Part 7

The reception of the President on his return to the country after an absence of nearly two years was a royal one, and the journey from San José, the Pacific seaport, to the capital of Guatemala was a triumphal march. Of all the honors, of all the attentions General Barrios received, he insisted that Mr. Hill should have a share, and the blushing young parson found himself again and again on public platforms, with the President of Guatemala leaning upon his shoulder and introducing him to the people as his friend. This demonstration had its purpose, and resulted precisely as General Barrios intended it should. He meant that the people should know that he had taken the missionary and the cause he represented under the patronage of the Government, and expected them to show the same respect and honor he bestowed himself. He went still further. He placed Mr. Hill in one of his own houses, and there the school and chapel were opened. He sent his own children to the new Sunday-school, and notified members of his Cabinet to follow his example. He issued a decree to the Collectors of Customs to admit free of duty all articles which Mr. Hill desired to import, and in every possible manner showed his interest in the success of the work. The Protestant Mission became fashionable, and was known as the President’s “pet.”

The encouragement President Barrios gave to the Presbyterian Mission was an example the people were glad to follow, and the mission met with nothing but the most cordial and respectful treatment. The Catholics looked very sour at the rapidity with which the breach was widened in the walls they were nearly four hundred years in erecting, but they dared not utter even a remonstrance against those favored by the potent force behind the military guard. They saw the monks and nuns expelled, the churches sold at public auction for the benefit of the public treasury, and with a muttered curse against the power by which all these things were done, submitted servilely to his will for fear of losing what they had been able to retain.

Mrs. Barrios was the loveliest woman in Guatemala; beautiful in character as well as person, socially brilliant and graceful, charitable beyond all precedent in a country where the poor are usually permitted to take care of themselves, generous and hospitable, a good mother to a fine family of children, and a devoted wife, loyal to all the President’s ambitions, and an enthusiastic supporter of all his schemes. Like a wise man who knows the perils which constantly surround him, and the uncertainty of the head which wears a crown in these countries, he had made ample provision for his family by purchasing for Mrs. Barrios a handsome residence in Fifth Avenue near Sixty-fifth Street, New York, and investing about a million dollars in her name in other New York real estate. His life was also insured for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in New York companies, which, it must be said, carried a hazardous risk, as there were hundreds of men who lived only to see Barrios buried. Very few of them were in Guatemala, however, during his lifetime. They did not find the atmosphere agreeable there. They were exiles in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, or elsewhere, waiting for a chance to give him a dose of dynamite or prick him with a dagger.

Mrs. Barrios and her children talk English as well as if they had always lived in New York. While the President himself could not speak the language fluently, he could understand what was said to him, and apologized for what he called a misfortune, on the ground that he did not have the opportunity to learn it until he was too old to master its intricacies. But he required English to be taught in all the common-schools, and the children use nothing but American text-books. I talked with him one day, with his little girl as an interpreter. She was a beautiful child, about ten years of age, and when she said she was an American (which means a citizen of the United States) the President patted her fondly upon the head and cried “bueno” (good).

Several years ago there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President. A woman, who was the Mrs. Surratt of the plot, and at whose house the conspirators were in the habit of meeting, did not like the arrangement, and on the afternoon of the night on which the plan was to be carried into execution revealed the whole thing to the President. He had the conspirators arrested, and ordered the men shot who proposed to ravish his wife, but he pardoned his treacherous private secretary. The latter rewarded the President’s generosity by forging an order to the commandant of the prison to release the condemned men. He was arrested again, confessed his crime, even boasted of it, and was shot also. Several other attempts were made to assassinate Barrios. The last came very near being successful. He was on his way to the theatre, when three men, who had been employed by an ambitious politician for the purpose, threw a bomb at him. He coolly stepped on the fuse, extinguished it, picked up the dose of death that had been prepared for him, and remarked to his companion,

“The rascals don’t know how to kill me!”

The leader of the plot was sent into exile, but his tools were pardoned, and are walking the streets of the city of Guatemala to-day.

The prettiest and most picturesque of the native costumes to be found in Spanish America is worn by the women of Guatemala, who are of a dark complexion, nearly that of the mulatto type, but are famous for their beauty of form. A Guatemala girl in her native costume makes as pretty a picture as one can find anywhere. Her face is bright and pretty, her figure as perfect as nature unaided by art can be, and her movements show a supple grace and elasticity that cannot be imitated by those of her sex who are encumbered by modern articles of feminine apparel. Her head is usually bare, in-doors and out, and her thick black tresses hang in braids often reaching to her heels.

