UP AND DOWN GUATEMALA
I
From Tapachula to the Guatemalan border, there was a train every two or
three days, provided traffic warranted so much service.
It took me through a bamboo forest, and dropped me at Suchiate, a
straggling village of thatched huts beside a muddy river, where I had
my first experience with the formalities attendant upon the crossing of
a Central-American frontier.
First one had to secure permission from the Mexican authorities to
leave their country. In a whitewashed shed three leisurely gentlemen in
their shirt sleeves were viséing passports. Before they would proceed,
one had to obtain stamps, procurable only at another shack, located as
always in these countries at the opposite end of town, and reached by
trudging through deep sand beneath a broiling sun. And when, after half
an hour or more, one returned with the stamps, there were questions:
Why were we leaving Mexico? When? Where were we going? Why? What had
we done in Mexico? Why the devil had we come there, anyhow? What was
our profession? Married or single? How many children? Why? Where were
they? And how?
And when one had convinced the officials of his respectability,
there was another long hike across an endless sunny grass-plain, to
a palm-thatched shelter at the river bank, where other officials
ransacked the baggage. A boatman poled the few emigrants across the
swirling waters to Guatemala. And the entire proceeding recommenced on
the other side.
The Guatemalan officials had no office. They stood in the shade of a
pepper tree, flanked on one side by a squad of barefooted soldiers,
on the other by an ox-cart, and backed by the town’s juvenile
population. They pretended very solemnly to read every word in the
passports--although one traveler’s was in Russian and another’s in
Syrian. They paused now and then to shake their heads doubtfully
and exchange suspicious glances. But at length, when every one had
proved his solvency by displaying thirty-five dollars in American
currency--Guatemalan bills not being considered sufficient proof of
solvency--they passed us all. Baggage was loaded upon the ox-cart, and
we started for the custom-house, led by the soldiers, and followed by
the juvenile population.
There was another wait of more than an hour while the custom inspector
finished his lunch, took his _siesta_, and smoked his cigarette. At
last, however, he made his appearance, scribbled in chalk all over the
outside of trunks and suit-cases, filled out several printed reports,
and collected from each of us ten Guatemalan dollars--or fourteen cents
in American money--and the formalities were concluded.
We were officially admitted to the Republic of Guatemala.
II
From Ayutla, the Guatemalan frontier station, to Guatemala City was
another day’s ride.
The railway coaches, if possible, were just a trifle more dilapidated
than those of Mexico, but the train made better time. The way led
through a continuation of the bamboo forests, but it soon rose to the
cooler highlands, where volcanic cones towered into the clouds. One or
two of the craters were smoking, filling the sky with dense masses of
white vapor, and sprinkling the earth with a fine lava dust.
To all Central America, these volcanoes are blessings. Occasionally
the attendant earthquakes may shake down a city, but the lava dust
enriches the soil, and a good coffee crop provides the wherewithal
for reconstruction. The Pacific slopes of Guatemala are exceedingly
fertile. Coming from Mexico, where revolution had brought a cessation
of work, one noticed the air of prosperity in this little Central
American country. The hills everywhere were red with coffee berries,
the plantations were neatly kept, and the _peons_ all seemed busy.
[Illustration: THE ABUNDANT CENTRAL-AMERICAN VOLCANOES FERTILIZE THE
COFFEE FINCAS WITH LAVA DUST]
They were very small, these Guatemalan Indians, so small that they
suggested Lilliputians, but remarkably sturdy. They appeared to earn
their living principally by carrying bundles. Every woman on the road
was galloping along with swift, flat-footed stride, swinging her arms
as though paddling her way, balancing on her head a basket of produce
or a great cluster of earthenware jars. Every man had a load upon his
back, sometimes so much larger than himself that he resembled a tiny
ant struggling beneath a huge beetle. He supported his burden with
straps over his shoulders, and with a band about his forehead, so that
by inclining his neck forward or back, he could shift the weight. These
people showed no bulging muscle; theirs was the smooth modeling of the
Indian physique that concealed tremendous strength. They seemed never
to pause for rest, but trotted untiringly, serving as pack-animals
in the more remote regions for fourteen cents a day, and carrying a
hundred and fifty pounds for twelve hours or more.
