THE REVOLUTION IN HONDURAS
I
I started in haste for Honduras, but haste achieved nothing in these
lands.
One of the eccentricities of the average Central-American republic is
that the traveler has little difficulty in entering the country, yet
having entered, finds his departure balked by countless formalities.
Apparently the government is eager to welcome any one, but if it can
discover that the visitor is a rapscallion, is determined to add him to
the permanent population.
Slipping into Salvador through the back yard, I was not required even
to display a passport. On the day preceding my intended departure from
the Capital, I learned that I must call upon the Secretary of Foreign
Relations, and convince His Excellency of my respectability before I
should be permitted to leave.
A pretty _señorita_ in the outer office of the State Department ceased
powdering her nose to listen to my plea.
“_Cómo no?_ Why not, _señor_? If you will kindly return the day after
to-morrow--”
She smiled sweetly in dismissal, and having settled the matter in the
favorite Latin-American fashion, reopened her vanity case, upon the
mirror of which was pasted the photograph of her sweetheart, who seemed
even more important than this affair of State. Gringo-like, I persisted.
“How about to-day?”
“Impossible, _señor_. The Secretary is in conference. And the
Sub-secretary has gone home.”
“Where does he live?”
“_Quién sabe?_ Who knows, _señor_?”
Evidently annoyed at my insistence, she finally discovered a clerk who
professed that he did know. He wrote out the address for me: “_Numero
--, Calle 10 Poniente_.” It was only the middle of the morning, but it
was already fairly hot in San Salvador. I hiked through sun-blanched
streets, only a few of which were numbered. At length I asked a
policeman for directions. He glanced at my perspiring forehead, and
assured me that I was now at the Tenth Street _Poniente_.
So I knocked at the proper number, and inquired of a servant whether
His Excellency were at home. I learned that he was. A colored gentleman
in pajamas rose from a hammock in the _patio_, and shook hands very
cordially. Not to be outdone in politeness, I made an elaborate speech,
emphasizing my regret at having to leave his delightful country, and
begging that he would do me the favor to grant permission.
“The permission is yours, _señor_!”
“Do I not require your visé on my passport?”
“Not mine, _señor_, but that of the Sub-Secretary of Foreign Relations.
I am only an humble employee of the street-cleaning department. But
_muchas gracias_ for your visit. Always my house is yours, at Numero
--, _Seventh_ Street _Poniente_.”
When I did reach the _Tenth_ Street _Poniente_, it was to discover that
the address given me at the State Department was wrong. His Excellency
lived somewhere else. But at last, after four hours of a house-to-house
canvass, I found him. Having obtained the necessary visé, I caught the
first train to La Unión, on the Gulf of Fonseca, from which one could
look across a strip of blue water and see the hills of Honduras itself.
“How soon can I catch a boat?” I inquired.
The citizens of La Unión shrugged their shoulders.
“Perhaps the day after to-morrow, _señor_, or the day after that.
But _quién sabe_? In the meantime you had better visit the local
_commandante_ to secure permission.”
II
As a matter of fact, the boat did not leave for several days.
La Unión was the usual type of Central-American port town--a colorless,
uninteresting little city, with numerous buzzards hopping about its
mud-flats, as hot as blazes, and devoid of entertainment.
I was welcomed at a small hotel with an inquiry as to whether I
possessed a watch. No one knew the time. But since it was growing dark,
the proprietor assumed that it was nearing the hour for supper. A
slatternly maid brought out some tableware that had barely survived the
last earthquake, and served the usual Central-American meal of beans,
rice, beans, chicken, beans, coffee, and more beans.
On the hotel wall a notice proclaimed that this establishment was
preferred not only by tourists, but by people of good taste. Its
principal attraction seemed to be Berta, its beautiful bar-maid. Berta,
although a rather dark-complexioned young person, had a pleasant smile
that revealed the whitest of teeth. She took great care of those teeth.
At five-minute intervals, she rinsed them with a glass of water, and
expectorated upon the bar-room floor. The town bachelors spent most of
their idle hours--about sixteen each day--whispering sweet nothings to
Berta, to which she smiled roguishly but shook her head. Such was her
popularity that she had never learned to open a beer bottle. Whenever
a patron wished a drink, Berta had only to glance toward the group of
idlers, and some energetic young man would step forward to open the
bottle by chewing off the top.
Berta was studying English. She would sit on the counter, with a book
before her, reciting: “Wan, too, tree, fo-ur, fivvy, sixxy, ay-it,
tenny.” The proprietor’s wife sat beside her in a large armchair,
examining my photographs with untiring interest. She was rather stout,
and inclined either to head-ache or stomach-ache or both. She fanned
herself with a palm-leaf fan, and groaned, and exclaimed from time
to time, “Ay! What heat it is making to-day!” She would hold up each
photograph, and inquire, “What is this?” The inscription was written
on the back of each, but the _Señora_ did not read Spanish, much less
English. Berta always interpreted for her, with fantastic results:
“A tee-pee-cal stritty sinny een Gua-te-ma-la.” Then she would smile
again, and the scowls of the local swain would suggest that if the boat
did not sail pretty soon for Honduras, the village buzzards would have
a change of diet.