Her garments are only two--a _guipil_ and a _sabana_. The first is a square piece of cotton of coarse texture, covered with embroidery of brilliant colors and simple but artistic designs. In the centre of the _guipil_ is an aperture like that in the ordinary poncho, through which her head goes, and it is usually wide enough to constitute, when worn, a low-neck waist. The ends are tucked in her skirts at the belt. Her bare arms come through the open folds of her _guipil_, and when she raises them her side is exposed. Her skirt is a straight piece of plaid cotton of brilliant colors, like the Scotch plaids, and is wound tightly around her limbs. It is secured at the waist by a sash, usually of scarlet, woven by her own hands of the fibres of the _pita_ grass, and executed in the most skilful manner. These belts in their texture resemble the Persian camel’s-hair shawl, and often cost months of labor. Very often the name of the owner, and sometimes mottoes, are woven into the texture, and they are brought away from the country as curiosities by travellers.

Every article the Guatemala girl wears she makes with her own hands, and the natives of that country are as ingenious, industrious, and intelligent as are found in Spanish America. Even her sandals are home-made, and her little stockingless feet look very pretty in them. The small size of the hands and feet of the men and women is always noticed by those who visit Guatemala, and they are usually very shapely and delicately formed.

The costume which has been described is worn only by the peasants. The upper classes dress just as they would in New York, and the fashions are followed quite as closely. The women are very pretty, but have the habit of plastering their faces over with a paste or rouge that makes them look as if they had been poking their heads into a flour-barrel. This cosmetic is made of magnesia and the whites of eggs, stirred into a thick paste, and plastered on without regard to quantity. The natural beauty of complexion is thus concealed, and in time totally ruined. There is a Swiss lady at the head of a large seminary in Guatemala City to which the daughters of the aristocracy are sent. She has forbidden the use of this plaster by the young ladies under her charge to prevent the boarding pupils from destroying their fair skins, but over the day-scholars she has no control out of school-hours. Every morning she stands at the entrance with a basin of water, a sponge, and a towel, and puts the girls through a system of scrubbing that arouses their indignation.

The natives are fond of bright colors, and have a remarkable deftness in their fingers, which hold the embroidery-needle as well as the hoe and machete. The _guipils_ are embroidered in gay tints and artistic patterns, and a group of peons

returning from or going to market looks as quaint and picturesque as the peasants of Normandy or Switzerland. The women are short, squarely built, and very muscular, and carry as much load as a mule. Their cargo is always borne upon their heads in a large basket, and they seldom walk, but move in a jog-trot, with a swaying, graceful motion, swinging their arms and carrying their shoulders as erect as a West Point cadet. They travel up hill and down without changing this gait, and make about six miles an hour, being able to outstrip any ordinary horse or mule not only in speed but in endurance. It is a common thing to see a woman not more than twenty-five or twenty-eight years of age coming to town with a hundred pounds of meat or vegetables upon her head, a baby slung in a _reboso_ or blanket fastened around her hips, and several children from six to twelve years of age, each heavily laden, trotting along by her side. Almost as soon as they are able to walk, the children receive loads to carry, and the little ones come seven, eight, and ten miles to market every day or so, thinking nothing of bearing on their heads a weight that would be a burden to the ordinary man of North America.

The men do not carry their loads upon their heads, but upon their backs in a pannier, which is held by bands around the shoulders and across the forehead. They are wonderfully strong and fleet of foot. “If you are going to buy wood or hay,” said a friend who has lived long in the country, “always take the man’s load. You will get more than if you bought the load of a mule.” These men come into town driving ahead of them three or four pack-mules loaded with coffee, sugar, corn, hay, or wood, which they sell to the commission merchants or at the market. When they return at night to their homes in the country they never ride, but drive the unladen mules ahead of them, and many of them are so accustomed to a weight upon their backs that they place a great stone in the pannier to give them a proper balance.

Some are very fleet of foot. Barrios had a runner attached to his retinue of whom some tall stories are told. He was sent as a courier into the country with messages, and his average speed was ten miles an hour. This runner was kept pretty busy in war times, and was constantly in motion. Once he carried a despatch thirty-five leagues into the interior and returned with the answer in thirty-six hours, making the two hundred and ten miles over the mountains at six miles an hour, including detentions and delays for food and sleep.

These men wear short trousers, like bathing-trunks, and a white cotton shirt, with sandals made of cowhide. The shirt is kept for occasions of ceremony, and is worn only in town. While on the road they are naked except for the trunks.

When Barrios issued his decree that the peasants should wear clothing the country narrowly escaped a revolution; but policemen were stationed on all the roads leading into the city, and confiscated all the cargoes borne by those who did

not comply with the regulations and put on a shirt or a _guipil_. The peons pleaded poverty, when Barrios, who was as generous as he was tyrannical, furnished the cloth to make the garments.