They were the most colorful types to be seen south of Tehuantepec. Each
village had its own distinctive costume, particularly among the women.
At one station they were wearing short purple jackets that disclosed
six inches of bronze stomach. At another they were clad in tight
blue skirts, a waist of print cloth, and a wide sash of blazing
scarlet wrapped tightly about the hips. At another they were draped in
_serapes_ with a design picturing such confusion as might occur if a
bolt of lightning were to become entangled in a rainbow.
Guatemala is essentially an Indian republic. Among its 2,250,000
people--who incidentally comprise forty per cent. of the total
population of Central America--there are a million of pure aboriginal
ancestry. The whites are comparatively scarce. Yet this is the least
democratic of the local nations, and the whites dominate it completely.
The greater part of the country belongs to a few wealthy landlords,
either native or German, and the _peon_, although not mistreated,
has little to say about his government. But the _peon_ always has
employment. And Guatemala is prosperous.
[Illustration: GUATEMALA’S POPULATION INCLUDES A MILLION PURE-BLOODED
ABORIGINES]
One noticed that the train did not stop long for Indians who wished
to board it, as did trains in Mexico. If a wealthy _hacendado_ were
seen advancing down the road, the conductor waited for him. If two
dozen barefoot passengers were at the station, the engineer tooted
his whistle peremptorily, paused only for a moment, allowed them to
scramble aboard as best they could, and was off again.
After Mexico, this speed was startling. Considering the size of
Central-American republics, one feared lest the train overrun the
boundary lines and trespass upon the sovereignty of Salvator or
Honduras. But it stayed within its own domain, turning eastward, and
climbing out of the coffee-covered Pacific slopes to the pine-clad
heights of central Guatemala, landing us in the evening at Guatemala
City, 4870 feet above the sea.
III
To the American at home, all Central America is a heat-stricken jungle.
He invariably greets the returned traveler with, “I’ll bet you’re
glad to get back to God’s country!” As a matter of fact, Guatemala
City--like Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, and San José in Costa Rica, and
some several other cities in all these countries--has a climate which
no city in the United States can equal. It is pleasantly warm at
mid-day, and delightfully cool at night. The traveler in these parts
always pities the American at home, who freezes for six months, and
sweats for six months. He never can understand why the poor fellow
doesn’t let the farm go to seed, and move down to a decent climate.
IV
The Guatemalan capital is a pleasant city, but not handsome.
Built low and massively, it gives one the impression that it is
patiently awaiting another earthquake. In its past it has been moved
about from time to time in the hope that it might find a resting place
free from nature’s assaults, but another tremor always finds it and
shakes it to pieces. It was destroyed in 1917 and again in 1918. A
writer never dares use the phrase, “The last earthquake,” since another
is apt to occur before his book reaches print.
At the time of my visit, in 1924, its builders had apparently become
discouraged. Many of the buildings were still but a heap of crumbled
ruins. The streets were rough, paved with cobbles partially dislodged,
and marked with crazy trails which traffic had worn out in years of
zigzagging from curb to curb in an effort to find passage. The drivers
of the little old cabs worked their way along these streets like
sailors tacking through a tortuous channel, and only large automobiles
were in evidence, for the smaller variety so popular in Mexico would
have shaken passengers to death.
At the main _plaza_, the Cathedral was surrounded by piles of débris.
Since Guatemala keeps the church in the same restraint as does
Mexico, the Bishop could not afford to rebuild every year or two.
The edifice now stood with columns seamed and cracked, with dome and
towers completely gone, and with its greenish silver bells protected
by improvised board shelters. The interior also presented a patched
effect, and a ruined altar was replaced by a less ornate substitute,
but business was proceeding as usual.
[Illustration: OCCASIONALLY THE RESULTANT EARTHQUAKES KNOCK DOWN A CITY
OR DESTROY THE GUATEMALAN CATHEDRAL]
Guatemala, however, is the largest city in Central America. Its
population--estimated as accurately as anything is estimated in these
parts--numbers something between a hundred and two hundred thousand.
