LETTER XV.

British Honduras.

THE ISLAND OF RUATAN--THE SAILOR’S LOVE STORY--THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE BAY ISLANDS--ENGLISH VS. AMERICAN VIEW OF CENTRAL AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

_Off Ruatan the New “Gibralter,” Flower of the Bay Islands, and “Key to Spanish America."_

It certainly takes the impatience out of one to travel very much on a sail vessel. The dead certainty of your getting becalmed annihilates even contrary anticipation. But instead of murmuring at the irksome roll of this spell-bound ship, which flaps its sails as vainly as a bird with cropped wings, I, with genuine Spartan philosophy, will make the most of it by going visiting, that is, from the cabin to the forecastle. Here I take a seat beside an American; (for, my dear H., nobody ever knows what true friendship is until they have been shipwrecked, nor does any one conceive how mutual are the sympathies of persons coming from the same country, however remote their positions may have been, until they have met away from home, and been surrounded by foreign influences. Strange as it may seem, I have not met a colored American out this way but who actually celebrates the Fourth of July.)

Instead of complaining of this ghastly calm, as I was about to say, I take a seat beside my friend Mr. Johnson, formerly of Plymouth, Massachusetts, from whom I learned the following important story, albeit, a love story. Important because it shows the correctness of that theory which assumes this,--the infusion of Northern blood as one of the means by which the more sluggish race of the tropics is to be quickened and given energy, and also how these seductive southern zones induce persons to sacrifice kindred, friends, and home, in order to live and die under their soothing influences.

The story is this: Some years ago he had sailed from Boston to Balize with a cargo of ice; was taken sick, and the captain of his vessel, having made all possible arrangements for his comfort, left him in the hospital to recover. He did so, and was just on the eve of going over to Jamaica to get on board a vessel in which to return home, when up stepped an elderly man, who accosted him in English and also in Yankee, to wit: “Guess you are from the States?” to which Mr. Johnson replied, of course, “You, too, I suppose?” The fact is, if you could not tell an American away from home by his looks, his salutatory phrases are as certain as an oddfellow’s password.

So Mr. Dickinson, the elderly gentleman, was from the States also, and nothing would do but Mr. Johnson must accompany him to his home in Ruatan, there to spend a few weeks for old acquaintance’ sake, and meanwhile strengthen his health. He went; but Mr. Johnson coming from the States had never seen so lovely an island, and certainly none so prolific as Ruatan. He found oranges selling for one dollar per barrel, and cocoa-nuts at a cent apiece; and that after being rowed a distance of six miles. He found also that good milch cows could be bought for six dollars each; and that upon one of the neighboring islands wild cattle were to be had for the sport of catching. On Utille, another island, also, almost in sight of Ruatan, is a settlement of whites, which, though small, is in a very flourishing condition; both being tributary to Ruatan. Altogether, he liked the appearance of things exceedingly.

Mr. Johnson not being one of your lazy visitors, soon began to make himself useful by assisting his friend Mr. Dickinson in whatever he might have to do; and so one day, with pants rolled up to his knees, he went over to a neighbor’s to borrow some bags. This neighbor had a pretty niece who lived in Nicaragua, which is just over the way, and who was now on a visit to her uncle.

It was near dusk; his neighbor was not at home; but, with that careless indifference which travellers in the tropics will appreciate, he walked into the shanty, slightly nodded to some one he saw sitting in the corner, and immediately stretched himself out in a hammock.

The timid girl, less frightened at this rude freedom than at the bushy whiskers of the Northerner, answered his inquiries as to when her uncle would be in, curtsied, and left the room; but in doing so she discovered about the trimmest ancle and the neatest pair of stockings Mr. Johnson had ever beheld. It fixed him. He could not sleep after that without dreaming of the pretty feet, and, of course, pretty owner.

Mr. Johnson found business with his neighbor very often. The divinity went over home; Mr. Johnson had business over there also; and with genuine American grit obtained the old man’s consent, and actually returned with his daughter.

