Part 10

There is only one road in the country suitable for carriages, and that is seldom used except by carts. It runs from Grenada, the easternmost city of importance on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, to Realjo, or Corinto, the principal seaport; and over this road, which was built three hundred years ago by the Spaniards, all the commerce of the country passes. There is now a railroad along this highway; the Government has several times made loans to construct it, but the money was wasted in revolutions, and the track was not completed till recently. The road belongs to the Government, and is managed by a citizen of the United States. The cart road passes through Managua, and thus unites the three principal cities of the land. Over it have passed hundreds of armies and no end of insurgent forces, and the whole distance has been washed with blood, shed in public and private quarrels. Wherever a man has been slain a rude cross is usually erected, and it is common to see wreaths of flowers hanging upon it, placed there by some interested or, mayhap, loving hand. At these places pious passengers breathe a prayer for the soul that has been released, and they are so numerous that it keeps them praying from one end of a journey to the other.

The carts which furnish transportation are rude contrivances of native manufacture, and the design has not been improved upon since the conquest. The body consists of a very heavy framework of wood, and the wheels are solid sections cut from some large tree, usually of mahogany. They are not sawed, but chopped into shape, and are generally about eight or ten inches thick and five feet in diameter, and weigh several hundred pounds. The oxen do not wear yokes, but the pole of the cart is fastened to a bar of tough wood, usually lignum vitæ, which is lashed by cowhide thongs to the horns. There are always two pair of oxen--one to haul the cart and the other to haul the load, for the vehicle is twice the weight of its cargo. Two men are required to navigate the craft; one goes ahead armed with a gun or a machete, which is a long knife, and answers for many purposes--a weapon as well as an agricultural implement--and the oxen are supposed to follow him, while the other sits on the load and yells as he prods the animals with an iron-pointed goad long enough to reach the leaders. The man ahead assists his colleague by uttering constant admonitions to the oxen without turning his face, and between the two, and the squeaking of the cart-wheels, which are never greased, there is noise enough to deafen the whole neighborhood. The approach of one of these vehicles can be anticipated half an hour.

Each cart contains five or six days’ forage for the animals, as well as rations for the _carreteros_. They camp whenever night overtakes them, even if it is only a mile from the end of their journey. The oxen are fastened to the cart and given their fodder, while the men light a fire, make their coffee, and either lie under the cart or upon it to sleep. Most of the carts have covers or awnings of cured hides, which are lashed over boughs to protect the loads in the rainy season. The average rate of speed is about a mile an hour over a good road, but ten miles a day is fast travelling, owing to the amount of time wasted by the roadside.

The cartmen are invariably honest in dealing with their employers, and always render a strict account of their cargoes, whether they are composed of silver or coffee, but

consider it a privilege, which they have inherited from their ancestors, to plunder along the road. Nothing is too hot or too heavy for them to carry away, and accordingly precautions are taken for the protection of whatever is likely to tempt them. They have an unorganized union to protect themselves, and permit no impositions to be practised upon any of their number, or underbidding or other irregularities among themselves. They charge so much a journey, no matter what their load is, and persons having small parcels to be carried have to club together to make up a cargo, or pay a high rate for transportation. Many of the carts and oxen are owned by those who drive them, but others are leased to the carreteros by capitalists who possess a large number. The cattle come from the savannas in the south-western portion of the republic, where there are immense and nutritious pastures extending over the line into Costa Rica.

Although the mineral resources of the country are undoubtedly rich, its future wealth will come, if peace can ever be made permanent, from the development of the agricultural and timber lands. Beyond the mining district down to the Mosquito coast there extends a forest of immense area, filled with the finest woods, and it has scarcely been touched. The most useful timber is the mahogany, although there are kindred varieties quite as good, but not so popular or well known. It is more easily obtained too, as it grows upon the ridges and keeps out of the swamps, which are full of miasma and mosquitoes. The tree is one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the largest, that are found in tropical lands, commonly reaching a height of sixty or seventy feet, and being from twenty-five to forty feet in circumference. Timbers forty feet long and eight feet square are frequent, although so heavy that they are difficult to handle; and the only way fine timber can be obtained is by taking saw-mills into the forest and cutting up the timber into sizes suitable for transportation. This is difficult, however, owing to the lack of roads. Logs five and six feet in diameter are common, and it is said that the largest trees have the finest color and grain.