If a trifle crumbled, it is the most complete city hereabouts. There
are many shops, several banks, a number of theaters, and a host of
excellent hotels. There is local color in abundance, for Indians
in picturesque garb walk the streets, lounge in the _plaza_, and
congregate in the native market behind the cathedral, quite as
primitive as in the rural districts. There is electric light, a system
of mail boxes set into the house-walls at every corner, and even a café
with an orchestra at every half block for those who crave modernity.
These cafés are really a distinguishing feature of Guatemala City.
Elsewhere in Central America waitresses are usually waiters. Here the
waiters are usually waitresses--rather coquettish little _señoritas_,
whose smiles are served gratis with every order. The coffee-kings
gather there nightly to keep their wealth in circulation, and to bask
in the smiles. They drink somewhat immoderately, as in Mexico, and
wait patiently to the closing hour, only to learn that the girls’ own
parents call to take them straight home. But the coffee-kings are ever
hopeful. They come back night after night. And the cafés possess a
gayety that adds to the city’s attractiveness.
Neither revolution, nor earthquake, nor disappointment in love can
dampen the good humor of these countries.
V
By chance, on my first evening in Guatemala City, I was held up by a
highwayman.
I was rambling about unaccustomed streets, when a polite little brown
gentleman stepped out of a doorway, poked a revolver into my ribs, and
said courteously:
“Pardon, _señor_. Please to raise both the hands above the head, and to
tell me in which pocket I shall find your watch and your money.”
My watch was one of those cheap things which the traveler always
carries for such an emergency. My money formed a large wad, but it
was all in Guatemalan currency, and I had my doubts as to whether my
assailant would accept it. Back in Tapachula the Guatemalan Consul,
having viséd my passport, had refused the moth-eaten bills of his own
country, demanding American greenbacks, but finally compromising upon
Mexican gold. The highwayman, however, was too polite to refuse.
“I thank you greatly, _señor_,” he said. “Again I beg your pardon, and
bid you _adios_.”
Covering me with the revolver, he backed around a corner. When I looked
to see where he had gone, he was running furiously down the dark
street. He had taken a hundred and fourteen Guatemalan dollars, or
about ninety cents in American coinage.
VI
In any Central-American republic, one notices a “homey” quality lacking
in the larger territory of Mexico.
In these smaller nations, every one of any prominence knows every
one else. The capital is something of a Latinized Main Street. This
is more true of the little countries to the south, but Guatemala
is not completely an exception. Its provincialism manifests itself
particularly in the newspaper, which savors always of the local country
weekly, although a flowery verbosity gives it a unique distinction.
In Mexico City, one finds a press quite the equal of the American, with
a several-page daily edition that shows an appreciation of news values,
and a Sunday edition complete even to rotogravure picture section and
comic supplement. In Guatemala City one finds a little four-page sheet,
published apparently by some gentleman who desires an organ for the
glorification of his friends and the vilification of his enemies.
On its first page is the feature story of a party given last night
by the editor’s brother-in-law, Don Guilliermo Pan y Queso Escobar,
whose palatial mansion was graced by a felicitous gathering of our
most illustrious men and our most charming women, truly representative
of the very cream of our distinguished society, and so on with an
ever-swelling multitude of flattering adjectives. Beside it is an
account of the Commencement Exercises of the local stenographic
college--of which the editor’s uncle is the principal--an event which
seems to have been a complete success, for it was celebrated with an
éclat both artistic and educational unsurpassed in the history of our
city, and every number of the delightful and uplifting program was
greeted by rapturous applause, the audience sitting spellbound as the
estimable, virtuous, and pulchritudinous _señoritas_ of the student
body demonstrated their efficiency by taking down in shorthand, almost
word for word, the speech of the director, our sympathetic and greatly
admired fellow-countryman, Don Ricardo Cantando y Bailando Chavez, to
whom great credit is due for the distinction and finesse with which
the entire entertainment, and thus and thus, until the article closes
with a list of the persons present, the illustrious and distinguished
everybody in the audience who wore shoes.
On the last inside page, hidden among the advertisements, are the brief
cablegrams from the rest of the world, announcing the death of Lenine,
the invasion by France of the German Ruhr, and such other unimportant
events as the destruction of Tokio by earthquake, the election of a
new American president, or a war in Europe.