Soon after this Mr. Johnson received from the States the mournful intelligence of his father’s death, and, like a dutiful son, immediately sailed for Plymouth to see his mother and sisters. His brother, equally anxious with his mother and friends to have him stop at home, offered him a situation as clerk in a lawyer’s office. But, alas! those pretty feet! They had caused him to sacrifice his home; and although shipwrecked in the attempt, he is now back in Ruatan, with no expectation of ever meeting his Plymouth friends again during life. “I told them,” said he, “she was not quite so white as some of them, but she’s a darn sight better-hearted;” which is very probably a fact. Mr. Johnson affirmed, also, that he could not be induced to leave Ruatan for the income of the most princely merchant in Boston; but I make allowances for a man who has a young wife with pretty feet.

Ruatan, as you are aware, is the principal one of the celebrated Bay Islands, the sovereignty of which has been so long in dispute. Nor can I settle the question as to whether the British claim is just or not; I can only give it to you as I get it.

In the first place you must know there is what may be called _two Honduras_. That is, the State of Honduras, and these Bay Islands with a portion of the Musquito coast, constituting British Honduras, of which Balize is the capital. This will relieve a great many blunders people have perpetually fallen into.

When or by whom Ruatan was originally settled is now unknown. It was discovered by the Spaniards, and was afterwards occupied as a military post, but subsequently abandoned. Soon after the Emancipation Act took effect in Jamaica and the other British isles, a number of these emancipated slaves settled here, and the settlement is now multiplied to the number of about three thousand.

It becoming necessary for them to have a government, they sent to Jamaica for a magistrate to act as governor, voting him a salary of three thousand dollars, and, being British subjects, of course looked to Great Britain for protection. And so Great Britain claims the right to protect them; and she does protect them.

It was off this island that the pirate Walker rendezvoused the present summer; and from what I have said respecting the immigration hither of a few white Americans, you will probably suppose there might be some advantage taken of these islanders; but do not think it. Mr. William Walker’s recent experience at Truxillo will probably induce him to respect Ruatan.

Nevertheless, Ruatan is measurably affected, of course, by the prosperity of the main land, and if the future administration of the United States government is to be as weak and vacillating as the past has been, it is difficult to say what is to be the end of these invasions.

At present there is but little communication between this excellent island and the United States. Thanks to your unjust policy, (wide-spread infamy,) the natives can not be induced to look towards America, and so can not see the difference between the Northern and Southern States. This feeling has been heightened recently by the fact that a merchant, who dealt in fruits with certain parties in New Orleans, went over there on business. He was also a British magistrate, and took with him the necessary papers to certify that fact. Hardly had he reached the shore before he was arrested and taken to prison; and when he supposed to estop their procedure by showing that he was a British magistrate, the New Orleans constable replied: “If Queen Victoria were to come over here, and she were black, I’d put her in jail!”

I am asked to point out, as I go along, what could be done whereby persons could gain a competence? Any thing in the shape of work will gain a competence,--the trouble being, in all these countries, that a living is too easily gained. But fruits are the principal export. Could a vessel be run between this and Baltimore, or any other respectable port of the United States, it would pay beyond a peradventure. It would also furnish the means of getting here safe the fruits from wasting, for want of occasional vessels, and also supply news; which is an inconceivable desideratum.

Land is offered at a shilling an acre; import duty is but two per cent., and exports free; which, considering the English language prevails, give it a decided advantage as a place of settlement.

Ruatan is but thirty miles from Truxillo, Honduras, and one hundred and twenty from Balize; and these are the only ways of getting here from New York, at a cost of sixty dollars. For the want of such a vessel as I have intimated, crops of oranges and limes are frequently swept into the sea. The Pine-apples are large and of a superior quality. Walk out into the grounds early in the morning, take a Machette and strike one open, and nothing can give you an idea of their flavor except to imagine you are sipping the nectar of the gods.

In the interior of the island are cocoa-nut groves, and other marks of improvement, such as an old fortress hid away from the sea, which clearly prove the island to have been anciently inhabited; but, like many other interesting objects which the historian fails to comprehend, by whom, or when, is left entirely to the conception of the poets.

