valencia, in Venezuela, under the shining lines of the white Cordillera, might more fully be termed the Switzerland of the tropics. But there is a vital force in the mountain air of the beauti- ful republic that makes the part of it around San Jose and the Hot Springs of Cartago a Switzerland to the inhabi- tants of the plains. Such will ever find health by going up into the mountains. The mountains and the mountain region of Costa Rica have not only a cool and exhilarating New England air, but the atmosphere is said to have " mysterious qualities that render it a sovereign remedy for some of the most distress- ing ailments of common life." Consumption is likely to disappear on the coffee farm, and rheumatism at the Hot Springs of Cartago. Here people may always have deli- 84 COSTA RICA. 85 cious oranges before breakfast, and cocoanut milk and other fattening fruit at any time of the day. The whole country is literally loaded with plantains and bananas, and on these a seeker after health would soon find his weight increasing, and his thin limbs filling out to the desired dimensions of comfortable rotundity. Here people may wear old clothes, and live in the open air with bare heads, and travel about with bare feet. The coffee planters and the proprietors of banana farms who begin life here with a little capital, and who become worth, by the growth of their estates, from $10,000 to $50,000, do not greatly change their style of living. One cannot tell here who is rich or who is poor. The rich adhere to simple living. It is the farm that grows and not the luxury of the house. The Costa Rican, whether native or adopted, is as a rule a true democrat, and loves his democracy. He is proud of the wealth that enables him to live simply, and he has little of the vulgar taste that makes so many North Americans who acquire property seek to make a display over their less fortunate neighbors. His house is of one story, with a tiled roof. It is built of adobe and is as white as snow. It has a patio, or enclosed court. This is adorned with beautiful vines, orchids in hang- ing p'ts, and flowers. He keeps one or more wonderful parrots here, and some sweet singing birds. In the salas around the patio may be a piano, a library of many books, and ornaments made of the woods oi the coun- try. The mats are of the skins and furs of beautiful animals. A quetzal is almost sure to be found among the sala decora- tions, but it is dead. 4 86 LOST IN NICARAGUA. But simple as may be his home, all out of doors is really his home, it is his farm that grows. The cocoanut palms, plantains, and orange trees multiply around his house, and his coffee fields stretch farther and farther away. If he live in the hot regions, he goes up into* the mountains the Costa Rican Switzerland at times. The country is rich in historical romance, but has found no great historian or poet. It comprehends the territory granted by the Crown of Spain to the family of Columbus, under the name of the Dukedom of Veragua, of which we have spoken. Here were the famous gold and silver mines that fed the pride of the dons, hidalgos, and grandees of Spain for many years. After the massacre of the Spaniards, all traces of these mines were lost in the growth of the forests which blotted out the footprints of the Spaniards. The wondrous mines of Estralla and Tisingal became a memory. "I have been told," said a missionary priest, "that the Cabccuras of the present day relate that after the massacre of the Spaniards, in 1610, vast quantities of gold were thrown into the lake, where they still remain." Costa Rica is the southern republic of Central America. It has an area of more than 26,000 square miles, with a dis- puted boundary ; but the extreme fertility of the soil, the beauty of the scenery and vegetation, the salubrity of the climate, the health region of Cartago, or Hot Springs {aguas caliciitc), give this limited area between the Atlantic and the Pacific an untold value in the progress of the near future. It is a coffee land and a banana land now, but in these re- spects its resources have hardly been tested. The old gold COSTA RICA. 8? mines of the cacique may never be discovered again, but the table-lands of San Jose and Cartago are in their vegetable productions a source of gold that will never fail. The Andes here rise to the height of nearly 12,000 feet. From the nearly extinct volcano of Irazu the waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans may be seen. On these table-lands, the most delightful in the world, the temperature ranges from 70 to 80 F. throughout the year. The dry season, or season of light and infrequent rains, lasts from December to May. At this period the health conditions are perfect. To the lover of Mowers the table-lands are an earthly para- dise. This is orchid land. The ancient trees are gardens of parasites of marvellous forms, hues, and odors, such as elsewhere only enter into dreams. The population of the country is only about a quarter of a million, but it is very rapidly increasing. Young Germans and Americans, as we have indicated, are planting coffee farms everywhere, and very extensive banana plantations are being cultivated along the lines of railroads. The tourist, as a rule, enters the country by way of Port Limon. The town is very hut, and after a tew days he takes the train for San Jose, at a cost of about S3. 00 American monev, or gold, which is the same. Me is at once in wonderland, and his surprise will grow with cverv mile. He will pass through lofty cocoanut groves, in which he may see a cart-load of nuts on a single tree. The groves seem to be endless. lie will imagine that there must If coeoanuts enough here to supply the world. He will next enter the region of bananas and plantains, a 88 LOST IN NICARAGUA. sea of tropical vegetation. The air hangs with bananas. The earth seems to pour out the luxurious vegetation of banana leaves. A half dozen of these would make a tent. Orange trees are everywhere. Oranges do not count in this country of tropical luxuriance. He will next eome to the regions of tropfcal forests and the valleys of the mad river Reventazon. He will find this river one long cascade. He will look down upon it in many ways through vistas of tropical vegetation. From these wild regions he will come to the valley of Cartago, one of the few earthly paradises, at the foot of Irazii. Here a company some years ago built a large hotel, and laid a tramway or railroad to it, at a distance of two or more miles from the town. The tramway at the time of writing is not in use, but it is an easy walk or horseback ride to the hotel. A gentle- man by the name of Mills has a delightful house of entertain- ment here, with a charming garden and a coffee plantation. The ride on the railroad from Cartago to San Jose, some fourteen miles, is most beautiful. A part of it is through coffee plantations buried in plantain leaves, which shade the precious red berries. The coffee planters are floral artists in making pictu- resque their plantations. The coffee plants require shade, and this is brought about by planting between the rows of coffee leaf and flowering plants. The land looks like a vast flower garden, but under the glorious vegetation the red berries of the coffee plant are in their season everywhere to be seen. Costa Rica's capital, San Jose, would be beautiful any- where in the world. The railroad station is near to the Pub- COSTA RICA. 89 lie Garden, and one of the first objects to greet the traveller will be an allegorical statue of the heroic spirit of the country, a work of genius, a poem in stone, a conception at once poetic and sublime. North America has but few works of such true art which express the heart of its history. San Jose is simply beautiful, beautiful. It is beautiful in its situation, beautiful in its simple art, beautiful in its gar- dens. Its women are beautiful, and, better than all, beautiful is the spirit of its people. There are few places in the world that are more lovely than this city of Saint Joseph and its near paradise valley of Cartago. CHAPTER VIII. COFFEE LAND. OUR travellers found Port Limon a simple town indeed, of recent settlement ; but it was a place of sunshine and palms, to whose wharves came the products of the table-lands of the bright oceanic atmospheres. Its harbor is good and beautiful, but Limon is a town of the railway, that gathers the coffee and bananas for exportation. There were two incidents that startled our travellers in their excursions around Port Limon. Freight cars came down the coasts loaded with green bananas. They were lazily unloaded by the natives, who were people of scanty clothing and easy dispositions. One of these carriers, in helping to unload a crate-like car, sud- denly uttered a cry and turned a half somersault shaking his hand. " He is bitten," said an Englishman. The man did not seem to be alarmed, not more than one would be in the States who had been stung by a wasp. Alonzo Frobisher ran to the place, expecting to see a cen- tipede or a serpent. He had read of such things in the land of the taper and vampire bats. A huge spider was seen secreting itself in a pile of ba- nanas. The negro, or Indian, seized a coffee bag, and fiat- 90 COFFEE LAND. 91 tened the unsightly creature that had bitten him, and went on with his work. But with the Indian's howl on being bitten rose another howl, very startling and pitiful. Alonzo turned in the direction of the alarming sound. He beheld a strange animal in one of the empty slat cars. "What is that?" he asked of a trader. "A howler," answered the trader. "Have you lost your ears ? " Alonzo recalled what he had read of the howling monkeys of the untroubled forest here, and he wondered if this was one of them. But he stepped about very lightly after the curious mishap, and he did not venture any more questions. " One needs to be pretty careful in these parts of the world," said the Knglish trader, "and to keep one's eyes peeled. I've seen a creature with more'n a hundred legs come out of a bunch of bananas, and every leg was full of poison; and if he were to bite one, that one might just as well settle up his affairs, so far as the world down here goes, and prepare to move upward." He added some other incidents to this not over cheerful introductory intelligence. "Thev poisonous spiders and things T don't know what their names may be crawl out of banana bins on board of the ship and visit the passengers nights in their state- rooms. Now if one only lies perfectly still, and lets 'em scatter about freely over one's fare, and don't cough, or sneeze, or speak, or twitch one's muscles it is all well enough. When the- many legs lias made Ins tour ol investi- gation, the creeper will run off on the bedticking, and go 92 LOST IN NICARAGUA. away to the other parts of the vessel. But it is best for one to lie pretty quiet during such visits as these." He cast a curious glance at Alonzo, and said, " Heave ho ! " Alonzo wondered if such visitors were to be found in the hotel. How serene the sea looked from the little town, with its purple cleanness and its lively inhabitants of fishes and birds. The air was such as would put one to sleep easily, and the natives seemed to be grateful for the gift of dreaming in the shade, fanned by the sea. How could such poisonous things find a place amid all of this beauty. Here was parrot land as well as coffee land, and some of the little houses of the new port were abloom with these gorgeous birds, which never forget to be sociable. Each street has its favorite parrot, and some of the parrots here are said to go visiting. The parrots here give the white stranger a cordial wel- come, turning their heads aside with an appreciation of fine clothing, which is not over abundant here among the na- tives, although much of it is very white and clean. The parrot is a well-dressed bird, and likes those of its own kind. He has faith in men and things that look well, and aversion to things unsightly and uncanny. When he gets hold of a monkey's tail, the monkey in this port does credit to his name here, and becomes, indeed, a howler. The railway from Port Limon to San Jose, which we have already described, is about one hundred miles in length, and over this our travellers went to Cartago, and the English cap- tain, who had business at San Jose, made the journey with them. THE VANISHING IMAGE. 93 They stopped for a single night at Cartago, in the house kept by a good German woman by the name of Yokes. The house was near the governor's palace, and it looked as though it might have been built for the residence of some notable person, as some of the rooms were curiously painted. They were here under Irazu, that, in 1723, caused the land to tremble for several days, and that filled the sky with smoke, and poured forth fire, and filled the valley with rocks and stones. The party visited the Public Gardens and the churches. Then they sat down on the steps of the government house, and after the soldiers had done exercising, the young Ger- man related to them some of the old legends of the place. THE STORY OF THE VANISHING IMAGE AND OF THE MIRACLE CHURCH OF CARTAGO. One of the most poetic places in Costa Rica is the church of the Queen of the Angels in Cartago. A beau- tiful description of it was given in Harpers Magazine in 1 859-1 860, by Thomas F. Meagher. Leigh had read these articles, and he found the church but little changed in its outward or inward appearance since Mr. Meagher wrote his matchless description of it, nearly fort)- years ago. The "huge bowlders" are there, the Doric facade, the "cohort of winged, frocked, and buskined angels ol boyish stature." The high altar, hiding in part the organ and choir, gleams as then in all the glory of gold and gems. The altar, some thirty feet high, is divided into two chambers, one of which contains the sacrament, and the other, before which hangs a white silk curtain with golden 94 LOST IN NICARAGUA. fringe, is supposed to contain a miraculous image, the vision of which is capable of healing the sick under the right con- ditions of faith. Of this image a very curious story is told, though one not unlike the legends of Lucan and Guadalupe. The legend is after this manner : In the year 1643 there lived a peasant woman of simple faith in a forest near Cartago. One day she went out into the woods to gather sticks and she found an image of a lovely and gracious lady, but of rude form, lying on a stone. She was greatly surprised, and she took up the image, and car- ried it to her hut, and placed it in a recess there. She went into the wood again to gather sticks, when she was again surprised to find what looked to her to be the same image. She took it up and carried it to her hut, and going to the recess where she had placed the first image she found that the first image was not there, but that the recess was empty. She put the second image in the recess, and wondered where the first image went, or if indeed this was not the same as the one that she had first found. She went out a third time to gather sticks and as she approached the stone where she had found the two images, or twice found the same image, another image seemed to be there. She took it up, hurried back to the recess in her hut, and, lo, the second image was gone. She was perplexed and alarmed, and went for counsel to the priest, Don Alonzo de Castro, of Sandoval. The good priest took the image and put it into a closet, which had a lock, and turned the key. But when the good woman again went into the wood, lo, the disappearing image was found upon the stone again, THE VANISHING IMAGE. 