The mahogany is one of the few trees in the tropical forests whose leaves change color with the season, and the Carrib Indians, who are employed to cut them, discover their presence by this peculiarity. They climb the highest tree they can find, sight the mahoganies, locate their position with great skill, and lead the choppers to them with unerring accuracy. When the tree is found, the underbrush around it and the lower limbs are first cleared away before the trunk is attacked. When it falls, the branches are chopped off; then the log is hewn into shape, after which it is dragged by oxen--sometimes a hundred yoke being employed--to the nearest water-course, the choppers going ahead and clearing away with their machetes the underbrush and small trees to make a road. When the timber is rolled into the river, it is branded and allowed to lie there until the rainy season, when the waters rise and carry it down to the sea.

There are other trees of great value in the forests, and not for timber alone. The caoutchouc, or rubber-tree--a name which when properly pronounced sounds like the plunge of a frog into the water--kachunk--is very plentiful in the Nicaragua forests, although this resource, like most of the others, is comparatively idle. The Mosquito Indians gather some, however, which is shipped from Blewfields and Greytown in small quantities. The quality is not so good as that which comes from Brazil, as the sap is not reduced with any skill or care.

The average North American supposes that the rubber is obtained like pitch, and comes from the exuded gums of the tree, but the process is altogether different, resembling our method of making maple sugar. When the sap begins to rise from the roots to the branches of the tree, expeditions of thirty or forty men are organized, who are furnished by the exporting merchants with an outfit of buckets, axes, machetes, pans, and provisions, and start into the woods. The _uleros_, as the rubbermen are called, from the term _ule_, which is the native name for the tree, are always paid a small sum in advance, ostensibly for the support of their families during their absence, but which is always exhausted in debauchery before they start. When they reach the forest of the ule-trees they build a shanty of palms and brush, if there is not one already standing, on the bank of some stream, as a great deal of water is required for the manufacture of the gum. There they distribute their large cans and buckets through the forest at convenient intervals and proceed to business. When the _ulero_ selects his tree, he clears the trunk of vines and creepers and climbs it to the branches. Then he descends, cutting diagonal channels through the bark with a single blow of his machete, or knife, left and right, left and right, all meeting at the angle. At the bottom of the lowest cut an iron trough about six inches long and four inches wide is driven into the tree, which catches the milk as it flows from the wound, and conducts it into a bucket on the ground below. This is done with great speed and skill by an expert; and necessarily so, to prevent waste, as the sap springs out instantly, and by the time the spout is driven into the tree is flowing at the rate of four gallons an hour. A large tree will produce twenty gallons of sap, and will run dry in a single day. The _ulero_ having tapped a dozen or eighteen trees has all the work he can attend to emptying the buckets into the ten-gallon cans that are provided for the purpose. In the evening the cans are carried to the camp, and the sap strained through sieves into barrels. In Brazil it is boiled, but in Nicaragua the natives have a peculiar system of reducing it. There is a plant or vine called the Achuna, whose sap when mixed with that of the rubber-tree has the singular property of coagulating it in a few minutes. By whom, or how, or where this process was discovered no one can tell. Undoubtedly it was an accident, for the vine hangs from all the trees in the _ule_ forest, and probably a cutting dropped into a bucket of sap some time or another produced the result for which it is now used. Having their barrels full, the _uleros_ cut short

pieces of this vine, soak it in water, and small bunches are thrown into pans upon which the sap is poured. In the morning the rubber has turned to gum--about two pounds to every gallon of sap. At the top of the pan is a quantity of dark brown liquid, like a weak solution of licorice. This is poured off, and then the gum is rolled under heavy weights of wood into long flat strips called tortillas, which are hung over poles under the shed to drip and dry. At first they are white, like the vulcanized rubber, but with exposure they turn black and become hard after a few days. Then the tortillas are stacked up under cover until the end of the season, and shipped to market.

The cocoa or chocolate tree grows wild in the forests of Nicaragua, and when cultivated yields the most profitable crop that can be produced; but the republic furnishes but little, comparatively, for export, although its possibilities in this direction are almost unlimited. The most of the world’s supply of cocoa comes from Ecuador and Venezuela.