VII
Guatemala contained a large colony of foreigners. There were many
Germans engaged in the coffee business on the Pacific slopes, many
Americans from the banana plantations of the Caribbean Coast, a few
exiled European noblemen who had come with the remnants of their former
fortunes to live as long as possible without working in a country where
living was cheap, and several Old-Timers, all with the rank of General,
who had fought in the various past revolutions of Central America, and
were now resting upon their laurels.
These countries have long been the happy hunting ground of the soldier
of fortune, of whom the greatest since William Walker was General Lee
Christmas, who died at New Orleans while I was at the scene of his
exploits.
Christmas came to Central America as a locomotive engineer. It had
been his profession in Mississippi until a wreck, followed by an
investigation, brought out the fact that he was color-blind and could
not distinguish signals. Central America was less strict about such
things in those days. In fact, most of the old-time engineers are said
to have driven their trains with a whiskey-flask handy, and with few
worries about such things as signals. Christmas found employment, but
he became accidentally entangled in an insurrection, and formed the
habit. On one occasion, when he was driving an engine in Guatemala,
he is said to have received news of an outbreak in Honduras, and to
have left his train with all its freight and passengers standing on
the track while he hopped out of the cab-window and hiked overland
through the jungles to join the fray. His greatest exploit was that
of repulsing an entire army with a machine-gun, assisted only by one
other _gringo_, a Colonel Guy Maloney, now Superintendent of Police in
New Orleans. He drifted from one country to another, wherever a fight
seemed most promising, followed by troops that varied in number from
two men to fourteen thousand.
“He was a good scout, too,” agreed most of the Old-Timers in Guatemala
City. “He’d give you his last cent, if you needed it. He’d have been a
millionaire, if he’d saved half the money he got from the governments
he helped, but he blew it all in on parties. He’d get drunk with you,
or he’d go down the line with you, or he’d fight you--anything to
please his friends. He was pretty square, usually, when he held office.
When he was Chief of Police up in Tegucigalpa, if his best pals raised
the devil, he’d stick them right in jail. And when their term was over,
he’d give them a whale of a good party.”
His revolutionary habits finally became so annoying to Washington
that his citizenship was canceled. Broken-hearted about it, he came
home, assisted the secret service throughout the European War, and was
reinstated. When he fell ill from old wounds and fevers contracted in
Central-American jungles, many Old-Timers cabled offers of assistance,
and his old lieutenant, Colonel Guy Maloney, gave him a blood
transfusion, but it was too late. When the news of his death reached
Central America, more than one president probably heaved a sigh of
relief.
Guatemala City was filled with other ex-adventurers, all a little
jealous of Christmas’ fame, and all inclined to belittle one another.
They sat about the hotel lobbies, spinning yarns about “that little
affair down in Nicaragua,” or “that little scrap up in Honduras,” and
if I mentioned to one the story of some other, he would snort loudly
with derision.
“Don’t you believe it! He’s a damned wind-bag! Next time he mentions
getting that sword stuck through his lung, you just ask him if he
remembers the mule that got him up against the corral wall and kicked
hell out of him!”
VIII
Guatemala has had its revolutions from time to time, yet its
history--as compared with that of its immediate neighbors--has been
fairly peaceful.
If it has not had a succession of _good_ rulers, it has at least had a
succession of _strong_ rulers. Its Indians are a docile race, a race
much more easily conquered by the Spaniards than were the Indians
of Mexico, and much more easily dominated by the white landlords of
to-day. And the army, if not impressive when on dress parade, is one of
the most dependable armies in Central America.
In recruiting its soldiers, the government resorts to the selective
draft. The _Jefe Politico_--the all-powerful local official--visits
each coffee planter, and secures a list of the pickers who have picked
the least coffee during the past year. These, provided his soldiers
can catch them, are enlisted in the army. Once enrolled, the little
_peons_ are equipped with uniform, not very elaborately or neatly, but
sufficiently to distinguish them from civilians. In the Capital, they
are also equipped with shoes, not for efficiency but for the sake of
appearances. Unaccustomed to footwear, they have to be trained to its
use, and nothing is more amusing than the sight of a new battalion
thus shod and stumbling awkwardly over the rough streets. They look
uncomfortable and self-conscious, and at each halt will pick up their
feet and glare at the shoes much as milady’s poodle glares at a pink
ribbon tied around its tail.