9$ where the three images, or the same image, who could tell ? had been discovered. She hastened to tell the priest. Me unlocked the closet and saw that the image was gone. "It is the gift of the Holy Virgin. We must build a church in the place, and give the image a throne on the altar or in the sanctuary." In 1782 the illustrious Estaten Livenzo de Tristan, bishop of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, in a solemn ceremony declared the image to be the special patron of Cartago. It was consecrated with holy oil, and it was forbidden to touch it save with anointed hands. The church of the image is known as that of the Queen of the .Angels. It was raised to the rank of a basilica by the illustrious Don Anselmo Lorente. The veiled image in the golden chamber began to work miracles on the needy faithful, when the veil was removed. The stories of the cures performed on devotees at this shrine would doubtless fill volumes. One may find there almost innumerable votive offerings for benefits in the church. Hut one miracle, supposed to have been performed by the image, has become historical, and is celebrated in a very picturesque way in Cartago. In the days of the buccaneers, eight hundred Knglish sea-robbers, under the command of one Captain Mansfield. an associate ol the celebrated Morgan, one of the pirates ol Panama, landed at Matina to invade the rich coast and its lorests in search of the treasures for which tin- country was famous. The helpless people turned tor protection to the image ol the Queen ol the Angels, and bearing it before them marched down the valley to meet the invaders. o6 LOST IN NICARAGUA. The sight of the image caused the hearts of the robbers to melt and fail, and they Med back to their ships, leaving the sought-for treasures to their native owners. This event is celebrated year by year. The rude image is a treasure of Costa Rica, and as it is associated with a woman of simple faith and with an historic episode and with many supposed cures of healing, one would not care to suggest natural causes for the story, as could be easily done. The festival of the image of the Queen of the Angels is in May, the month of flowers. The valley of Cartago abounds in flowers, and especially in rare orchids, and it is the delight of peasant women to bring offerings of the choicest blooms of the mountains and valleys to this church, and to lay them on the steps of the stone altar, amid the lighting of candles and the ringing of bells. Few altars in the world ever had, or ever could have, such decorations of flowers. In this valley every road is lined with fantastic and surprising clusters of orchids, of many colors and odors. The tangled forests hang with wonderful floral festoons. The trunks of the trees are flower beds, and the barks on the limbs send down airy flowers on trailing cords or vines. There are air plants everywhere. The air of May here seems to bloom. Leigh went to the church, which is a little out of the most compact part of the town, on one of the week days on which is no special feast or celebration. Me sat down to study the golden angels, among which is Gabriel, who seems ascend- ing, bearing in one hand a pair of scales. But though the day was a quiet one, steps almost noise- lessly glided in. Many of the worshippers were women THE VANISHING IMAGE. (J/ dressed in black, bearing candles to light before the stone steps of the altar. One woman, richly dressed, but with head covered, walked on her knees across the brick pavements of the church, repeating her prayers. Young priests did the same. But the scene which most interested him was the coming and going of peasant women with offerings of flowers. The land is full of heliotrope. Such flowers filled the church with odor. The most delicate roses grow here. These, too, came in dark hands. The heads of these women were bare, as were the feet of many of them. Leigh saw the heliotropes, the roses, the calla lilies, the cacti, the more common orchids, enter as in a floral proces- sion. But dark peons stole into the company of the kneeling flower women possibly Indians from the country. They were clad in rags, but their faces bore the stamp of firm faith and character. Ignorant of books they must have been. Some of them led little children by the hand. The flowers that these laid down on the stone steps were for the most part such as only Costa Rica and the South could produce. They were formed of the sun, the air, and the dew. Some of them looked like spirit (lowers. It seemed as though they might have been gathered in a par- adise. Leigh was a Protestant. To him the legend of the ( hieen of the Angels was nothing but an illusion, a parable. lie wondered at the influence of such a simple tale. But he watched closely the devotions of these Indian peons as they knelt there on the hard brick floor. What strength of hope and comfort there was in their faith ! 98 LOST IN NICARAGUA. As he was making a study of their sincere faces, and was drawn to them by the beauty of their sincerity, the silver cur- tain, or silk curtain with gold fringe, was drawn from the shrine of the image. How those dark eyes of the peons, men and women, peered into the glimmering chamber of years, as it stood unveiled before them. Mow their lips moved in prayer. They had sins that haunted them from which they wished to be free. They prayed. They had disease preying upon them, it may be. They prayed. They had relatives and friends who were sick. They prayed for them. They prayed as for life. The silk curtain fell. The altar lights were extinguished. The peons arose from their knees, and went out into the sunny air, and looked up to IrazAi lying against the sky, green, with peaceful flocks and farms. The peons went back to their huts. There was a settled peace on their faces. "Victims of superstition, do you say?" said Leigh on re- turning to his friends. " They had followed the best that they knew. They had sought to be true to the divine spirit in them, and between these simple children of faith, with their fairy tales and fables, if such these legends are, and those who better know, but are governed by appetite, passion, and selfish lusts and aims, there is a wide difference indeed. There was a faith beyond all the tales of ceremonies of superstition in the eyes of those Indians, and my soul went out to them in a feeling of brotherhood, and I loved them, for so much of that which is in them that we both believed." But the Sunday that followed Leiirh's visit to the church THE VANISHING IMAGE. 99 of the poetic legend, filled the young traveller with surprise, for it was market day. The streets thronged with people from the country and hills, bringing in their wares. The plaza was spread with the treasures of the sea, farm, and for- ests, common goods, curious fabrics, pearls from the Gulf of Nicoya, silks from Guatemala, oranges of rich color, bananas as golden, sweet lemons, cocoanuts, zapoles, de- licious drinks of many kinds. In certain places there were cock-fights, and men and boys were to be seen running around with sharp-spurred game-cocks under their arms. But the Holy Day had been ushered in by a great ringing of bells, and the streets had been filled with churchgoers. Leigh's mind was dazed and puzzled by all these things; he turned to an English friend, as the sun was throwing its last rays over Irazu : "Well, what do you think of it?" "Oh, it is the custom of the country." " It seems to me that it would be better to hold the market on some other day than Sunday," he said. " But the people do not seem to be intentionally irreverent. The sound of a certain bell would bring them all down upon their knees. In this country, I do not know where I am. Everything is strange to me." CHAPTER IX. THE YOUNG COFFEE PLANTER AT HOME IRAZU. THE plantation of young Hazel lay in one of the long, cool valleys among the foot-hills of Irazu. A clear stream ran through it, coming down from the mountain side. The place looked like a plantain farm at the first view, or like a plantain forest, for the plant of shining and majestic leaves had been set in rows between the rows of coffee, not for the purpose of raising plantains, but to afford a shade. The coffee plant, as we have said, must have shade for its perfect development. It would seem that the orange grow- ers in Florida might protect their trees by planting other trees beside them in a like way. The plantain leaves glisten in the sun in long rows. Some of them were twelve or more feet high. Here and there a withered leaf gave a touch of contrast to the dazzling green. Around the coffee fields were hedges of living trees, trimmed so as to form a fence. These living fences sent out slender spikes, or limbs, which seemed to burn with starry red blooms. Orchids gathered on them, and roses were trained about them at the gateways. Wild morning- glory vines wove a network in them, and here and there an orange tree loaded with golden fruit broke the yellow barrier with its leaves of dark green. THE YOUNG COFFEE PLANTER AT HOME. IOI Under the long rows of plantains were the coffee plants or trees, with leaves as dark as those on the orange trees. They were covered with red berries about the size of small cherries. They were literally buried in the foliage that protected them. The house was white and red, of one story, built around a court and a wall. It was made of adobe and blocks of stone which probably had been thrown down from Irazu at the great eruption, and was covered with red tiles, which were covered with flowering vines. There was a balcony around the inside of the house. From the roof of the balcony depended pots of orchids, cages of birds, and perches for parrots. At the end, Hazel had built a schoolroom for free education. The first sight that arrested Leigh's attention on entering the long, low, rambling building was a quetzal in a collection of beautiful birds in a case. " Why ! " he exclaimed, " you have a royal trogon here." "So f have," answered young Aleman, "and the stuffed bird is so common an ornament of our houses here that I had really forgotten that I had one of my own." The quetzal was beautiful. Its carmine breast was par- ticularly lustrous. It had two very long tail feathers of black and green. " Was this bird found here?" asked Leigh. "I think so; the Indian hunters find them in the forests o| Irazu." " Are there any live ones in the houses on the coffee plan- tations ? " " I never saw one," said young Aleman. 102 LOST IN NICARAGUA. Their first breakfast consisted of hot cakes, eggs, black beans (frijoles), fried plantains, and fruit, with superb coffee. After this meal the party went out on the veranda and sat down, and the boys looked out on the shining coffee fields. " I have a question for you, my young friend," said Cap- tain Frobisher to young Hazel. "If you regard it an imper- tinent one, you will of course excuse me and not answer it. It is, what are the profits of a coffee plantation here, within sight of Irazu the Cartago or San Jose region, you may call it?" "The young planters, and old ones as well, have but a single answer to that often-asked epicstion. It is this, ' The amount of one's investment in coffee is, after five years, the amount of one's yearly income.' I invested $3000 in the enterprise ; after seven years my income is more than that as a rule, though this year the price of coffee fell, but it is rising again." They looked up the long slopes of Irazu. The volcano did not appear high. The top was shaded here and there with patches of green forests. " In those woods, high up on the mountain, is the haunt of the quetzal, I am told," said young Aleman. " I must plan a journey on muleback for you to the summit of the moun- tain." " I can go up on foot some day," said Leigh. " I can start early in the morning so as to take time by the way." " You would have to start early in the morning, indeed, if you expected to return by night early in the morning be- fore the day of your fancy. Irazu is a great deceiver. It THE YOUNG COFFEE PLANTER AT HOME. IOj would take you two days for the journey, and you would not then be able to rest long by the way." " Let us have the company of an Indian hunter," said Leigh, "and we will return with a living quetzal." " I will go with you myself, with a peon and mules," said Hazel. It was an ever to be remembered day when the party set out very early in the morning for the summit of Irazu, 1 1,000 feet above the sea level, and some 6000 feet from their point of starting. The air was cool, the roads hobbly, but lined with Mowers. Here and there were adobe huts covered with dried leaves of the lofty cocoanut palm. They were like little gardens of flowers, birds, and almost naked children. As they rose, the land of Costa Rica spread out wider and wider beneath them ; its verdant valleys, its vast forests, its little towns; Cartago, with her churches; San Jose with her quiet domes and towers. After a long, winding journey, which became very fatiguing at hist, the\' reached the summit and found a shelter for the night. They rose early in the morning. The sky was clear. The red disc of the sun was uplifting an arch of rosy splendor ot light in the far east, over the opal-like sea. The dim waters oi the Atlantic or the Caribbean were there. How vast, how far ! They turned their faces to the west. There lay the serene Pacific, a long, low line of shaded water in outlines <>l purple and green. Below them was the living map o| Costa Rica, or land ocean, as it were, of mountains and hills, and valleys filled with tropical life. 104 LOST IN NICARAGUA. They stood there long as if entranced. But a mist arose in the far distances. The dim Atlantic disappeared ; the Pacific faded. The sun came up in majesty and glory, such as they had never witnessed before. They went to the dark caverns where the crater had been. But the clays of the eruption were long ago. No smoke appeared in the chimney. They returned by the way of some bowery woods, but though Leigh scanned the cool shades and saw some flaming orchids there, no quetzals appeared. Never had sleep been more sweet to our travellers than on the night after their descent from Irazu. A SURPRISE AFTER DANGER. One day Leigh noticed a curious insect in his room. It seemed to be tangled up, and to have many angles, and it looked uncomfortable. He came out on the veranda and said to Aleman, " What kind of an insect do you have in this country that looks like a little pile of sticks ? Come with me to my room, and I will show you one." Hazel laughed and followed him, as the latter returned to his room and looked around. " It was here, but I do not see it now ; where can it have gone ? " "I am not an especial student of bugs," said Hazel; "but from your description of the insect, I would think it to be a scorpion." " But what can have become of it?" " I do not know, but a scorpion likes to hide. He seeks seclusion and darkness. " A SURPRISE AFTER DANGER. 