There always has been a prejudice in Nicaragua against foreign immigration, inspired and stimulated by the priests, who inveterately oppose all progress and every innovation. A number of German families are settled throughout the country, engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most of the large commission houses and exporters are English, while the hotel or posada keepers are Frenchmen. England furnishes most of the money to move the crops, as the natives are impoverished by wars or their own extravagance. The country will never be prosperous until its peace is assured and its population increased by the introduction of foreign labor and capital.

Like other Spanish-American countries, the national vices are indolence and extravagance. The common people never get ahead, and have no need of purses, much less of savings-banks. They might make good wages, as they are naturally good producers, but they always spend their earnings before they receive them, and are encouraged to keep in debt to those who employ them, as, under the law, no laborer can leave a job upon which he is employed as long as he owes his employer a penny. This system of credit, although it amounts to only a few dollars in each case, is equivalent to slavery, a peonage which is permanent; for if the laborer really aspires to be a free man, he is persuaded or threatened or swindled into renewing the obligation under which his life is spent.

The aristocracy are equally extravagant. It is a part of their religion, apparently, to spend their incomes, even if they do not anticipate them; and the latter is generally the case. Nearly every crop is mortgaged to the commission man before it is harvested, and the planter is compelled to take the price that is offered. The peon is in debt to the planter, the planter to the merchant, the merchant to the commission-house, and the latter conducts his business on borrowed money; and so it goes on, year after year, without cessation, each person involved spending as much or more than he makes, and conducting his business on paper, like speculators in the stock market, the country growing poorer each year, with no possible hope of redemption except by an influx of fresh blood and capital. The climate is delightful, the land is wonderfully productive, and the products always in active demand in the markets of the world.

The chief cities are pictures of desolation, and along the roads in the country are the ruins of _estancias_ that were the abode of wealthy planters years ago. Much of the destruction was caused by earthquakes, but more by civil war. The population in 1846 was 257,000; in 1870 it had been reduced to less than 200,000, and since then there have been disturbances in which thousands of men were slaughtered or driven into exile by fear or force. The whites, or those of pure Spanish blood, number about 30,000; the negroes about half as many; the mixed races, Mestizos and Ladinos--the former of Spanish and Indian and the latter Negro and Indian blood--are probably 8,000; and there are supposed to be about as many pure-blooded Indians upon the Atlantic coast and scattered throughout the republic. The education of the common people is neglected and left to the priests, who teach them nothing but superstition and their obligations to the Church. In 1868 a decree was passed making education compulsory and free, and providing for the diversion of a liberal amount of the public revenue each year for the support of the schools; but the law is a dead letter, and in no year has the amount assigned to the Department of Education been appropriated. At present there are but sixty schools, with a normal attendance of twenty-five hundred, or an average of forty pupils to thirty thousand inhabitants. There is a university at Leon, with an average of fifty students, and another at Grenada, with a few more, at which law, medicine, and theology are taught, under the direction of the bishop; but most of the sons of wealthy families are sent to Europe to be educated.

The city of Leon is the commercial metropolis, and was the ancient capital. In 1854 the seat of government was removed to Grenada, during the great revolution, which lasted for five years, and in which our famous filibuster, Walker, figured; and the people of the latter city would not permit its return to the capital of the viceroys. After fighting over the question for several years, shedding much blood and destroying much property, a compromise was effected by locating the headquarters temporarily at Managua, a smaller place half way between the two, where, since 1863, the President has resided, and the Congress has assembled every year. The public buildings in Leon remain as they were at the time of the removal of the capital, and most of the archives are there, the expectations of the citizens being that they will be needed for the Government again in the near future; but Grenada keeps a threatening look in that direction, and any attempt to disturb the present situation would result in another war, so bitter is the rivalry.