Yet these little Indians, stupid and illiterate, make better soldiers
than the more intelligent _mestizos_, or mixed-bloods. They are more
susceptible to discipline. In most of these countries, virtue goes
with ignorance, to such an extent that the mixed-bloods are called
_ladinos_ in Guatemala--a word that originally meant “tricksters.” The
little Indians are far more loyal to the president in office than are
the _mestizo_ soldiers of the neighboring republics, and are less apt
to desert the existing government when an insurrection threatens.
Guatemala’s several Dictators, also, have been artists at the business
of discouraging opposition.
Of them all, Estrada Cabrera stands out head and shoulders above other
despots not only of Guatemala but of all Latin America. Until a very
few years ago he reigned for term after term, proclaiming himself
re-elected when necessary, and quietly murdering any politician who
gave the slightest indication of opposing him.
Why he clung to the presidency is a mystery. He was so fearful of
assassination that he scarcely ever showed himself outside the palace.
He slept usually in a house across the street, reached by a secret
passageway. He ate nothing except what his own mother prepared for him.
He would have a dozen beds made up each night, and only one or two of
his most trusted guardians knew which one he occupied. He seriously
handicapped the country’s mining interests by placing a ban on the
importation of blasting powder, lest it be used to blow him up. On the
one occasion when he attended a public ceremony, a bomb killed his
carriage-driver and the horses, barely missing the Dictator himself.
Since it was exploded by an electrical device, he thereafter placed
a ban on all electric contrivances, and visitors to the country were
relieved even of such things as pocket flashlights.
But from his isolation within the palace, he manipulated all the
strings of government, and all Guatemala felt his power. He personally
blue-penciled every foreign news dispatch that left the country, and
sometimes even the personal cablegrams. He maintained an elaborate spy
system, with one agent watching another agent, until every man in the
republic was under survey. He permitted no public gatherings where
people might discuss politics. He forbade the organization of any kind
of society, and once suppressed a chess club.
Quite possibly, he believed that these measures were justified. It is
affirmed by many that Guatemala made more progress under his rule than
at any period of brief presidencies. Certainly he did not follow the
course of enriching himself sufficiently in one term to spend the rest
of his life in Paris--a course extremely popular among Central-American
executives. And many an Old-Timer will say, “The old devil was never so
bad as they pictured him.”
But those who opposed his will used to die quite silently and
suddenly, and his enemies affirm that Cabrera used poison. One hears
strange stories about his political methods:
He is said on one occasion to have decreed the death of an American
who had incurred his enmity. To avoid international complications he
dispatched a second American to do the dirty work. The second American
went to the first, warned him, and advised him to leave the country.
Then he returned to inform Cabrera that the other man had escaped.
He did not know that a native spy, having followed him, had already
reported the meeting. Cabrera smiled. “That is too bad! But you could
not help it, so have a cocktail with me, and forget all about it.”
Three hours later, the American did forget all about it. He dropped
dead.
One hesitates to believe all the stories, for Old-Timers love to shock
the itinerant journalist. But certain it is that he kept all Guatemala
in terror of his authority, until many of the more ignorant believed
him gifted with supernatural powers.
In his later days, as in the history of most despots, he lost his
grip upon the country. He had made too many enemies. Every one hated
him, yet hesitated through fear of spies to be the first to proclaim
opposition. But the inevitable revolution finally materialized, and
Cabrera fled the capital. He surrendered on condition that his life and
property be respected. It is to the credit of the Guatemalans that
they observed their agreement, although lynch-law might have been more
justifiable.
One Carlos Herrera, a wealthy landlord, took his place, but he did
not relish the job as did Cabrera. After a few months, when some one
else started a revolution, he made no objection. It was comparatively
bloodless. A few policemen were the only casualties. They had not
been informed that a revolution was scheduled, and when they saw the
mobs surging up the street, undertook to quell what they considered
a disorderly scene. One completely organized government went out
overnight, and another completely organized government came in.