105 " Does he bite ? " asked Leigh. " Not unless he is disturbed in some way. He is quite harmless if he is let alone." "Is his bite poisonous?" continued Leigh. "Yes; it is said to be so. I have never been bitten, though I have often found scorpions in my rooms." " Is the bite of the scorpion fatal? " " No, not necessarily. There are remedies against the poi- son. The bite sometimes causes temporary paralysis of the hand, or of some part of the body. There have been cases where people have died from the poison of the scorpion. Such things are not common." " I should think that the insects would be a source of constant terror," said Leigh. "Oh, no! Are wasps and hornets a source of constant terror to people in the States? No, you do not think about them. When I was at a farm-house in New York, there was a hornet's nest in the attic, and the hornets came to it and went from it through a lattice. One of the workpeople slept in the attic. He was never stung." Leigh searched the room for the scorpion, but he could not find him. "He may be in your clothing, hanging on the wall," said Hazel. A very nervous look came into Leigh's face. He searched his clothing very carefully indeed, at the end of a cane, but no scorpion appeared. He changed his clothing with much caution that daw The night was cool. There are often cool nights about the region of Cartago. Leigh put extra clothing upon his 106 LOST IN NICARAGUA. iron-framed bed. He sunk into rest, and slept, and dreamed blessed dreams, for the climate under Irazu was like old New England. In the morning when he awoke he thought of the scorpion. Hazel tapped on his door. He brought into the room some cocoanut water, deliciously flavored and prepared. "That is cool," said Hazel. "It will do you good to drink it on rising. We have had a good night, but we will have a hot day. The sun is rising red." " My friend, you are good indeed to be thinking of my comfort so much. What do you suppose became of the scorpion ? " " I do not know. Scorpions like to crawl into beds, when a cool night is coming. They like to hide under woollens. I wouldn't wonder if he were somewhere about your bed now." " Do they bite people in bed ? " asked Leigh in alarm. "Not unless one pushes them," said Hazel. "Not if one lies still. Many a person has slept with a scorpion in his bed, and did not know it until he rose and threw back the clothes." Leigh leaped up, and gathered around him his night- dress very carefully. He stepped upon the floor, and threw back the bedclothes. His hands darted into the air. "Jumping Jackson ! " he said, using an old New England term of surprise. " There 's tlic scorpion noiv. I've been sleeping with Jiim ! " "I see," said Hazel, "and you did not harm him. He has had a very comfortable night." A SURPRISE AFTER DANGER. IO7 Leigh visited from time to time Costa Rica's beautiful city, San Jose, and spent many hours in the Public Gardens there, now studying the flowers, now admiring the historic monument, now watching the cloud shadows on the moun- tains. There is a sense of beauty everywhere here. Not only that, the people here seem happy. Enterprise mingles with the picturesque life; here it is not always afternoon, as it seems to be in some of the Republics of the Sun. At San Jose, Leigh found the store of the taxidermist, and saw the mounted figure of a jaguar, and studied its beautiful spots. The mounted animal was valued at a hundred dollars. The taxidermist had been engaged in collecting animals and birds for mounting for the Guatemalan national exhibition and for the Paris exposition of 1900. Leigh saw there the skin of an ocelot, which he thought very beautiful. "Where does the animal live?" he asked of the people in the store. " In the trees," said one. " And as rare to find as the quetzal," said another. " In hunting for one, a person sometimes finds the other," said another. " Next to seeing a live quetzal," said Leigh, " I would like to find an ocelot alive." He did, and in an unexpected situation, as we shall see in the course of our narrative. CHAPTER X. APULA. AT young Aleman's plantation Leigh met a very singular character, and one that illustrates that true worth is to be found everywhere. This person was an old india-rubber hunter by the name of Apula. He was a Mosquito Indian, and belonged to the tribe that the English had pledged themselves to protect in the famous treaty that guaranteed neutrality if the Nicaraguan Canal should be built. He owned a boat, and in this he made excursions into Lake Nicaragua and into the rivers of the lake in search of rubber trees, which he tapped, and sold the rubber to the comisarios or dealers in rubber. His home was not far from Bluefields on the Mosquito Coast, and he from time to time travelled up and down the Mosquito Coast in his boat, from Livingston, the port of Honduras, to Bocas del Toro. He had come down to Port Limon in his boat, and gone to Cartago in the cars, which among the coast Indians are a wonder. He spoke Spanish imperfectly, and English in the same way. Sometimes he would ask unexpected questions and return intelligible answers in both languages. But usually he would say a few words and then halt. He had learned to 108 APUI.A. IOQ say Tengo la bondad and to follow it by a Spanish verb in the infinitive mood. In this way one might talk in Spanish infinitives. But usually his speech in Spanish hesi- tated, and he made signs to indicate objects and omitted verbs. There was one trait of character that Leigh possessed that makes friends in all lands : it was a pleasure for him to stand aside for others. It fulfilled in a perfectly natural way the virtue commended in the Scriptures, " In honor preferring one another." Apula, the Indian boatman and rubber hunter, was not at first sight an attractive man. Much of the time when he was in the forest, he was almost literally a rubber man ; he was content with rubber. He had no need to wear rubber shoes, the rubber became a part of his feet. He needed to wear no rubber clothes, the rubber juice or sap adhered to him. He was very tall, very thin, and his muscles were like metal. Hut he had a very tender, patient expression in his eyes and about his mouth. He came to Hazel's coffee farm to meet a rubber comisario who was spending a week or more there, and who had stores along the coast. He stood at the gate of the quinta in his rubber and rags. He wore a tunic made of coffee bags, and this had become glued with rubber. lie had a band about his head, and he carried a machete, or machette, a kind of cutlass, as all rubber Indians do. Leigh was sitting on the long veranda of the quinta, talk- ing with a loir to, or parrot, overhead, when he first saw the Indian. IIO LOST IN NICARAGUA. The figure stood beside the gatepost of the adobe wall, and looked like a statue. Leigh's honest face met the Indian's eyes with a kindly sympathy, though he did not speak a word. An hour passed. Leigh went into the quinta, and came out again, but the Indian still stood there. There were men talking with the comisario under the cocoanut trees, and the Indian felt his humble place in life, and was willing to wait his turn. The sun blazed over the trees. Still the Indian stood at the gate. The comisario saw him and shouted out, " By and by, Apula," and continued his conversation with the men, which was upon the politics of the country. Another hour passed. Leigh began to pity the poor Indian. It seemed unjust to him to keep him waiting so long when he was not an unwelcome visitor, as the comisario's words seemed to imply. A large pitcher of lime water was brought out from the tables, and the beverage offered to the comisario and his friends. The drink was sugared and iced, and had a most delicious appearance. The servant passed a glass of it to Leigh. Just then Leigh happened to look towards the gate, and his eyes again met the eyes of the Indian in his gar- ments spotted with rubber. The man had waited more than two hours now. His face wore the same patient, kindly expression. Leigh's heart was touched; he felt the injustice of the situation, and with a genuine New England, Thomas Jefferson impulse he went out to the gate and held out his glass of sugared lime water to the wayfarer. APULA. I [ I The Indian's eyes melted. He had seldom met that kind of courtesy before. Even the English on the ships that come to the coast did not treat rubber hunters in that way. The Indian raised his dark hand and said, " Gracias no sed" (thanks no thirst). Leigh's kindly thought of the Indian drew the attention of the comisario. "You are a true American," said the comisario to Leigh. " Mosquito Indians are used to waiting." He arose and went to the gate, and had a long talk with Apula. As he returned to the seats under the cocoanut trees, he said : "The old boatman says that he will never forget that American boy. You have won a true heart to-day, Leigh, for those Indians never forget a favor, and they are not used to being served at the gate with cliicJia by white men." Leigh himself saw 7 nothing out of the common in this courtesy. lie had been brought up to believe that his country was the earth, and his countrymen were all man- kind. An old friend of his uncle's, Governor Andrew, used to say, " I know not what record of sin awaits me in another world, but this I do know, I never yet despised a man because he was poor, because he was ignorant, or because he was black." If Leigh saw any creature in need of what he could give, he gave it, and he found more pleasure in the act than in anything that would serve himself. Leigh had made an impression on Apula that the Indian would never forget. Apula would find Leigh again. 1 lie heart that seeks through love, has little sense ot space or 112 LOST IN NICARAGUA. time. Apula knew well all of these mid-American countries, and it was his calling to travel in them all. Leigh wished to go to Nicaragua by the way of the old road from the coast over the mountains. Me had once heard some agents of a travelling show speak of this route, of its perils, but also of the remarkable life of the Indians, beasts, and birds to be met in the interior. He talked with the rubber comisario in regard to the jour- ney. The collector knew it well, and he had met the Rio Frios and other tribes of Indians on the rivers in the dis- puted boundaries of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. " If you think of joining a party to the coast by that route, you should have engaged old Apula to have gone with you. There's something singular about that old Indian, but he is honest. Honor is born in some people ; it is a gift of the gods. Apula is an old boatman, and you would need such a guide as he after you reach the lake country. You would need a river guide as well as a mountain guide, with pack mules. I would recommend Apula for any service on the coast and rivers." The suggestion had a singular effect on Leigh. The strange figure that he had seen at the gate seemed to enter somehow into his imagination, and he said to himself, " If I could have that Indian for a guide, I would be safe." Apula had gone to San Jose. CHAPTER XI. HAZEL'S SCHOOL HIS METHODS. " A YOUNG man should have a purpose in life beyond j~Y mere money-making," young Hazel used to say. This purpose in him found expression in a school which he opened in his own house for the children of the peons who worked on the coffee plantations. To this work he brought his father, who had been an instructor in a German town. The old German schoolmaster was a disciple of the school system of Pestalozzi and Froebel. He held that education stands for character, and that to make the spiritual man is the highest of all callings in life. He believed with Froebel, that every child had some special gift from God, and that the development of this gift was the sacred work of the teacher. He was a lover of the old German authors, whom Carlyle especially commends, and greatly quoted Fichte, and that writer's " Way to the Blessed Life." lie followed Froebel's method, and by it sought to put the principles of the Sermon on the Mount into the conduct of the child. Young Hazel had begun the school to which he had brought his father. It consisted of a kindergarten for the little children, and a lecture school for the working people, among whom were men of considerable intelligence. '1 he latter was held in the cool of the evening. It was devoted to historical lectures, literature, morals, and music. i "3 114 LOST IN NICARAGUA. Some of young Hazel's methods in the latter school were well adapted to the young people of a country like Costa Rica. In music he taught his pupils the national songs and folk songs of all countries, and made these the texts of his- torical lectures. He was giving a course of lectures when Leigh was there, on the noblest deeds of history. The Frobishers were quite intelligent on South American history ; but they were sur- prised at some of the pictures which Hazel drew of the patri- otism of the South American heroes, whose deeds are not widely known. He gave examples of Southern heroes, after the manner of Plutarch's Lives, and at the close of the series of lectures he required the class to answer the question, " Which of these heroes was the greatest ? " The class in this case decided that the most unselfish acts were the greatest, which showed the moral influence of his thought training. He made his lectures picturesque by using the narrative style. Let me retell one of Hazel's stories, or quinta lectures. THE BANNER OF THE SUN. 1 It was New Year's Day in Mendoza, at the foot of the high Andes. Over the city of the pampas loomed Tupun- gato, like a very dome of the earth, white and glistening, with the condors wheeling below at the point of the rocky crags, but never mounting above the barren crystal heights. The flowers were still blooming on the pampas, although it was so late in the year, but there was eternal winter in the silence of the sky. 1 This story tirst appeared in "Success," and is used by permission. THE BANNER OF THE SUN. I I 5 A company of Spanish and Creole ladies had gone into the chapel of the earthquake-shattered church. They were doing their benevolent work for the Army of the Andes that was encamped on the near pampas. An army officer dashed by on a splendid horse. Ma- noeuvring on the open plain stood the glittering Army of the Andes, that might be seen through the lace-work of the trees. " Whither go they ? " asked Dona Mira of Lois Beltram, a wandering, mendicant friar. She knew where they pur- posed to go, but as she looked up to the white walls of the Andes, the feat for which they were preparing seemed utterly impossible. The wandering friar was one of the strangest men in all history. Me was a Sam Adams or a Benjamin Franklin of South America. He was filled with the fire of liberty. He had ceased to care for himself, and gave himself wholly to the cause of the emancipation of South America from Spain. "Whither go they, Dona Mira? Why do you ask? Go they? go they? They are going into the sky, and over the Andes, and they will descend from the sky like the condor, and woe be to the prey on that day ! Whither go the}' ? They go to the stars for the liberation of the fairest land on all the earth! This year, Dona Mira, San Martin will