It is a novel sight to see a native policeman wearing a uniform like that worn by the policemen of New York--helmet, club, badge, and all. Here extremes meet. Quite as significant and striking a contrast is often furnished in the picture of one of these peons, laden down with his pannier, leaning for a moment’s rest upon a letter-box like those used in the United States, attached to a telephone-pole; or one of the gayly dressed women, with a load of vegetables upon her head, dodging a still more gayly painted mail-wagon, the exact counterpart of those used in our postal service, except that the coat of arms of Guatemala appears in the place of the American eagle.

Barrios imported a sergeant of the New York police force two years ago, bought a lot of uniforms, and organized a patrol system that is remarkably successful. He put letter-boxes on nearly every street-corner, and had the mail carried to and from the railroad-station in wagons made by the same man and after the same pattern as those in use in the United States. He introduced the letter-carrier system also. It is not successful, because the natives object to have their correspondence carried through the streets, preferring to send for it themselves.

The military law of Guatemala requires the enrolment in the militia of every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and forty, and when Barrios issued his pronunciamento they were all called out for service. Even the hotels were stripped of servants, the business houses of porters, and all industries of laborers. Jesus Maria was the name of a male chamber-maid at the Grand Hotel, where all the work is done by men. Jesus was very patriotic, and made many vows, he said, for the success of Barrios, but he did not want to go to war, and appealed to all the boarders who had influence with the Government to secure him an exemption-paper. He could say a few words of English, and expressed his sentiments concerning the pending struggle in the words, “La union much grande; la guerra no good.” That exactly describes the attitude the United States took in the contest.

When the conscripts come in from the country, rag-tag and bob-tail, in all kinds of costumes, and usually barefooted, they are sent to the garrison, where each receives a uniform made of white drilling from the United States. About every twelfth one bears across the seat of his trousers or between his shoulders the legend, “Best Massachusetts Drillings XXXX Mills.” This rather adds to the beauty of the uniform, and there is quite a strife among the volunteers to secure trousers or blouses so marked. Each is given a straw hat, a cartridge-box, a gun, and a blanket, with which they were marched to the front at the rate of five or six hundred a day, while the streets were lined with tearful women giving parting words to sons, husbands, and sweethearts. The Guatemalatacos, as the inhabitants are called, are said to be the best fighters in Central America, and were inspired with an intense admiration for Barrios, who had never shown anything but a fatherly solicitude for the welfare of the common people. He may have been cruel to his political enemies, and arbitrary in his treatment of aspiring rivals, but to the masses, the poor, he was always generous and kind. Much of his strength came from the fact that he always shared the shelter and food of the common soldier. He never took any camp equipage with him, but slept on the ground, and ate beans and tortillas (corn-cakes), which constitute the ordinary soldier’s rations.

Although the hotels are clean, and have better beds and food than are found elsewhere in Spanish America, there is one peculiarity which is decidedly objectionable--the bill of fare is never changed. One gets the same dinner and the same breakfast every day. There is enough and a variety at both tables, but there is always the same amount and the same variety. First, at breakfast, there is always soup; there is an omelette, or eggs cooked as you want them; next comes cold beef or mutton left from the previous day; then beefsteak, usually with onions; then beans and fritters. For dinner, soup is first served; second, rice with curry; next, boiled beef with cabbage; then turkey or chicken; then roast beef, salad, fruit, and cheese in order. All the native food (beef, fowls, fruit, and vegetables) is cheap, but flour and other imported products are very expensive. The hotel-keepers are usually Frenchmen or Germans. You seldom find a native keeping a hotel, but if you do, avoid it.

The people of Guatemala have a peculiar way of preparing their coffee for the table. Every week or so a quantity of the berry is ground and roasted, and hot water is poured upon it. The black liquid is allowed to drip through a porous jar, and when cool is bottled up and set upon the table like vinegar or Worcestershire sauce. Pots of hot water or milk, with which the coffee-drinker can dilute the cold, black syrup to such a weakness as he likes, are set before him. This plan has its advantages, but it takes a long time to become accustomed to it.

The laundry work of the city is never done at home, but always at the public fountains, which are scattered over the city, and have basins of stone for the purpose. The wet clothes are placed in a basket and carried home on the head of the laundress to be dried. Every morning and evening, Sundays included, there is a long procession of washer-women going to and from these fountains, with baskets of soiled or wet garments upon their heads.