Shooting was by way of celebration. An American who had an engagement
with Herrera the next day went to the palace, and inquired, “Is Herrera
in?” and received the answer, “Herrera’s out; Orellana’s in.” Only one
man was arrested. He landed in Puerto Barrios, the north coast port,
with a cheerful jag, and cabled Herrera, “On arriving in your beautiful
country, I hasten to salute you and to wish you a long life and a merry
one.” The new government arrested him for treason, but released him as
soon as he proved his ignorance that a revolution had transpired.
[Illustration: WHEN ORELLANA STARTED A REVOLUTION, PRESIDENT HERRERA
MADE NO STRENUOUS OBJECTION]
[Illustration: THE ONLY CASUALTIES WERE A FEW POLICEMEN WHO MISTOOK THE
REVOLUTION FOR A DISORDERLY DEMONSTRATION]
Orellana, who held office at the time of my visit, was a former
lieutenant of Cabrera’s. He had occupied the seat beside Cabrera when
the bomb blew up coachman and horses. There were rumors afloat that
Cabrera’s brain still directed the government, but they received little
credence. Another story, purely humorous, was that on the night when
Orellana overthrew Herrera, the ex-Dictator started to pile all his
furniture against the door of his room.
“But, sir,” protested a servant, “these are your own friends coming
back into power.”
“That’s why I’m doing this,” said Cabrera. “I know those fellows!”
Cabrera’s house was a fortress-like structure of unassuming exterior.
An old man now, he was still following his life-long policy of
retirement from the public gaze, and a guard of soldiers was present to
see that he remained in retirement. The family came and went freely,
but the ex-Dictator never showed his face. If he had done so, some one
might have taken a shot at it. He probably welcomed the guard for its
protection.
Orellana, despite his former connection with Cabrera, was proving a
more lenient president. Clubs were now thriving, and the people might
congregate where they pleased. Poison had been abolished as a function
of government. And men might discuss politics without being shot.
Few, however, publicly suggested a change of president. With all its
comparative liberality, the new régime was ruling with an iron hand
characteristic of Guatemalan governments. Shortly before my visit,
Orellana had chased home a party of Mexican bolshevik agitators
attempting to spread their propaganda among the Indians of his
republic. A few years earlier, when his railway employees threatened a
strike unless permitted to select their own officials and to discharge
all foreigners from the service, the American superintendent had
told them to go to Hades, and Orellana had sent them back to work by
threatening to draft them all into the army.
These countries always thrive best under a stern dictator. Even under
the tyrannical Cabrera, Guatemala enjoyed more prosperity than it
would have enjoyed under a rapidly-changing series of get-rich-quick
presidents. For a land of illiterate _peons_, a dictatorship, if
exercised with justice, is always the most satisfactory form of
government, except to politicians out of office.
IX
The two principal products of Central America are coffee and bananas.
The Central-American remains in the cool highlands of the Pacific
coast, and raises the coffee. To the invading foreigner he cedes the
lowlands of the Caribbean for the culture of the bananas.
In Guatemala, it was a day’s railway journey from coffee country to
banana country--first through a stretch of magnificent scenery, of
forested mountains, and of rugged gorges spanned by several of
the world’s highest railway bridges--then through a tedious expanse
of desert, where the woodland gave way to scraggly cactus, and the
mountains (although still majestic and piled one atop another until
they reached the clouds) were swept by a fitful wind that blew gustily,
transferring the sand from the landscape to the eye--and finally down
among the swampy, jungle-grown lowlands of the coastal plains, into the
empire of the United Fruit Company.
The stucco dwellings of moorish design gradually gave way to wooden
shanties, and Guatemalan natives to West Indian blacks. Years ago,
before sanitary engineering made the tropics liveable, the inhabitants
of this region had retired to the cooler highlands, where snakes and
fever were less abundant. To-day the greater part of the East Coast,
all the way from Guatemala to Panama, is in the hands of the United
Fruit Company or its several minor competitors. Except in Guatemala or
Costa Rica, which have rail connection from ocean to ocean, banana-land
is closer to New Orleans than to the capital of its own country.