accomplish the miracle of the world, he will cause the Andes to bow down before him, he will move the mountains, and make South America free ! " "And how dost thou know, Friar Lois Beltram ? " "Know? because to a soul like his nothing is impossible. Lven Hannibal crossed the Alps, and Napoleon followed Il6 LOST IN NICARAGUA. him, and the Corsican said that ' impossible ' is the adjec- tive of fools. Dona, did not Cxsar say that if Nature her- self impeded his march, he would compel her to obey ? These were men without faith except in the human will. Dona, General San Martin has a higher faith than that. Did you ever hear his motto of life?" " No, Friar Beltram. What may that be ? He will need to follow a high motto indeed if he carries out his purpose, which is now plain." " Listen, Dona Mira. This is New Year's Day. The Don San Martin's motto is a good one for this New Year's Day. It is this, " ' Seras lo que debes ser, y sino no seras nada ' (Thou must be that which thou oughtest to be, and without that thou shalt be nothing)." "Those are marvellous words, Friar." "They are words of life. He has made me, friar that I am, director of the forges and arsenals. That will unfrock me, if I serve. ' But I am no Vulcan,' I protested, when he suggested this appointment ; ' I am only a wandering monk.' " Then he pointed to the Andes as they rose up in the morning sun, ' Can it be done ? ' he said to me. I answered, 'Yes, Don San Martin.' Then, as his sword flashed out, he cried, " ' TJiou must be that ivliich thou oughtest to be power lies in that way ! ' " Dona Mira looked up at the Andes. " Look, look, Dona Mira. Those are the walls that we are to take. We must scale the walls of God." THE BANNER OF THE SUN. II^ Twenty-one thousand feet the Andes gleamed above them, and the lowest pass was twelve or more thousand feet high. Pouring down their sides into the semi-tropical gardens of balm and bloom, were the melting torrents. The work of the ages of the creation was there, when the volcanoes were forges, and mountains rose from the caverns and sunk into valleys of fire. The world of the cacti and thorny plants was there, underneath the white walls of eternal snows. The snow was gleaming on the high Cordillera in blind- ing splendor. " Doha Mira, for that expedition we shall need a banner of the sun. I am going to take off my frock to weld weapons. Not the cloister, but the great valley of the fires of the forges, where weapons are to be made to free mankind from chains, is to be my place of service. Heaven wills it so. Dona, have you faith that Don San Martin can ever lead an army over the walls of the Andes?" " Friar Bertram, I have. This year shall see it done." " I have made my Xew Year's resolution ; it is that of San Martin. I must be that which I ought to be, and with- out that / shall be nothing. I go to my forges! " " Friar, I will go and call my ladies, and we will make here a banner of the sun. This year I will take God at I lis word, and put my faith in the heavens. Faith can cause mountains to move, faith in man can do much, faith in God everything. I thank thee for this New Year's motto, Friar Heltram. We must be that which we ought to be, and with- out that we shall be nothing." On the 17th of January, 1 which I'd given Mv life for w ife and mother ; 124 LOST IN NICARAGUA. And filled my heart a peace like Heaven To hear him say ' My Brother ! ' He said no more, but turned his eyes Towards the Sierra Madre, Where sunset gleamed like Paradise Remember El Salada ! " Espada rode along the line, My hand a black seed spotted, They led me forth at dusky eve, To face the carbines shotted, The stroke of judgment to receive, To meet the doom allotted. I felt like one who blindly treads The holy of the holies. They drew the black caps o'er our heads Who'd drawn the black frijoles. And then the place was still as death, Save some far bell tower ringing, Or passing of some spent wind's breath, Or lone clarina singing. ' U)iol ' we heard the captain's word ; ' Dos I ' was the dim air sobbing? ' Tresl ' I was shot no muscle stirred And yet my heart seemed throbbing. The far Red River seemed to whirl Around me. crimson turning. And o'er me gleamed a cross of pearl Amid the twilight burning. I knew no more till midnight came, I oped my eyes, and o'er me The low stars shone ; the campfire's flame Leaped red. a mile before me. I rose and ran ; I climbed the hills ; Gained the Sierra Madre; My burning brain the memory fills Remember El Salada ! THE BROTHERS. I25 "You found me "mid the cacti cool, Hard by the mountain willow, My bed the shadowy earth, a pool Of clotted blood my pillow. You know your orders well, and I Respect them, as another ; If not a hero's death. 1 die True-hearted as a brother. My brother's blood is more to me Than mine which I surrender, I have no wife, or son. but he Shares hearts as mine as tender. I've loved him more than self he knows, And on the Sierra Madre My lonely grave will ope and close Remember El Salada ! " Ay, ope my breast make ready now ; L'710 dos wait stand steady ! My head is free, and free my brow. And Heaven is clear I'm read)'. My soul shall mount where heroes go, From earth's o'ershadowed portal; God's sunset temples o'er me glow In peace and love immortal. Farewell. <) Rio Grande's tide! Farewell. Sierra Madre ! Now read}' ! hold Tell Juan I died For him at HI Salada. You raise your guns with trembling hands Uno dos men be heroes ! (Jno dos trei ! O earth, farewell ! Farewell, O campancros ! " 126 LOST IN NICARAGUA. Three black-mouthed carbines shook the hills Of the Sierra Madre, The cacti there with life blood wet, Three soldiers left behind, as set The sun of El Salada ! CHAPTER XII. A PARTY FOR THE FORESTS. THE Frobishers made the acquaintance of a former con- sular agent, a Air. Ladd, whom we will call the Ameri- can. This man was about to go to the Pacific coast and to cross the mountains with an Italian doctor to Granada, in Nicaragua, the very ancient city that had been partly de- stroyed by Walker, the adventurer. The Italian's name was Zano, but we will call him the doctor. The American and the doctor were naturalists, and were looking for some advantageous situation for coffee and banana plantations, and the doctor was interested in studying certain rare medicinal plants. The two had engaged a Mosquito Indian to accompany them as a guide, whom we will call the guide. The latter had arranged to take with him some mules and dogs. A little black boy, named Alio, who had landed at Port Limon from Jamaica, and who was so timid at times that he was called Little A (Paid, and so bold at times that the words were given another meaning, had been engaged as a ser- vant. A portly Pnglishman, by the name ot Ilobbs, wished to go with the party, lie was simply a natural traveller. lie had been almost everywhere; hut from his timidity one would suppose that he had been nowhere. He was a great-hearted, I2 7 128 LOST IN NICARAGUA. good-humored man, but he was constantly taking alarm. Many people in different countries had said to him, " Mr. Hobbs, you ought never to go away from home." "There is as much danger there as anywhere," he would answer. " The chimney might fall down on me there, who can tell ? " He would laugh and say, " The only way to get out of the way of danger is to keep going." He would sometimes give his history in this way: " My father followed the sea, and his father before him, and I like to see the world I inherit a love of being in motion. Am I sea-sick ? Yes, yes, always once on a voy- age. But what are a few days of sickness to the pleasures of a voyage ! Have I ever had adventures ? Ask Simple Simon. Yes, yes; but I treat everybody just right, and feel kindly towards all people, and my escapes are equal to my adventures. This is a good world to good-hearted people. Folks laugh at me because I take care of myself, and call me Mr. Careful and all that. But I love to see a new coun- try ; nothing makes me so happy as that. What is there so interesting in the world as folks ? " Leigh had formed a very kindly friendship with Mr. Ladd, the former consular agent, and when he learned of this expe- dition to go over the mountains to old Granada, in Nicara- gua, he wished to join it. He approached his uncle on the subject. " I would be perfectly willing to trust you with Mr. Ladd," said Captain Frobisher, " and I have perfect confidence in the character of 'much afraid' Mr. Hobbs. A man who laughs over his mishaps as the generous Englishman does, is to be trusted ; he is a man whose home is the world ; some A PARTY FOR THE FORESTS. I 29 Englishmen are like him ; they are never content unless they are out of doors in some new place. The party seems a safe one. I am willing that you should join it; but as for me I will take the boat from Port Limon to Greytown, and the river boat up the San Juan to Granada, and we will meet there. Alonzo, will you go with Leigh or with me?" " I will go with you, Uncle. I am looking for coffee ports rather than plantations ; for the article itself, after it has been raised. Leigh is as safe with Mr. Ladd as he could be with us. He likes birds and flowers, and if the royal trogon is to be found in the forests of this part of the country, he will find it." So it was settled that Leigh and Alonzo should sep- arate here, and that Alonzo should go with his uncle back to Port Limon, and thence to Greytown and up the San Juan. Mr. Ladd's party was to go to the coast from San Jose over the route that General Casement, from the States, is now surveying for a railroad, and thence up the coast, and over the old Nicaragua road. The way is long and perilous. Passengers to the Nicaragua Lakes, from Costa Rica, go to Punta Arenas, and up the coast to Corinto, and to Greytown through the lakes. The way is a safe one, and takes in the ancient cities of Nicaragua, by boat and rail, Leon, Mana- gua, and Granada. New railways are planned along the con- necting points of this line, which will one day be a famous highway of travel. The steamers from San Francisco con- nect at Corinto with points on the Pacific coast, with Panama, Callao, Peru, and Valparaiso, Chili, and some ot them go around the Horn. I30 LOST IN NICARAGUA. Strangely enough, Leigh met old Apula again at San Jose. He told Mr. Lack! what the eomisario had said of him. " I will engage him as a river pilot, a second guide," said Mr. Ladd. "Our guide is a Mosquito Indian." Leigh sought and found the Indian again in San Jose. Apula accepted Mr. Ladd's proposal with dancing eyes. The way was to be by Punta Arenas on the Gulf of Nicoya, the Gulf of Pearls, and although it was less easy than by the way of the sea, Corinto, Leon, and Managua, it would reveal to the travellers the primitive country. They could thus reach Rivas, and go to Granada by the lake, or go directly to Granada by slow journeys under careful guides. To find Granada over this perilous way, they left the coast, and were soon in the virgin forests, and a new life indeed began to open before them. Their principal guide could speak both English and Span- ish, as he had seen service on the English trading ships at the docks. He had met Apula before, and the two were friendly. Apula at first talked but little with Leigh, but he sought to be near him. His first introduction to Leigh, as his special friend, was made in four English words, "My heart knows you. 1 ' He laid his hand over his heart, in a humble way. The next day he added four more English words to his expres- sion of friendship, 1 lie near vou." CHAPTER XIII. THE WONDERS OF THE FOREST BEGIN. IT was an odd party, the old English gentleman, who rode on a mule, the Italian explorer and doctor, the principal guide, the American traveller, Leigh, and the Mosquito Indian guide, Apula, and his cargo mule. They were going into a land of wonder, the mountain-shadowed byways of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and the surprises only a few miles from San Jose began to appear. Leigh found himself in a new, strange world. After leaving the coast, the wonders of the forest began. Beyond the brushwood, which grew where the forests had been cut down, opened a vast aerial botanical garden. The trunks of the great trees were encircled in ferns, and the limbs were hung with gorgeous orchids, fit to be the palace of the royal bird of the Aztecs. Lianas ran across the ways, and made a network erf gorgeous glooms, in whose roots and rooms surprises of birds, animals, and insects constantly appeared. Parrots in pairs here seemed low: making. Tanagers in black and red drew after them the eye. Insects darted hither and thither, like flowers or gems of the air. Oncer beetles caused Leigh to step aside: and to ask questions oi the Mosquito guide, to receive the same answer always: 132 LOST IN NICARAGUA. "No, sc, Senor." Bugs, with protective resemblances, which looked like the plant whose little world they occupied, were pointed out by the quick-eyed Italian doctor, here and there. Hairy spiders, which Leigh took for tarantulas, ran out of the footway, but left fearful suggestions in our young traveller's mind. The old English gentleman was terrified at every new object, and constantly said, " I am glad I am on a mule, as hard as is the saddle." His happiness in this respect was destined to be disturbed, when the forests began to reveal the inhabitants in the tree- tops. One of the first surprises which greatly terrified the old English gentleman was when the Mosquito Indian cried out, " De armie is coming it devour everything before it." " What is that ? " asked the Englishman. " He means the ecitons," said the American. "What are those?" asked the Englishman. "They do not devour people, I hope." " Not until they have bled them," said the Italian. " Here they come, thousands of them, with their generals in front and ambulances in the rear." " You alarm me without cause," said the Englishman. " I see no army anywhere." He looked up into the arcades of lianas, leaves, and blooms. A monkey sat grinning at him there. When he looked down again, the earth around him seemed crawling. All the dust appeared to be in motion, like the earth-waves at an earthquake. "The army ant," said the Mosquito. THE WONDERS OF THE FOREST BEGIN. 1 33 Grasshoppers, spiders, insects, and small birds were flying hither and thither. The insects were leaping into the air, to escape the ants, and the birds were catching them as they leaped. The Englishman stopped his mule and cried out, " My heyes ! " (eyes). The ants caught the insects in their way, tore them to pieces, and sent their remains to the rear, which seemed to be a kind of baggage-train. The Italian made a fire in the way, and the whole party stopped to see the army pass. Leigh went to the Englishman and leaned on the saddle. " See there," said the Englishman, " how much some ani- mals know. See those spiders climbing the bushes. They will escape how fast they go ! " But no, they did not escape. The ecitons ran up the bushes after them. They ran to the end of the twigs. The ecitons followed them. They were obliged to drop to the earth into the army. The ecitons seized and devoured them, and added them to their spoil. "That is too bad," said the Englishman. "It is the first time that I ever pitied a spider." "The army of the ants is not more merciless than human armies have been," said Leigh. The army was marching on. It passed. There was one spider that escaped in view of the English- man and Leigh. It wove a silk threa 1 out ol itself, as it seemed, and hung suspended between the earth and the bush, until the army had gone by, when it lowered itselt to the desolate track of the march, evidently rejoicing. 