“Gone are all the barons bold; Gone are all the knights and squires; Gone the abbot, stern and cold, And the brotherhood of friars.”

ENGLISH _vs._ AMERICAN VIEW OF CENTRAL AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

It is but fair to say the Hon. E. G. Squier shows very clearly the forced nature of the English claims, and that Ruatan rightly belongs to Honduras. But then I should think Mr. Squier, or any other American, would blush to talk about British _proclivities to piracy_.

The following are the views of Mr. Trollope (English) on the most important of Central American affairs,[H] who probably also intends by them to give Mr. S. a rap on the knuckles.

“As I have before stated, there was, some few years since, a considerable passenger traffic through Central America by the route of the lake of Nicaragua. This of course was in the hands of the Americans, and the passengers were chiefly those going and coming between the Eastern States and California. They came down to Greytown at the mouth of the San Juan river, in steamers from New York, and, I believe, from various American ports, went up the San Juan river in other steamers, with flat bottoms, prepared for those waters, across the lake in the same way, and then by a good road over the intervening neck of land between the lake and the Pacific.

“Of course the Panama Railway has done much to interfere with this. In the first place, a rival route has thus been opened; though I doubt whether it would be a quicker route from New York to California if the way by the lake were well organized. And then, the company possessing the line of steamers running to Aspinwall from New York has been able to buy off the line which would otherwise run to Greytown.

“But this rivalship has not been the main cause of the total stoppage of the Nicaraguan route. The filibusters came into that land and destroyed every thing. They dropped down from California, or Realego, Leon, Manaqua, and all the western coast of Nicaragua. Then others came from the South-eastern States, from Mobile, and New Orleans, and swarmed up the river San Juan, devouring every thing before them.

“There can be no doubt that Walker’s idea, in his attempt to possess himself of this country, was, that he should become master of the passage across the Isthmus. He saw, as so many others have seen, the importance of the locality in this point of view; and he probably felt that if he could make himself lord of the soil, by his own exertions and on his own bottom, his mother country, the United States, would not be slow to recognize him. ‘I,’ he would have said, ‘have procured for you the ownership of the road which is so desirable for you. Pay me by making me your lieutenant here, and protecting me in that position.’

“The idea was not badly planned, but it was of course radically unjust. It was a contemplated filching of the road. And Walker found, as all men do find, that he could not get good tools to do bad work. He tried the job with a very rough lot of tools; and now, though he has done much harm to others, he has done very little good to himself. I do not think we shall hear much more of him.

“And among the worst injuries which he has done is this disturbance of the lake traffic. This route has been altogether abandoned. There, in the San Juan river, is to be seen one old steamer, with its bottom upwards, a relic of the filibusters and their destruction.

“All along the banks tales are told of their injustice and sufferings. How recklessly they robbed on their journey up the country, and how they returned to Greytown--those who did return, whose bones are not whitening the lake shores--wounded, maimed, and miserable.

“Along the route traders were beginning to establish themselves; men prepared to provide the travellers with food and drink, and the boats with fuel for their steam. An end for the present has been put to all this. The weak governments of the country have been able to afford no protection to these men, and, placed as they were beyond the protection of England or the United States, they have been completely open to attack. The filibusters for a while have destroyed the transit through Nicaragua; and it is hardly matter of surprise that the president of that land, the neighboring republic, should catch at any scheme which proposes to give them back this advantage, especially when promise is made of the additional advantage of effectual protection.

“To us Englishmen it is a matter of indifference in whose hands the transit may be, so long as it is free and open to the world; so long as a difference of nationality creates no difference in the fares charged, or in the facilities afforded. For our own purposes I have no doubt the Panama line is the best, and will be the route we shall use. But we should be delighted to see a second line opened. If Mr. Squier can accomplish his line through Honduras we shall give him great honor, and acknowledge that he has done the world a service. Meantime we shall be very happy to see the lake transit reëstablished.”

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There is no hope for the Central American States except by intervention on the part of some government capable of protecting them.