It is peopled with a few American or English bosses, and a host of
imported negroes. Its prevailing language is English. And it bears more
resemblance to Africa than to the Central America of which it is a part.
A young English superintendent met me at Quiriguá, one of the
United Fruit Company’s plantations, and conducted me to a cottage
with screened verandas, where one might have fancied himself in
the Americanized Canal Zone. The camp was neatly laid out, with
well-trimmed grass-plots and cement walks lined by rows of yellow
croton and red hibiscus and shaded by coco-palms or breadfruit trees.
Each superintendent had his own cottage; there was a large hotel for
the lesser _gringo_ employees; the local hospital was the largest
and best-appointed in Central America; everywhere one observed that
orderliness and modernity wherewith the Anglo-Saxon is constantly
abolishing the local color of all foreign lands.
On all sides of the camp the banana groves extended as far as the
eye could follow them, like a rank uncut lawn of brilliant green.
Narrow-gage tracks wandered out in all directions through the lanes of
trees, and many _gringo_ bosses--all clean-cut young fellows, neatly
dressed in khaki, who did their bit to destroy the fictional romance of
the tropics by shaving each morning and donning a white collar--were
spinning along the rails upon motor-cars on their way to work.
Many years ago, one Minor C. Keith, while building a railway in
Costa Rica, hit upon the idea of planting bananas along the line in
order to provide freight for his own road. When, during a financial
panic, he was unable to pay his laborers, he performed the miracle
of persuading them to work for nine months without salary. He and
his assistants drained swamps and practically eliminated malaria long
before our Canal Zone doctors learned to combat the fever-carrying
mosquito. He formed a partnership with one Andrew W. Preston, the first
man to transport bananas in any quantity to the United States, and
out of that combination grew the United Fruit Company, which to-day
has plantations in Jamaica, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras,
Guatemala, and British Honduras, and controls the banana industry of
the world. It owns railways throughout Central America, and operates
its own line of ships. It is said to make and unmake governments,
although no one ever proves the accusation. It escapes prosecution
in American courts as a monopoly because its properties are mostly
located in foreign countries. But it has developed a large section of
jungle-land that once was considered worthless and uninhabitable; the
money it pays in taxes for its concessions is the mainstay of more than
one Central-American nation’s finances; and it supplies the world with
bananas on a policy of “small profits on a tremendous scale.”
Guatemala is one of its smallest production sources, and Quiriguá is
one of its smallest Guatemalan plantations, yet I spent an entire day
riding through the banana groves on a motor-car with a superintendent,
and saw but a small part of them.
“The banana’s the easiest thing on earth to grow,” explained my guide,
as the little car hummed over the endless tracks. “You just select the
right land--the silt of some river bottom--and burn off the jungle.
Then you plant them--using the suckers, or bulbs that spring up around
an old tree--set them out in rows. And there’s nothing more to do
except keep them clear of brush. In eight months you’ve got bananas.
The main problem is to pick them just green enough so they’ll ripen by
the time they reach the States--a little bit greener for England--and
get them there when the home fruits are not in season.”
From time to time we passed a row of laborers’ shacks. Some of the
Jamaicans had brought their own kinky-haired women with them. Others
had found Guatemalan girls. A host of picaninnies were tumbling about
each cottage. Now and then one heard the rattle of dice, and a snatch
of music from a mouth organ.
“Most of the men are working to-day,” said the superintendent. “We
pay them by the job, and not by the week. It brings more satisfactory
results in a warm climate. They like it, too, because they can work
when they please. But this is a boat day, and we’ve taught them to work
on boat days.”
[Illustration: A BANANA-BOAT LOADING ON THE EAST COAST]
Negroes with _machetes_ were cutting down the bananas. A banana tree
is only a soft, spongy thing, like the stem of a huge lily. A blow of
the _machete_ would half sever the trunk, and the tree would bend,
bringing the bunch of fruit within reach. The negroes would hack away
the leaves, and remove the banana stalk carefully.
“When you cut down the tree, a lot of new ones grow up around it. Most
people don’t know that. They tell about a new superintendent here that
got all excited because the men were chopping down the grove. And we
always kid new men by sending them for a ladder on their first boat
day.”