134 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " Sec what prudence can do," said the Englishman. "This is a queer world. I wonder what I will see next ? Suppose an army of beasts, or snakes, or something that no one ever heard of before, should come upon us, as the ants came upon the insects. I begin to wish I hadn't come. Who can tell where that Mosquito Indian may lead us?" Monkeys were gibbering in the trees. " They never form an army, do they, Senor Mosquito, and fall upon unprotected travellers ? " The guide laughed at being addressed in this queer way. He had probably never been called "Senor" before. An army of curious monkeys filled the trees, a city of them. Parrots of splendid plumage gathered with them. There were monkeys and parrots everywhere. With them some trogons appeared, their metallic lustres gleaming in the stray sunbeams. " Suppose they were all to fall upon us at once," said the Englishman, "and that the snakes should unite with them, what would happen ? " " Do you want to know ? " asked Leigh. "Well, no; what would happen, Senor Mosquito?" "No, se," said the man from the coast. " I will show you," said the Englishman. He held up his pistol and fired a blank cartridge into the air. Erupit evasit. In a minute not a monkey was to be seen. The parrots rose up into the blue air without further remarks. There was a dead silence everywhere. The only living intelligence left in the tree-tops were two trogons, who mounted lazily to high wood, and trusted to fate for protection. THE WONDERS OF THE FOREST BEGIN. 1 35 The male was a beautiful bird. Leigh desired to secure it alive, and asked Senor Mosquito if it could be done. Apula shook his head. " I will find you a handsomer one higher up," he said. " Higher up ? " The field for the study of trogons, higher up, was indeed a wide one. How grand the mountains loomed in the sunny air ! The forests were growing more lofty and sombre. Leigh, like the Englishman, wondered as to what surprise would meet them next. CHAPTER XIV. AN ARMY OF PIGS BITTEN BY A JIGGER. THE question had not long been asked as to what new surprise awaited our travellers, when the Mosquito guide said, "Hark!" The Englishman drew his rein, and the mule was never slow to obey that order. There was heard a savage sound as of teeth. " My heyes!" said the Englishman, "what is that?" "The wari," said the Mosquito. "And what are the wari? " "Pigs," said the American, "wild pigs; look yonder." There seemed to be from fifty to a hundred pigs in a company, turning hither and thither, as though hung on wires. "What makes them go in companies ? " asked the English- man. "To protect themselves from the jaguar," said the Mos- quito. "There are no jaguars in these forests, I hope," said the Englishman. " Yes, in the trees." " In the trees ? What is to prevent them from jumping down ? " 136 AN ARMY OF PIGS. I37 " No se," said the Mosquito, shrugging his shoulders. The Englishman began to carefully scan the tree-tops. Each huge macaw that wriggled its tail in a far vista sug- gested the jaguar. "The jaguar watches for the pigs," said the Mosquito. " He falls from the tree, breaks the neck of one of the wari, and runs up the tree again, leaving the pig to die. When the pigs have run away he comes down the tree again and eats the one whose neck he has broken." " He never falls upon a mule?" asked the Englishman. "No se," responded the Mosquito, leaving much to our portly friend's imagination. " He might fall upon a boy, if he were to stray away- alone, " continued the Mosquito. " He means you," said the Englishman. "I would advise you to walk near the mules. I don't care to see one of those animals outside of a menagerie." "Everything is a menagerie here," said the Indian, "and we all seem to be in the condition of lion tamers in a cage." " Hut what shall we do when it comes dark ? " asked the Englishman. "Ants that devour everything, spiders, and some of them may be tarantulas who knows? wild pigs in droves, and jaguars, and what next? Mozo, say, Senor Mosquito, what will we do when we lie down to-night?" " Qiicji sabc" said Mozo, the Senor Mosquito. " I couldn't sleep a wink," said the Englishman. " I would In- afraid that I would wake tip dead." " You will sleep," said the Italian. "No one ever rode a mule ten hours without sleeping. Every bone in your body will cry out for sleep before the sun goes down, and you will 1 38 LOST IN NICARAGUA. go to sleep, even though a jaguar be shaking a near tree- top. Build up a fire, and it will be the jaguars that will lie awake." They made them camp for the night. For a time all was quiet save the humming of insects in the sunset trees. " Mozo! " It was the Englishman who called out in an anxious voice. The guide answered, "What, Serior?" " Are there snakes in this country ? " " Yes, Senor ; there are coral snakes here, so I have heard, and red blood snakes." It was early evening, and in the tropics the world wakes at night. Fireflies, night butterflies, gleamed in the trees ; the air seemed alive. "There are deadly centipedes in some places," said the guide. "They will not harm you, for all their hundred legs full of poison, if you will only lie still and let them run over you." " But if you don't lie still, they bite," said Little Afraid. "What happens then ? " asked the Englishman. " You put tobacco on the bite, and you curl up, and you never say no more." The Englishman rose up in his hammock, shaking the trees so as to bring down a shower of blooms and insects. "The tarantulas are as bad as the centipedes," said Little Afraid, "and the scorpions are as bad as any." "What makes all these things have stings and poisons in them, Mozo ? " " No sc." BITTEN BY A JIGGER. 1 39 "I can't sleep," said the Englishman; "all the air seems buzzing. There's a buzzing in the trees above." " Heavens ! what is that ? " A dismal sound echoed from the well palms. "That's an howl ! " said the American. "An owl?" " No, an howl." " What should make an animal howl like that ? " There was a silence. The cry as of woe was repeated. " Mozo, what is that animal ? " " It is a monkey, Sehor." "What makes him howl ? " " No sc, Senor." The night brightened into a dusky glory. The valley seemed a ghost land of palms. The camp had become silent. Each one was sleeping, or on his way to sleep, in easy hammocks. The alarm dog had ceased to bark, when suddenly a powerful voice startled all. " Mozo ! " " What, Senor?" " I am as good as dead now. I have been bitten. I can feci it. Mozo, get up ! " The guide reluctantly left his hammock. "Oh, it is nothing but a mosquito," he said. " Hut I haven't been bitten there" said the alarmed man. "I have been bitten under my blanket. Hurry and look! Time is precious ! " The Englishman rolled back his blanket and revealed his leer "There is a spot there," said the guide. 140 LOST IN NICARAGUA. "A spot? A death wound, it burns like fire. Do you suppose it was a tarantula that did it, or a scorpion or what?" " Little Afraid, you get up and look ; you have lived on the coast." " Drink some brandy," said the doctor. " Put some tobacco juice on the wound," said the American. "How does it look ?" asked the afflicted man of Little Afraid. " I know what it is," said Little Afraid. " What ? Not a snake ? " " No," said Little Afraid, turning his head as though it was hung on a pivot. " A centipede ? " " No, Seiior, not that ; there is only one spot, and that is a good one." " A good one ? " " A red one ; it is growing." " It is not a tarantula that has bit me ? " " No, Seiior, not a tarantula. You would be all jerky-like, if it was that." " Then, you young rascal, why don't you tell me what it is, and not keep me here suspended between life and death? Mow long have I to live ?" "As long as you can, Sehor." " It is gone in to make its nest there." " What ! into my leg ? " " Yes, Senor, it lays its eggs there ; then it swells." " What swells ? " " The spot swells." " What made the spot? You young rascal, what is it? BITTEN BY A JIGGER. /4I Why don't you tell me what it is ? I can feel it now. The pain is running up my leg. Answer, don't keep me waiting, what shall I do, what is it ? If you know, why don't you tell ? I might as well be told the truth first as last, what is it ? Oh, oh ! what is it ? " "It is a jigger." The guide sunk into his hammock again. The American said, "Buenos noche" and the Italian "Adios!" Little Afraid held his nose to keep from laughing, and the poor traveller, with the jigger intent on nest making, groaned and asked, " Are there any more of them in this country ? " The negro boy assured him that the land was full of them, and they sometimes made a sore. The boy talked sleepier and sleepier, and amid a humming in the air, like tropical ocean waves, all fell asleep. CHAPTER XV. THE WOUNDED MONKEY. THE white-faced monkey has traits and habits that are very human. It has a strong love for its young, and it is a tender sight to see the little monkey mother nursing her young in the leafy covers of the trees. The Italian doctor, after a noon siesta in a thick wood where the party had rested from the heat, looked up into some thick limbs and saw a monkey nursing her little one. Yielding to curiosity and to a brutal impulse, which some- times overcomes the humane feelings of even an intelli- gent man, he lifted his pistol and fired a shot at the little mother. The poor monkey dropped into the lower boughs, pitifully screaming, but clasping her little one to her breast. Her blood was flowing, and when she saw it she cried again, and more closely clasped her little one. The party was aroused by the pistol shot, and the monkey looked towards them pitifully and reproachfully. "What did you do that for?" asked the Englishman, who had a heart worthy of membership of a humane society. " I don't know ; it came over me to do it," said the doctor. " I'm sorry; it did me no good." The monkey dropped to the ground, still holding her young. 142 THE WOUNDED MONKEY. I43 She dragged herself away at a little distance, faint, bleeding, and crying, and tried to run up some lianas near, but was too weak. She now seemed looking about for some particular leaves or plants. She moved herself to a certain bush, pulled from it some leaves, and put them into the bleeding wound. " I am sorry that I did that act," said the doctor. "That monkey has the instinct of a physician. See how she is try- ing to heal herself. I would go to her and try to help her if it would not scare her."' She lay gasping for a time, with her little one still trying to nurse at her breast. Suddenly she started up and tried again to raise herself on ;i liana, but she had not the strength. She turned her eyes towards the party, as if asking for pity and help. She trembled, hugged her little one closely, then dropped to the earth, uttered a little wail and died. " I shall never forget those eyes," said the Englishman. "They were as near human as any beast's could be. I am an old traveller; but I have never lost my heart in seeing the world. I wouldn't have shot that monkey for a fortune. What is it in human nature that can make a man desire to take llif life of anv innocent thing? Doctor, excuse me ; it was the right of that monkev to enjoy the sunshine, the air, the trees. It was the right of that little baby monkey, which will die, to have its mother. I have travelled in India ; I am no Brahman or Buddhist ; I have little regard for a system that degrades men and enslaves women ; but I am an Mast Indian in the principle that all harmless life is sacred to God. To 144 LOST IN NICARAGUA. kill a monkey like that without a purpose is murder. To put out life, except to protect life, is wrong. Excuse me, Doctor." "My friend," said the doctor, "you are right. I quite agree with you." "What made you do it?" asked the questioner, in a philo- sophical sense. "The heast that remains within me. Man has not yet be- come a full human being. The tiger is still in the cat. The kitten that purrs so lovingly in your lap still holds the in- stinct to torture a mouse." " Will the time ever come when that instinct will be elimi- nated from the human heart ? " " It is so in India to-day," said the Englishman; "but by the influence of superstition. We should put into our reli- gion the best that is in all religions, and Christianity should in part follow Indian cult in the principle of the sacredness of animal life. All animals that are harmless, or can be made so, should be spared, not only for their own good, but for our own good. Doctor, you would have been a better man had you not killed that poor little monkey." As they were leaving the place, there was a shadow in the air. Something came dashing down through the trees. A huge hawk seized upon the poor baby monkey and rose, obliquely, and drifted away. " The hawk is our brother," said Mr. Ladd, the American, who hunted. " Most people need more kindergarten educa- tion. Froebel taught the brotherhood of little children and animals, and brought the birds into his schoolroom. There's a better day coming to all this blind world ! " THE WOUNDED MONKEY. 145 The doctor had need to go back to the Golden Age of Guatemala and learn some lessons of the vanished Quetzal- coatls. No one, then, would have killed a monkey. Why do humane ideas advance, and then retreat again ? L CHAPTER XVI. THE ROYAL FAMILY OF TROGONS LEIGH FINDS A TROGON RESPLENDENS. LEIGH'S purpose to find a quetzal, the bird of the Mexi- / can deity, and the national emblem of the state of Guatemala, seemed now likely to be fulfilled. There were trogons everywhere. They mingled with flocks of other birds, possibly for protection. Leigh made daily inquiries about them and their habits, and was told that they " fed upon the Wing." This could hardly be so, except in the case of insects, for he saw them often lazily gathering fruit on the trees. One day he discovered two splendid trogons directly over his head, in a woody arcade. They were green, and the male had a reddish-brown breast, which was not the fiery crimson that he had expected to see. But the lustres of the superb bird, the so-called " feathered snake," were metallic, and the four tail feathers had the same hue. The female bird was an ideal of loveliness, though her plumage was not as " royal " as that of the male. "A quetzal," said Leigh to the Mosquito. " Ay, ay, a quetzal ; a trogon, call him the splendid tro- gon," said the guide. Leigh's heart beat, lie studied the indolent creature, 146 THE ROYAL FAMILY OF TROGOXS. I47 perched amid the orchids. There was the golden green, of which he had read, the primrose and amber lustres, but not the vivid ruby red. Nor was the tail curved, nor two feet long. The rounded crest of filamentous feathers had not the imperial appearance that he had seen in pictures. He recalled seeing such a bird in the collection of stuffed trogons in the Boston Museum of Natural History, and that it was given a very conspicuous place among the splendid trogon family, of which there are in all some fifty or more species. " Was that the Indian bird ? " asked Leigh of the Mos- quito, who did not comprehend. "Ay, ay, the royal bird," said the guide. " Quetzalcoatl, the god, sent him forth. It was death to kill him in the old times, and only the chiefs were allowed to wear his feathers. Quetzaltepec, the chieftain, was named for him." "But," said Leigh, "he does not look quite as splendid as I had expected. Are you quite sure that that is a royal trogon .