Sunday is observed in Guatemala more than in any other Spanish-American city. Usually, in all these nations, Sunday is the great market-day of the week, when all the denizens of the country dress in their best suits to come to town to trade and have a little recreation; but in Guatemala there is a law, which is respected and generally enforced, requiring the market and all other places of business to remain closed on the Sabbath. Sometimes a cigar shop or a saloon will be found open, and the hotel bar-rooms, or “canteens,” as they are called, do more business than on any other day but there is no more general business done on Sunday than in the cities of the United States.

All the city stores sell what is known in the slang of trade as “general merchandise;” that is, they keep all sorts of goods. You buy your canned fruit or sardines where you get your shoes or hat, and can fill an order for every variety of edible or apparel in the same establishment. An exception should be made of drugs, for the apothecary shops are usually kept by the physicians, who compound their own prescriptions, and the drug-stores in Guatemala, as in every other city of Central and South America, are usually fine establishments. But when you send for a “doctor” a lawyer comes. If you are sick, always ask for an apothecary or a physician. When you see a man alluded to as Dr. Don So-and-so, you may know that he is an attorney of distinction. The notaries draw all legal documents, as in Europe. Nobody ever asks a lawyer to draw a contract or a will.

The photographers of Central and South America are almost invariably from the United States, and there is usually one in every town of importance. The people are vain of their personal appearance, hence photography is a lucrative business. But customs differ. In Venezuela, or Havana, or the Argentine Republic, if a gentleman possesses the photograph of a lady, he is either a near relative or is engaged to marry her. Otherwise her brother or father has good cause to thrash him, or challenge him to fight a duel. If the photographer sold the picture, or gave it away, he is liable to be punished by fine and imprisonment.

In Guatemala, on the other hand, as in Peru, the pictures of the belles of the city, whether married or maidens, can be purchased by any one who wants them at the photographers’, and often at the shops, and the rank and popularity of the subject is usually estimated by the number of her portraits so disposed of. Codfish is a luxury. It is served at fashionable dinners in the form of a stew or patties, or a salad, and is considered a rare and dainty dish. They call it _bacalao_ (pronounced “backalowoh”), and the shop-windows contain handsomely illuminated signs announcing that it is for sale within. It costs about forty cents a pound, and is therefore used exclusively by the aristocracy.

The railroads in Guatemala are run on the credit system. Freight charges are seldom paid upon the delivery of the goods, but merchants and others expect three or four months’ time, and sometimes more. If a package arrives with your address upon it, the railroad company is expected to deliver it at your residence, unless it happens to be very bulky, and a few weeks after a collector comes around for the freight money.

The cars came into Guatemala for the first time in August, 1884, and have not yet ceased to be a novelty. There is always a large crowd of spectators at the station upon the arrival and departure of every train, and among these are the best people of the place. Twice a week, at train time, the National Band plays in the plaza fronting the station, to entertain the people who are waiting.

The Government owns the telegraph line, and charges low tariffs, the cost being twenty-five cents for a message to any part of the republic. But the cable rates are very high--$1.15 per word to the United States, and $1.50 per word to Europe.

The literary people here always spell general with a “J.” Barrios was the “Jeneral Presidente,” but after his pronunciamento “Supremissimo Jefe Militar”--Most Supreme Military Chief.

When a letter is addressed to a person of distinction the envelope reads, “Exmo y’ Illustra Señor Don John Smith”--The Most Excellent, or His Excellency, the Illustrious Señor Don, etc. One is apt to feel very highly complimented when he gets a letter bearing this inscription.

Everybody is named after some saint, usually the one whose anniversary is nearest the hour of their birth, and the saint is expected to look after them. When a man comes here who doesn’t happen to be christened after a saint, the ignorant people express their surprise, and ask, “Who takes care of him? Who preserves him from evil?”

General Barrios was always dramatic. He was dramatic in the simplicity and frugality of his private life, as he was in the displays he was constantly making for the diversion of the people. In striking contrast with the customs of the country where the garments and the manners of men are the objects of the most fastidious attention, he was careless in his clothing, brusque in his manner, and frank in his declarations.

It is said that the Spanish language was framed to conceal thoughts, but Barrios used none of its honeyed phrases, and had the candor of an American frontiersman. He was incapable of duplicity, but naturally secretive. He had no confidants, made his own plans without consulting any one, and when he was ready to announce them he used language that could not be misunderstood. In disposition he was sympathetic and affectionate, and when he liked a man he showered favors upon him; when he distrusted, he was cold and repelling; and when he hated, his vengeance was swift and sure. To be detected in an intrigue against his life, or the stability of the Government, which was the same thing, was death or exile, and his natural powers of perception seemed almost miraculous. The last time his assassination was attempted he pardoned the men whose hands threw the bomb at him,