Leon is one of the oldest cities in America, having been founded in 1523 by Fernandez Cordova. Two years before, Pedrarias Divilla, who was Governor at Panama, sent to Leon, on a tour of exploration, a lusty old buccaneer, named Gil Gonzalez, with a few hundred men. He landed at about the centre of the Pacific coast, and marched across to the present city of Rivas. Here he found on the borders of the lake a vast population of Indians under a cacique named Nicaro, and called the country in his reports _Nicaro’s Agua_, or waters; hence the name. The Indians regarded the Spaniards with awe and amazement. They had heard of their appearance at Panama and on the Atlantic coast, but believed that the stories of their presence, which came from their ancient enemies, the Carribs, were false and intended to frighten them. Seeing the chief surrounded by such a multitude of savages, Gonzalez approached with great caution, and having captured a native, sent him to Nicaro with this bombastic message:

“Tell your chief,” said Gonzalez, “that a valiant captain cometh, commissioned to these parts by the greatest king on earth, to inform all the lords of these lands that there is in the heavens, higher than the sun, one Lord, Maker of all

things, and that those believing on Him shall at death ascend to that loftiness, while disbelievers shall descend into the everlasting fire that burns in the bottomless pit. Tell your chief that I am coming, and that he must be ready upon my arrival at his camp to accept these truths and be baptized, or prepare for battle.”

The cacique surrendered, and, with all his warriors and their women, to the number of nine thousand, was baptized. In his report to the King of Spain, the pious old Bombastes Furioso claimed the credit of having converted more heathens than any other man that had ever lived.

In the days of the Spaniards Leon was a splendid city, and there are still existing numerous monuments of its opulence and grandeur. The public buildings are constructed upon a magnificent scale and without regard to cost, and the private dwellings are built in imitation of them, being of imposing exteriors and luxurious in their equipment and adornment. There were seventeen fine churches to a population of fifty thousand, chief of which was the Cathedral of St. Peter, which cost five millions of dollars, and was over thirty-seven years in course of erection. It was finished in 1743, and is still in a good state of preservation, being built of most substantial masonry, with walls of stone eighteen or twenty feet thick. It is of the Moorish style of architecture, resembling the great cathedral at Seville, Spain, and is by far the largest and finest church in Central America. During the frequent revolutions it has always been used as a fortress, and its walls, although still firm and enduring, are much battered by the assaults that have been made upon it.

In 1823, during the first revolution after independence between the aristocrats and the Indians, there was a fire at Leon which destroyed more than a thousand of the finest buildings; and the flames were aided in the work of devastation by thousands of Indian soldiers, who plundered and murdered the inhabitants. This part of the city has never been restored, and long streets, whose pavements are overgrown with weeds and underbrush, are still lined with ruined walls that disclose rich marble columns and artistic carvings. In mockery of the former magnificence which their ancestors destroyed, the Indian peons are living in bamboo huts, enclosed by cactus hedges, on the sites where once lived the proudest hidalgos in Central America. There is a tradition that the town was once cursed by the Pope, because of the murder of an archbishop there, and this accounts for the succession of calamities from which it has suffered.

The ladies of the aristocracy are in youth usually pretty, and at whatever age are always proud. For some reason or other they consider their country far above and beyond criticism, and themselves superior to the rest of Adam’s race. Ancestral pride is so conspicuous as to be ofttimes offensive, and the fact that a person born out of Nicaragua seems to them to have been a misfortune for which no other circumstances can compensate. This is true among both sexes of the upper caste, but more especially among the ladies, whose exalted opinion of their own importance in the universe has never been tarnished by travel. This feeling has gone far to excite the existing prejudice against foreigners, and while the tourists are always most hospitably received, the fact that their stay is only temporary adds to the pleasure of entertaining them. The most rigid restrictions prevent the social intercourse of the sexes, and nowhere in the world is a woman’s honor protected with such great precaution; and for excellent reasons. No lady of caste would think of receiving a call from a gentleman alone, except a priest; and the clergy make the most of their privileges, according to common report.

The ladies are always idle. To do any sort of work other than embroidery is beneath them, and the number of servants they employ is regulated not by their necessities but by their means. They are all uneducated, the privilege of a few years in a convent only being allowed them; and those are spent in learning the lives of the saints, a little embroidery, to drum on the piano, and to dance. There is no distinctive national costume. The aristocracy imitate the Parisian fashions, while the common masses wear whatever they can get. The Nicaraguans are much more social in disposition than the citizens of the other Central American countries. They have _tertulias_, which is a near relation of a “high tea,” and balls more frequently, and are much more given to dinner-parties, at which one of the greatest of imported luxuries is codfish.