- 1 " "They call it the splendid trogon," said the Moscpiito, in Spanish. " I never saw a more splendid bird than that, did you ?" "No," said Leigh. "The fringed cape of feathers that partly cover his wings is the richest plumage that I ever saw." " Some call him the peacock trogon," said the guide. "('mild you capture him?" asked Leigh of the Mosquito, in much excitement. " Yes, yes," said the Mosquito. " What will you pay me if I will ?" "A pound for the pair," said Leigh. I48 LOST IN NICARAGUA. " You shall have them,'* said the Mosquito, though he only in part comprehended what Leigh had said. "They may fly away," said Leigh. " No, no," said the Mosquito. " Trogons don't fly about much in the heat of the day." " I must have them both alive," said Leigh. " You shall have them alive," said the Indian, comprehend- ing the condition. " And the plumage must not be broken." "No, no," said the Indian. "The feathers of the trogon come off easily. They must be handled with care. It is no easy thing to stuff those birds, the feathers fit them so lightly. Splendid feathers grow in light soil. But, mon ami, courage, you shall have them both for that one pound that you prom- ised, and not a feather shall be broken." Leigh looked up to the male bird with the fussy crest. With all of his splendor, he had not the attraction of his lovely mate. " It would do me good to hold that dove-like wife of his in my hand," said Leigh. " How can I carry them away ? " " Buy an openwork basket of the Indians in the market- place of some village, and cover the to]) with cloth a large basket." said the guide. " What could I feed them with ? " "Oh, fruit any kind of fruit, all kinds. They will be contented and happy as long as they are together." How was the Indian to capture these beautiful birds among the high orchids ? " You will have to go away from here," said the Indian. "Why 5 " asked Leigh. THE ROYAL FAMILY OF TROGONS. 149 "That I may capture the birds." " But you do not capture birds by going away from them ? " "Yes, yes; ay, ay, I capture some birds in that way." The Indian went to a pack mule. He took from it a bottle of chicha, of the strongest kind, in which were some native berries like cherries. The berries looked very bright and tempting. They were a luxury that the arriero carried with him for the needs of exhaustion ; they had a reputation as a stimulant. He took some of the red berries and laid them down in view of the two birds under the trees, and walked away. "Will the birds come down to eat them ? " asked Leigh. "Ay, ay." " But the woods are full of berries." "But not of that kind," said the guide. "The trogon knows that berry as soon as he sees it, and he will seize upon it as soon as he is left to do so." " But he will not eat the berries when he tastes the alco- hol," said Leigh to the guide. "Wait and see, amigo, wait and see. Those berries are sweeter than sugar, and the alcohol gives the sweetness a sting. The bird loves strong berries, as well as sweet ones. The two birds will make a least of the berries in a little time. They are dropping down to the lower limbs of the trees now. See the blossoms fall. That male bird is a beauty. He is as good as caught now." The I ndian was right. The male bird with a wave of his beautiful plumes dropped upon tin: ground. The female bird followed him. Leigh watched the two with intense excitement. I50 LOST IN NICARAGUA. They devoured the soaked berries greedily. The alcohol did not seem to be distasteful to them. After eating the berries, they did not rise. They seemed dazed and stood there. Then the male bird spread out its wings helplessly, and sunk upon the ground, and the female bird gave a little Mutter and fell down beside him. Leigh started to go to him. " Wait a little," said the Indian. " Don't go too soon, lest they flutter and break their plumage. Let me go and find a basket. You can buy a larger basket when you come to a village." Leigh waited. The birds fluttered a little and then lay still. The Indian went away and came back bringing a basket with a cover, and handed it to Leigh. "There are the birds," he said, pointing. Leigh went up to them and took up the supposed royal birds, as they lav on the sandy turf dead drunk. He put them into his basket. " They will open their eyes when they awake," said Leigh, "and find that their world has grown less." "That is the way with folks in that condition," . said the guide. " Yes, yes," said the good Englishman, who had come to view the curious scene, and who had heard the last remark. " The world grows less to all creatures who do net learn to curb their appetites and passions. Poor birds, I pity ye when ye \v;ike up. I've pitied creatures like you before. What are vou Lfoimr to do with them, Leitrh ?" THE ROYAL FAMILY OF TROGONS. 1 5 I " Take them back to the States. We have a bird-house at home." "You will find that no easy matter, my boy." "They will be worth the care," said Leigh. "There are few collections of living birds that have the royal bird of the Aztecs, the bird of the gods, in their num- ber." " Do you think that those are the real birds of the tem- ples ? " "Yes," said Leigh. " Trogons resplendens." " All trogons resplendens are not royal quetzals," said the Englishman. " But look at the crown on this one's head, and the fringed feathers on the wings, and the red breast," said Leigh. " But the breast is not carmine," said the Englishman. " I thought that the tail of the quetzal was much longer, and that it was barred and curved, and of variegated lustres. This male bird has too many plumes in his tail. Are you quite sure that this is the bird that you have been seek- ing?" " So the Indian says, and he should know." Leigh stood in the shadow of the glimmering trees, and studied the lustres of the jewel-like plumage of the helpless bird. All the feathers on the body were soft as silk, and they seemed to have been dipped in jewels. How delighted Captain Erobisher would he when he saw this living treasure : this gem ol the woods, wearing the lustres oi the sun ! In a tew hours Leigh looked info the basket to find that the birds had revived. They seemed very much surprised, and to be wondering at what had happened. Their beaks 15-2 I.O.ST IN NICAKAC.UA. were of a bright yellow. Leigh put some luscious fruit into the basket, and left it there. He dreamed that he secured a treasure of the temples of the gods, whose ruins he would see in Lake Nicaragua and in Guatemala. They journeyed slowly into the mountains, rising as it were on stone steps out of green forests into the clear regions of the sky. But, alas, for the royal trogons ! One morning Leigh arose from his hammock, to hear hundreds of tro- gons calling, but his royal birds were both dead. He care- fully removed their feathers. He was bitterly disappointed. Apula saw it, and touched him on the shoulder, and said: " '1 nose were no true birds. I know I will find you the true bird some day some day. Apula will not forget. My heart is yours." CHAPTER XVII. THE JAGUAR HUNT. WITH the party went a curious dog, which was called an "alarm dog," because he always barked when he saw anything that other eyes did not see. In the still nights he was constantly giving an alarm, which made our nervous English traveller very restless. After seeing the army of the ants, the pigs, and being told of the jaguar's habits, under the name of the cougar, his nervous fears grew, and he had suspicions of every bush. One night, when they were encamped, he heard what sounded like a child crying in a pavilion-like cluster of trees. He started up and roused Leigh. " What's that, boy ? " he asked in a tremor. " It is a cry of distress," said Leigh. " Mozo," said the Englishman, " Mozo, hello, wake up. There's some one in distress, crying in the wood yonder. I have heard it a dozen times." "That's nothing," said the guide. "We must have sleep; we have a hard journey before us for the morrow." He turned in his hammock, and was lost to all cries of distress. " I can't sleep with that sound in my ears," said the good- hearted Englishman. The Italian doctor was now awake. '53 154 LOST IN" NICARAGUA. "Doctor," said the Englishman, "you arc younger than I. Go out to the trees yonder and look around. There's a child lost there." The Italian rolled out of his hammock, and, taking his gun, went out into the moonlit air. The night was still now ; the trees were glistening with dew and emitted a resinous odor. The near mountains looked like shadows in the air. It came again that pitiful cry. The place where they were encamped was called a quebrada. The doctor with a light tread stole up the side of the quebrada towards the tall, tent-like trees, whence the sound had come. He entered the cluster and suddenly emerged, and hurried back to the glen of the hammocks. "What have you seen ? " asked the Englishman. " I hab seen de debil," said the Italian, forgetting his Eng- lish accent. The Englishman started up. " You have? you mean something that has an evil spirit. But no evil thing cries like that." " There was something in the branches of the trees, stretched out long. It has eyes like fire." Our good friend's, the Englishman's, eyes began to glow. " What a horrible place this is! Mozo, arriero, Mosquito," he called. " Wake up, the evil one has been seen in the trees, crying like a child ! Wake up ! " The guide now sat up. " What do you think it is ? " " A puma," said the guide. The puma is the South American lion. " What is that?" asked the Englishman. THE JAGUAR HUNT. I 55 " A cougar," said the guide. " A painter " (panther), answered the American. " It is nothing but a cat." " What is it doing ? " asked the Englishman. "Watching," said the Italian. " But I do not want to be watched by a cat like that ! Is the puma, cougar, and painter all one cat?" "One name for the same cat," said the American. "It must be an awful cat to have so many names; I've seen pictures of the animal in natural history books." " It is a jaguar," said the doctor, " a Fell's onca. The puma is a wrong name for him a Fclis onca." " That sounds more awful than all the rest. That is the animal that leaps upon a wild pig and breaks his back." " lie leaps upon an animal from the trees, and breaks his neck by twisting his head around," said the American. " I wouldn't want to die like that. Mozo, go out and take a shot at him." " Wait until morning," said the guide. "Will he wait too ?" asked the Englishman. " Yes, yes." " Then I couldn't sleep a wink more," said the English- man. " Sometimes I wish that I hadn't come." "lie has ;i beautiful skin," said the guide, "yellow, covered with rosettes." "With black rings with spots in the middle of them," said the doctor. "The animal has more spots than names." " I would like to have his skin to send home tor a Christ- mas present to my daughter," said the Englishman. " I would write to her that I no, that my part)- shot it, 156 LOST IN NICARAGUA. and she would hang it up in the hall, and I could always look upon it with pride, and tell my friends how we hunted it, and made an adventure of it. Mozo, I have heard of a jaguar hunt ; I will give you two pounds for that animal's hide" The arriero was awake now, his eyes, too, shone. He rolled from his hammock, lit a torch, and examined his gun. "Follow me," he said; "all go." lie went towards the high thicket. The morning was breaking. The woods resounded with the screams of the parrots and the songs of birds. There was a gleam on the mountain tops, and a fresh odor, as of dewy blooms, everywhere. The guide began to bend low as he came to the thickets. The rest of the party followed his example, hardly knowing why they did so, for they saw nothing. The Englishman followed last. " Is the jaguar a very large animal ? " he asked of the American. "Almost as big as a tiger," said the American. "He could carry you off in his mouth, so I have read some of them arc so large that they can carry off a sheep." " I wouldn't want to fall in with one alone," said the Eng- lishman. " In the forest the animal has the right of way, and I would give it to him. What does he live on ? " " Monkeys," said the American. "You don't say that," said the Englishman. "Monkeys, monkeys. Gramercy, I would rather have his skin than him." The guide was now in the wood, tinder the tall trees. The THE JAGUAR HUNT. 1 57 crack of his rifle shook the air, and caused a cloud of parrots' wings to rise. Something fell. The Englishman turned, and leaped back towards the quebrada. " I'm so slow," he said. There was a battle in the bushes, and the American stepped back. A beautiful animal with a terrible face rushed out of the thicket, fie was leaping as though wounded, but he came in the direction of the quebrada. The Englishman beheld him, and one look at his open mouth and maddened eyes caused him to leap about in the greatest terror. " Shoot ! " cried the guide to the Englishman. " Shoot him yourself," cried the Englishman, "for heaven's sake, shoot, shoot ! " Just then the animal rushed into the space between the guide and our English friend. The guide raised his gun. "Molt! holt!" cried the Englishman, "don't shoot me ! " The Englishman turned round and round, as the animal rushed by him almost on to the barrel of his gun. What a beautiful creature he was with his yellow skin and blaek rosettes. He leaped down the quebrada, then up the other side, leaving a trail of blood behind. The animal was wounded. The guide rushed after him. ''Follow!" he cried. All saw the animal's hopeless ease, and hurried on after the guide. The jaguar, for so it was, and not a puma, ran with great force, but limping, into an adjoining wood, when a marvellous thing happened. In the middle ot the wood was a clear I 58 LOST IN NICARAGUA. lake, and on its margin was a tapir drinking. The animal looked like a great hog or a little elephant. She had a little one with her, which caused her to pause when she heard the hunters coming. The jaguar ran through some thick bushes on the bank of the stream, then into some reedy grass, near the little tapir. He sunk down for a moment, then gave a leap, and fell upon the back of the tapir, which now tried to run away. But the hunters were on one side and the lake or pond on the other, and the frightened animal rushed into the pond with the jaguar on her back. She was soon in deep water. " Fire ! " said the guide to the Italian. The Italian took aim at the jaguar and discharged his ride. The animal sprang forward and rolled over into the water. The guide levelled his gun at the tapir. " Spare her for the sake of her young," said the American. "Well, we have killed the jaguar," said the Englishman. "The next thing will be to get him out of the pond." This was not difficult. The