One bruised banana will rot, and contaminate an entire ship load,
wherefore they were handled with great care. They were piled along the
track on a prepared bed of leaves. When the pick-up train passed, other
negroes shouldered each bunch gently. They might toss it aboard, but
other negroes caught it by each stem, without touching the fruit, and
laid it upon another bed of leaves.
“We shipped out three and a half million bunches last year--and when
we say ‘bunch’ we mean the whole ‘bunch’ and not just a ‘hand’ with a
dozen bananas on it,” explained the superintendent. “No, that popular
song that everybody sang at home was never heard down here. We’d have
killed anybody that dared to sing it. You should have been here one day
last week, just to see how sore everybody was when the cook had the
nerve to offer us sliced bananas for breakfast. Nobody’d eat them.”
X
Every visitor to Guatemala makes the trip to Quiriguá, not to see
the plantation, but to observe the famous Maya ruins hidden in the
neighboring jungles.
Like most famous sights which every one travels far to see, they
prove extremely disappointing. Their only beauty is that one has
to ride horseback through a swamp to reach them, and that they
are so completely surrounded with tropical forest, which forms an
ideal setting. The ruins themselves, although interesting, are not
impressive. There are some four straight columns about thirty feet
high, covered with intricate carving somewhat obscured by mildew and
moss. Each visiting archeologist scrapes off the fungus in order
to obtain a clearer view of the carving, and with it scrapes off
part of the carving. Near the columns are a few other queer rocks,
fantastically cut to represent a frog or a turtle or some other
creature, whose significance no one has been able to explain.
These are the work of the Mayas, who peopled Yucatan and southern
Mexico while the Aztecs occupied the Mexican tableland. While the
earlier people of the north built pyramids, these people built
temples and monuments of lesser stature, but with more elaborate
ornamentation. They possessed a system of hieroglyphics which have
never been deciphered. Supposedly, the ruins of Quiriguá were erected
to commemorate events in local history, but they are small, as ruins
go, and lack imposing grandeur. Few ruins in the world can equal the
marvelously-carved Maya ruins of Yucatan, but these of Quiriguá fail to
astound the observer. Near them, however, has recently been unearthed
a fortress upon a hilltop, a very rude fortress of small stones,
and scientists believe that marvelous discoveries may yet be made
by excavation--possibly of a great Maya City buried long ago by the
rotting jungles.
Guatemala has only very recently taken an interest in her past. In the
capital I had met a Dr. T. T. Waterman, now the official archeologist
of the Guatemalan government, who had just brought to light on the
Pacific Coast some ancient carvings more impressive to me than those of
Quiriguá.
“I wouldn’t say I discovered them,” he explained, as he showed me
photographs of statuary wherein faces and figures were not the
fantastic work usually performed by primitive artists, but extremely
real and life-like--altogether quite the best sculpture that I had seen
in these countries.
“In fact, I didn’t discover them,” Dr. Waterman continued.
“Ex-president Herrera did. They were on his coffee finca at Pantaleon.
They happened to be on good farming land, so he dumped them all on his
rubbish heap. That’s where I found them.”
When the bosses at Quiriguá heard this story, they looked at their own
monuments--which tourists came miles to see--and shook their heads
sadly.
“Those damned things are on our best banana land, too.”
XI
On the train that carried me back from Quiriguá--through swamp, and
desert and mountain--from banana-land to coffee-country--I met an
Old-Timer. He had been so long in the tropics that the mosquitoes
refused to bite him. Like many another, he had the rank of General,
earned in some long-past revolution.
“These countries are changing,” he said regretfully. “I can remember
the time when there was nothing down here but thatched huts. All the
white men in those days were tropical tramps, drifting from one place
to another, but they’ve mostly disappeared. This Fruit Company won’t
give you a job these days unless you come down on contract, with a
white collar around your neck, and a testimonial from your clergyman.
“The tramp’s gone south. And now the soldier of fortune is passing. You
no sooner get a revolution started than the United States sends down a
gunboat to protect American property. Things are getting so civilized
around here, I sometimes think of going home and joining the Ku Klux
Klan for a little excitement.”