beast floated at first, and then was easily dragged ashore. It had been wounded in the foreleg, under the breast. It had seemed to have felt its helplessness, and to have sought to use the tapir's legs for its own. The skin was very beautiful. The Englishman paid the promised two pounds to the guide, rolled up the skin to send to England, as a trophy of the achievements of the party with which he hunted. We hardly think that he would have claimed more than his share in the hunt, for, although he THE JAGUAR HUNT. I 5Q was a very careful man, he had deep respect for honor and truth, and was also so kind-hearted as to say: " It seems a pity to kill an animal that could reason like that. But," he added, " I would not have liked to find my legs in that cat's mouth, that painter, puma, cougar, jaguar cat that is too much of a cat." Indeed it was. All these names may be applied to tigers of the same family, but they are not all of the same kind, certainly not the puma. They were now far on their way to the lake. They occasionally met in the forest a Rio Frio Indian. Some of these were very friendly, some very reserved and shy. CHAPTER XVIII. THE LOST INDIAN BABIES OF RIO FRIO ZAPATERA. THE bad Indians of the Rio Frio!" Such is not an uncommon appellation of a tribe of Indians who shun the face of white men, and have become the deadly enemy of the immigrating Europeans. But the Rio Frio Indians did not always bear the bad reputation among the white people that they now have. They were a simple tribe, living happily among the india- rubber groves, hunting peaceably, and drifting on their dug- out canoes or burnt-out canoes of the trunks of the great mahogany or other giant trees. In their huts, made proba- bly of cane and roofed with grasses or palms, they raised their families of children in primitive simplicity, were minis- tered to by their wives, and were proud of the beauty of their babies. For these babies were very pretty, and the delight of the huts under the river palms. The india-rubber trade was carried into this quiet region, and some of the traders were attracted to the simple homes by the beauty of the little children, especially of the babies, with their olive faces, black luminous eyes, and cunning features. The followers of the traders began occasionally to steal 160 THE LOST INDIAN BABIES. l6l one or more of these doll-like babies, and carry them to the cities on the lakes and the river San Juan, and give them away. But it was soon found that these charming little ones of the rubber groves, like especially attractive monkeys and parrots, had a market value. A Rio Frio baby was a delightful pet for a rich family to hold, and when it grew up, and was no longer desirable on account of its beauty, the captive became a useful servant. For this cause the stealing of Indian babies became common. But how did the Indian families regard the loss of these beautiful children, the babies that were their household treasures ? The people who captured these bright-eyed beauties spoke of them as though they had the same kind of right to them as they would have had to young monkeys. To them the robbery was nothing more than that of a bird's nest. The stolen treasure was only " an Indian baby." " Come here and let me show you what I have bought for the patio," such a housewife would say; "it is an Indian baby from the Rio Frio; isn't he a little beauty?" The visitor would be taken to it amid the monkeys, parrots, and song-birds, to witness its cunning ways as it lay in the lap of some negro nurse. But the conduct of these Indians towards the explorers suddenly changed. The india-rubber traders began to be exposed to poisonous arrows shot by invisible toes from be- hind the great trunks of the trees and webs of lianas. The adventurer who wandered off alone in the Rio Frio was likely to come to a tragic end. Suddenly the Rio Frio natives began to be called " bad " 1 62 LOST IN' NICARAGUA. Indians in t lie coast cities. It became necessary for the traders to go well armed, and to be very watchful on entering the great shadows of the rubber groves on the river. The traders at last seized upon one of the chief Indians by stealth, and tried to persuade him to make a treaty with them. The leader's name we will call Paco. " When you shall restore to us the children you have stolen, we will consider your proposal; but never until then," said Paco. " Your day of judgment will one day fall," said Paco. " It will happen to you as to all who wrong the hearts of others. Mark you, mark you ! listen to me if you have ears. The children that you have stolen from our huts will one day become men. Mark you, mark you ! and they have mothers. The mothers wander, and they never forget. No, no! The Indian mother may have many little ones, but she never forgets one of them. The mothers whose bosoms you have robbed, they wander, they remember ; and the lost children will grow!" The trader took alarm. He had one of the growing babies in his own family, and he had been accustomed to treat the stealing of the beautiful Indian babies as he would have done the capture of monkeys. The Indian mother never forgets her babe. She wanders, as the chief had said, and the stolen babe would grow to be a man. The trader turned over these things in his mind, and he suddenly recalled another fact, that these Indians could practise deadly enchantments, as the arts of destruction were called, and could use poisons in more ways than on arrows. THE LOST INDIAN BABIES. 1 63 He surveyed the cacique. He knew that he represented the cause of human right. Every family has the right to its children, no matter how barbarous it may be. He would try to put an end to baby stealing by creating the common sen- timent of justice against such things. But he forgot his good resolution in the hurry of trade and traffic, and the incident of his meeting Paco almost passed out of his mind. One day on returning to his home, or bungalow, he noticed a tall, sharp-eyed Indian woman among his servants. There was an air of mystery about her that caused him to say to his wife : "Where did you find that woman ? She is an Indian." " She came here to be hired. I wanted help and engaged her." " Does she belong to the same tribe as little Paco ? " " I do not know." "Is she friendly to little Paco ? " " I have never seen them speaking together, but I have noticed that her eyes sometimes rest upon him, and that his are continually following her." " Little Paco is a boy now, wife." " Yes, I know, he is no longer a curiosity; you must em- ploy him now. Find him a place among the hands in the canefields." The explorer's suspicions were aroused that this tall Indian woman had sought work in his home from some other reason than service. She did nut talk Spanish well, and in answer to his questions she uttered only vague words, and seemed disposed to turn away from him. 164 LOST IN NICARAGUA. He had a beautiful babe, and it began to engage the atten- tion of little Paco, the stolen baby, now a boy. A deep affec- tion sprang up between the two. Paco loved to play with the child whenever the black nurse took it into the patio. The hired Indian woman was never seen to speak to the babe or to little Paco, but her eyes were turned towards the happy group, when the babe was brought into the patio and the people gathered around it. The trader went and came. His suspicions disappeared. His household seemed to be perfect in happiness and har- mony. One day, as he came home, he was met by his wife at the gate, who rushed out of the house, weeping and trembling and throwing up her hands, "The babe! the babe!" she cried. "It is gone, they are hunting for it, it is gone ! I woke in the morning and felt for it, but the bed was empty ! " "Gone?" exclaimed the trader. "Where is the Indian woman ? " " She is gone to find little Paco." " Paco ? where is the boy ? " " He went away to look for the baby, as soon as I told him that it was gone." The babe had not walked away. The nurse had not car- ried it away. It had been stolen. Put Paco had gone in search of the thief, and the Indian woman had Hod to find him. "Wife," said the explorer, wildly, "that Indian woman was the mother of Paco, and Paco stole the babe, and hid it in the cacti, and has fled with it away. The babe is THE LOST INDIAN BABIES. 165 being carried away to the Rio Frio Indians amid the rubber trees." The explorer rushed madly about, hither and thither, making inquiries of every one he met in regard to little Paco and the Indian woman. But the going away of the two had been very silent and mysterious. The explorer summoned some trusty men, and with them took a canoe, and paddled towards the principal settlement of the Rio Frio Indians. He made the men paddle swiftly, and to pay little heed to the dangers of the stream. He never felt the value of the little life of a babe before. " On, on," he cried, " anything for the child! " As he drew near the place of the settlement, he stood up in the boat and loaded his rifle, with a terrible look in his face. Something white cleaved the air from a mangrove near. He shook for a moment, dropped his rifle, and sank clown into the boat, and losing his balance fell into the water. He did not try to save himself. They drew him up out of the water, but he was dead. They went to the settlements, but the huts were deserted. Neither Paco, little Paco, the Indian mother, if so she was, or the white babe were ever heard of by the rubber traders or seen by any of the white explorers again. There has been an American Mission among these Indians for several years, under the patronage of the Brothers Arthur, builders, of Philadelphia. l66 LOST IN NICARAGUA. The party arrived at the ancient Spanish city of Granada, on Lake Nicaragua. Leigh had expected to find his uncle and brother here, but they had not yet arrived. Leigh re- mained at Granada for a few days, keeping Apula with him. Granada seemed to be the old world. There was an ancient air, a faded grandeur everywhere. The scenery from the high points of the city is enchanting, the palm lands, the lake, and the lake volcanoes. Some twenty thousand people live here, and most of them seem to have little to do. It was once a famous port city. Between Granada and Rivas (old Nicaragua) is a dead island, or an island of the dead, named Zapatera, the Shoe- maker. It is volcanic and rises nearly two thousand feet high. Here lie the remains of a once wonderful city, a place of worship, like Copan in Guatemala, or Palenque in Mexico. Apula secured a bongo, or long boat, and took Leigh to this island. A bongo is some fifty feet long with masts, and is made from the trunk of a single tree. The sail on the lakes was most beautiful, the volcanic islands rising high in the serene air, like pyramids out of the waters. The ruins are found in the midst of tropical forest. The monuments of deified kings and heroes are rude and un- sightly, and without the refined lines of those at Copan, Guatemala, or at Palenque, Mexico. Had these images not been made of solid stone, this place of temples and teocalli would probably have vanished from the memory of man. ZAPATERA. 167 One of the proposed routes for the Nicaraguan Canal lies on a point near Rivas to the Pacific. Another takes in both the lakes of Nicaragua and Managua. Should the latter be used, what sights of prehistoric associations may the future traveller see as he passes on shipboard through these lakes, upon whose shores lie the limbs of vanished gods and races ! The canal would cause Lake Nicaragua to become one of the wonders of the world. There Toltecs, Aztecs, Indian tribes, and we may almost say a Spanish race have arisen, raised their temples and churches, and sunk into shade. Education comes next, and it must be the education of the spiritual principles that eternally endure ; though races come and go, and temples rise and fall, the kingdom of the true God lies in the soul. After Leigh returned to Granada, the whole party who had made the adventurous journey across Costa Rica were invited by the careful Englishman, Mr. Hobbs, to visit a cocoa, or cacao, plantation, to which he had been taken by a jolly old English friend, who loved to entertain. The party were glad to visit the place, for it was famous. The Englishman's name was Holiday Holme. He was a merry story-teller, as well as a hospitable entertainer. His estate on the lake, or rather overlooking it, consisted of ten thousand acres. The house was adobe and tiles, full of airy rooms that opened into a court, which was well supplied with little animals, birds, and flowers, after the man- ner of the country. Near the rambling house was an im- mense cattle pen. We would describe the growing trade in cacao here, but have done so in "Over the Andes." It gave Holiday Holme more pleasure to entertain twenty l68 LOST IN NICARAGUA. than ten. His hacienda was a kingdom, and his wandering- like adobe house was ample enough for a charitable institu- tion. There was almost a village of peon cabins around it. To the astonishment of Leigh " Uncle Holiday," as he was called, had an American wife. One of his merry stories was how he met this lady, who was very kind and accom- plished, and who had won his heart through her voice. " My wife won me through her heart, which she put into song," said the major domo. " How would you like to hear her sing some of her songs ? She composes music. She sets to music the songs of the country." " How ? " There was nothing that could be more agree- able than to hear the American dona sing. The lady com- plied with the request of all in a very hospitable spirit. She had a beautiful voice ; there were heart tones in it. One of the songs, Salaverry's " Song of Peace," was espe- cially beautiful; it was a Peruvian poem, which she had set to music. salaverry's "song of peace." 4i Ye warriors of freedom, ye champions of right, Sheathe your swords to sweet harmony's strains ; No bayonet should gleam, and no soldier should fight, Where Liberty glorious reigns. " Melt your lances to ploughshares, your swords into spades, And furrow for harvests your plains ; No shock of the battle should startle the shades Where Liberty glorious reigns. "But Plenty should follow where Peace leads the way, And Beneficence waken her strains ; ZAPATERA. 169 Let the war bugles cease, and the peace minstrels play Where glorious Liberty reigns. " Nor honor is won from the battlefield red, Nor glory from tumult and strife ; That soldier is only by godlike thought led, Who offers his country his life. ''Ye warriors of freedom, ye champions of right, Sheathe your swords to sweet harmony's strains ; No bayonet should gleam, and no soldier should fight, Where glorious Liberty reigns ! " CHAPTER XIX. THE MEDITERRANEAN OF THE WEST. WHILE Leigh and the party of adventurers were thus making their way towards the cities on Lake Nicara- gua, Captain Frobisher and Alonzo were journeying to Grey- town by another way. It is an easy thing to get from Greytown to Port Limon, as many vessels go down the coast, touching at Greytown on the way. But few vessels, as we have said, stop at Grey- town on their way from Colon to New Orleans. The Atlas steamers go from Jamaica to Greytown, and thence to Port Limon fortnightly ; but they do not often go the reverse way. So Captain Frobisher and Alonzo had to wait for the coming of a steamer launch, that occasionally runs from Greytown to Port Limon. The waiting at Port Limon became tedious. But the launch came at last, and the two found themselves outside the foaming bar and the sheltering island, and gliding towards the terrible bar of Greytown, with long lines of cocoanut trees in sight. There is an inland route to Greytown by muleback, and boats on lagoons. But it is full of peril, as the country is unhealthy to strangers, and the traveller usually has to sit in a cramped condition in the boat. 170 THE MEDITERRANEAN OF THE WEST. \Jl The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea have been called the American Mediterranean. The beautiful waters of the west are here ; their shores are palm lands and tropical gardens, and the islands of the Antilles are the mountain tops of the sea. In 1872 there was begun a coast survey of this sea and its islands, which has been continued, and which tells a marvellous story of the geological ages. The sea is a world of curious plants and strange forms of organic life; thence the Gulf Stream flows. Here are fishes of the mountains and fishes of the plains. It is the most interesting of the submarine worlds. The islands which form the outer barrier of the Caribbean Sea arc, for the most part, connected by a single foundation. What a revelation would there be were the waters to be withdrawn, and the ocean world be left spread out to human view ! The plant life of the purple sea is confined to the tidal waters near the coasts. The deep sea blooms with phos- phorescent flowers. Here the coral builders are at work. It may be said in a certain sense that Florida is neither the work of God nor man, but of the coral masons and carpenters, all fulfilling an intuitive design. These minute creatures are everywhere building the terraces of the sea, which the mango covers, and which become gardens of the palm, the orange, and the cane. 172 LOST IN NICARAGUA. THE STORY OF THE COUNTRY OF THE EARLIEST CITIES IN SPANISH AMERICA WALKER THE FILIBUSTER. So beautiful is Nicaragua that it was called by the dis- coverers the Paradise of Mohammed. The picture afforded by the name is not inappropriate. Mere was a land where the people have nothing to do. The animal life in man predominates. Put here men were as animals. The sun cared for them. They needed only a strip of clothing, and the fruits of the earth grew without labor and fed them. To-day was all. Yesterday taught them nothing, and to- morrow promised them nothing that they did not have to-day. They were born, they sunned themselves, and died. In times before, the conquerors' temples blazed on every hill. A Peru was here, whose fairy-tales are like those of the golden Incas. Nicaragua was discovered, in 15 14, by Don Pedrarias de Avila, Governor of Panama. In 15 19 Don Gil Gonzalez de Avila set out from Panama to the north, and discovered Lake Nicaragua. He found here a great chief, or cacique, whose name was Nicarao, and from him the country received its name Nicaragua. lie penetrated to the ancient Indian city called Niquichizi, now the city of Granada, and returned to Panama. In 1523, Don Pedrarias, the discoverer, sent out Don Francisco Hernandez de Cordova to conquer the great chief Nicarao. This cavalier was the founder of the cities of Granada and Leon. These were among the earliest cities in America, springing up nearly one hundred years before the landing WALKER THE FILIBUSTER. *73 of the Pilgrim Fathers at New Plymouth. They are nearly four centuries old. A Spanish immigration came, and Granada grew under the volcanoes of the wonderful lake. The Indians were conquered, and became the burden-bearers of the imperious adventurers. In 1840 General Francisco Morazan, called the Washington of Central America, attempted to re-establish a federal re- public, but was in the end driven from the country. A strange story is next associated with Nicaragua, one of those stories whose suggestions are such that one hesitates to retouch them to life. Suggestion in books is no ordinary power. The young mind follows suggestions, the world does. There was born in Nashville, Tenn., on the 1 8th of May, 1824, a restless spirit, who believed that he was a man of destiny. Like Napoleon he imagined that fate for him had set in the heavens a star. His name was William Walker. He gained unusual accomplishments. He studied law in Nashville and medicine in Germany. He became a journal- ist in New Orleans and a jurist in San Francisco. He was a man of ambition, of dreams, lie thirsted for power, fame, influence. In 1853 he organized an expedi- tion for the conquest of the state of Sonora in Mexico, and landed in Lower California with three field guns and one hundred and seventy men. lie issued a manifesto in which he proclaimed himself President of a new Pacific Republic. In 1854 he marched to Sonora, but was arrested by the United States authorities, tried for violation of the neutrality laws, and was acquitted. I lis star had failed him. Put it arose airain in his fancy. lie believed in the doc- 1/4 LOST IN NICARAGUA. trine of the divine order of slavery, and he now planned to erect a new slave state in Nicaragua, the " Mohammed Para- dise." lie landed in Nicaragua with a company of ardent adventurers, and after many struggles he took possession of the city of Granada. Me was joined by other adventurers, and in March, 1856, he found himself at the head of twelve hundred nun. He caused the Nicaraguan general to be shot, and himself to be elected President of Nicaragua. The state had abolished slavery, but he annulled the beneficent act. He was now at the height of his power. He fancied that his star shone and led him on. Insurrection at length followed. The Central American states united to oppose him, with the agents of the Vander- belt Trading Company. He was defeated, brought to trial, escaped, but struggled against his fate. In i860 he attempted to lead a revolution in Honduras. He fell into the hands of the English commander there, was delivered to the Honduran authorities, and shot. His star went out; if it had any purpose, it was to interest the world in Nicaragua. Next came the project of an interoceanic canal, through the San Juan River and the lakes of Nicaragua, a scheme that glows with promise for Nicaragua and for the world. The bright birds are here, the sea-birds and land birds. The air is wings. The West Indies have some fifteen species of humming-birds, jewels of the air. Here, once, parrots rose in flocks like clouds, as described by Columbus. Tlie original name of this blooming ocean world was Antilia. The navigators fancied such a land in the ocean of shadows ; they found it, it grew ; not one Antilia, but one following another, and leading on, on, ever on, to the mighty regions THE MEDITERRANEAN OF THE WEST. 1/5 of the Andes, the hinds of the llama, the alpaca, the vicuna, and the condor. The Caribs were the inhabitants. Enslaved by their con- querors, they began to disappear from the time that the gam of the Punta shook the shores of the Western world. Antilia became known as the Spanish Main. It was the land of fortune. Then the world called it the West Indies, and so it remains. It only awaits the Nicaragua, Panama, or other canal to unite it in one common ocean way with the East Indies, thus in a sense fulfilling the dream of Columbus. The old tales of romance and adventurous action and achievement of the Spanish Main would fill volumes. But we soon forget the achievements of mere money-makers. It is only what is spiritual that has real value and lives. He who seeks his happiness in what is spiritual, is not disap- pointed, and all others are. So with all the robbers of the Spanish Main. Sin brings us nothing to keep. The traveller over the sea loves to look down into the plains of the clear waters. The dolphins are there moving about in happy companionship in pairs. The Hying fish rise up like birds, and, perhaps, one or more oi them tall unhappily upon the hard deck. The shark is there. Bright fishes are there, the parrots of the sea. The cham- bered nautilus spreads his sail there. There in a world of fishes and birds floats the sargossa, or seaweed, glistening and golden, on bladders of air. And there at night, deep down into the abysses, the bright stars shine. It is delicious to drift and drift on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, on the sky, as it were, oi this animated 176 LOST IN NICARAGUA. under-world. The day is a splendor, and the night a calm, and both bring their enchantments of shore, sea, and air. It is a delight to exist here, and such a delight that the mind for a time looks for nothing more. It is a sufficient satisfac- tion to be grateful. But the blast from the north, coming down the Mississippi valley and creating the hurricane in their ardent atmos- pheres, arouses us. Terrible is the American Mediterranean in a storm. The explorers of the coast surveys have mapped the under-world of the sea. We may behold it as the fishes do : mountain and cavern, highways and coral workshops, where the little creatures are busy, century after century, in making for mankind a larger world for better people. Such is the story of the explorers. CHAPTER XX. THE NICARAGUA CANAL ITS PROMISE OF THE FUTURE. NICARAGUA ! The name is an " open sesame," a magic word ; it suggests a new street in the great city of the whole human family a closer brotherhood of mankind and the United States of the sea. Spain had the vision of it in her golden days, and tried to find through Central America a highway to her South Ameri- can possessions. England has jealously guarded this precious spot of the earth. She protected her interests in it by the Clayton- Bulwer Treaty. What is the substance of this famous treaty? For the sake of coming events, every boy should know. In the splendid spirit that followed the earl)- development of the Republic, men hoped that the Nicaragua Canal would be built for the good of the world. Rut England wanted the privilege of accomplishing this work, and she saw that the United States would covet the same. In 1N50 the two jeal- ous nations entered into a treaty, called the Clayton-Ruhver Treaty, which may be ignored, but not abrogated, which pledged that neither England nor the United States will ever exercise for itselt any exclusive control over a Nicaraguan ("anal, nor erect fortifications to command that canal, nor form N 177 178 LOST IN NICARAGUA. alliances with Central American states having such ends in view. There should he no blockade of vessels in time of war. Both nations should protect the neutrality of such a canal. Strangely enough, the rights of Nicaragua herself were not considered in this compact ; it was made as though England and America expected to rule the sea. Such in substance is a part of the famous Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It is no wonder that far-seeing England should have sought for such a compact. A tonnage of 10,000,000 per annum to destinations not so easily reached by the Suez Canal and other routes would yield an immense revenue, and practically change the com- merce of the world. The canal at the time of the treaty would have made a new commercial America ; now that we have built a network of railroads everywhere, have a navy, and are ready for expansion on the sea, the importance of such a new gateway to the Pacific cannot be estimated. It would be likely to change the conditions of the west coast of both North and South America. As Benton said of the Northwest coast, "There lies the East there lies India." Its history is that of three centuries, and yet it is only begun. In 1550 Antonio Galvan pointed out the route as the natural way between the two oceans. In the liberal era of 1825, when the Central American states had formed a federal union, Seiior Don Antonio Jose Canaz, minister to the United States from the new Republic, became the apostle of the project of the Spanish vision and awakened the interest of Henry Clay. In 1826 an attempt was made to build such a canal by private enterprise, but it failed for lack of subscriptions. THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 1^9 Like schemes arose from time to time for many years with surveys. In 1844 Don Francisco Castellon, of Nicaragua, went to France to solicit a protectorate over his country for the sake of building the interoceanic canal. This and other French schemes failed. England now began to seek to colonize these coasts as a protector of the King of the Mosquito Indians. This plan of local influence failed. Mr. Vanderbilt, of New York, had a plan for a canal which was not executed. Exploration after exploration followed, and in each new administration was brought forth a new plan. In May, 1880, a provisional Interoceanic Canal Society, in which appeared the names of General Grant, General McClel- lan, and many leading men, obtained from the Republic of Nicaragua a concession for the construction of a canal. The plan failed in Congress. It was changed into another plan, which was unfavorably affected by the failure of the firm of Grant and Ward. Project after project rose and fell. The work now is in the charge of the Construction Company, of which Honorable Warner Miller was made president in 1890. This gentleman went to Nicaragua with a party of engineers and scientists, accompanied by government officers, and a thorough survey of the route was again made. What a new chapter in this history will be, alter so many failures and changes, one cannot say, except that in some near time, and in some manner, the canal is as certain to be built as any probable future event can be. When completed it will make a new map for the world. l8o LOST IN NICARAGUA. The Mosquito coast was the resort of the buccaneers. Many stories of these sea-robbers are told on the vessels trading on the coast, and some of these stories have been repeated for more than a hundred years. Few travellers sail here, or any ships, that do not hear some of these. A WITNESS OUT OF THE SEA. The story I am about to relate has been told on many ships, in many ways. I must believe it to be the most inter- esting of all the stories of the sea; for it is in the main true, as relics, still to be seen in an old museum in Jamaica, will bear witness. In the days of the buccaneers, when the black flag of the pirate glided like a snake over the Spanish Main, seeking its pre) - among the treasure ships of the purple seas, an English man-of-war captured a vessel which was supposed to be that of sea-robbers. Port Royal was in existence then, the city of three thou- sand houses, that afterwards sank into the sea. The English vessel took the supposed piratical craft into Port Royal, and put the officers and crew upon trial before the Admiralty. Put the strictest examination of the men by the court failed to produce any evidence that the ship was piratical, or engaged in other than legitimate trade. Put a suspicion remained. The men, finding themselves thus set free, were in high glee, and began to have a lively time in the rich old port, whose remains now strew the bottom of the sea. Liquor flowed, and usual oaths, and merry gibes, and dark droll hints that their good fortune was not what mi