III
When the launch did leave for Honduras, there was further formality.
It was scheduled to depart _a las nueve en punto_--at nine o’clock
sharp--with much verbal emphasis on the _sharp_. A squad of Salvadorean
soldiers manned the dock, and halted me at my approach. My baggage
was placed in the office, and the door locked, and I was motioned to
a bench. Stevedores were loading the diminutive vessel with a set of
dilapidated furniture, which did not appear worth transporting from one
place to another, but which was being appraised by a pompous official,
and duly taxed, while its owner waved his hands and proclaimed that
he was being robbed. Official and owner finally adjourned to the
governor’s residence to settle the dispute, and did not reappear until
nearly noon.
Meanwhile the passengers waited. Cargo difficulties having been
adjusted, the pompous official called each of us to the office in
turn, collected a small fee, and took our names and histories. He then
compiled a list, and sent it away to be typewritten for presentation
to the _commandante_ of police. After another hour or two, the list
reappeared, covered with huge red seals, and flowing signatures. There
followed next a minute inspection of baggage, which, in other lands,
occurs only when one enters the country. My notes aroused suspicion.
The inspector examined each page, pretending to read it. Was I carrying
away the country’s military secrets? The eight barefoot soldiers
gathered closer, and glared suspiciously. These secrets were important.
But at last we were permitted to embark, still with formality. The
soldiers lined up before the gangway. The official read our names from
the list, and we embarked one by one, surveyed by the accusing eyes
of authority. The captain of the launch took the wheel, and jangled a
bell as a signal to the engineer three feet behind him; the engineer
jangled another bell to let the captain know he had understood the
signal correctly. And we were off for Honduras, visible just across the
bay--at some hour of mid-afternoon _en punto_.
IV
It was a brief voyage, through island-dotted waters alive with pelicans
and seagulls, to Amapala, the one Honduranean port of entry on the
Pacific, situated upon a volcanic island.
Another official glanced idly at my passport, and waved aside my
baggage without examining it. Several weeks later, when I departed,
the same official was to raise as much rumpus as the Salvadorean
authorities had raised, but to-day he offered no difficulties. Within
a few minutes, we were all back in the launch, chugging toward the
mainland, to San Lorenzo, where commenced the automobile road to the
Honduran capital.
Arriving too late to catch the daily truck, we settled ourselves for
the night. San Lorenzo was merely a ramshackle village of thatched huts
in the jungle, a village in keeping with Honduras’ reputation as the
most backward country in Central America.
Two Chinamen, however, had opened a neat little hotel there, and
were ready for business. And there was entertainment in plenty,
for Hop On and Hop Off, co-proprietors of the establishment, were
engaged in discharging their native servant. The Honduranean, a big,
niggerish-looking fellow with murder in his eye--in both eyes, to be
accurate--was objecting to being discharged. He kept slouching from
table to table, picking up dishes, and smashing them on the floor.
Hop On and Hop Off were going frantic with rage at each new act of
vandalism, but neither of them was of heroic stature, wherefore they
resorted to strategy rather than force. They had taken shelter behind
two doors at opposite ends of the dining room, and would pop out from
concealment one at a time to shout curses at their erstwhile employee.
No sooner would the Honduranean rush at one with his knife, than the
door would slam shut in his face, while the other door opened and the
other Hop screamed curses from the opposite wall. Finally, tired with
the exertion, the big native accepted his discharge as final, and
strolled outside to tell his troubles to the rest of the village, which
had assembled to watch the excitement.
They were all ugly-visaged fellows. They lacked the gentle suavity of
the neighboring peoples. They might have been no taller than Size B
Irishmen, but after one had dwelt among the Lilliputians of Guatemala,
they looked like giants. A taint of negro blood was evident in their
features, for Honduras--which has a long strip of coast upon the
Caribbean--was in past years a favorite refuge for run-away slaves from
the West Indies, and its population to-day is the most heterogeneous in
Central America. Little tufts of goat-like whiskers on chin and cheek
did not add to their personal beauty. Altogether, this was the least
charming race I had yet discovered on my travels.
Having accepted his discharge as final, the servant picked up an ax,
and seated himself cross-legged on the ground before the hotel, hoping
apparently that the Chinamen might venture outside into the gathering
dusk. They continued, however, to revile him from the security of their
two heavy doors, until the audience tired and drifted away, whereupon
the quarrel seemed to die from lack of interest, and the Honduranean
himself, having tossed the ax away with a gesture of disgust, wandered
off down the street.
Supper was finally served on such tableware as remained unbroken. The
village prostitute, aged sixteen, then took the center of the stage,
and recited for our benefit the story of her life. While unfortunates
in most lands prefer not to air their sorrows publicly, those of Latin
America find a certain dramatic pleasure in so doing. For the next
two hours the assembled guests heard the tale of her marriage to the
handsome Sebastiano, of Sebastiano’s sudden death in an earthquake,
and of the long succession of gentlemen who had consoled her for
Sebastiano’s demise. Then some one bought her a drink, and she vanished
into the night.
Later, the Honduranean returned, this time with a shot-gun. Thereupon
the Chinamen bolted their doors, and everybody retired to bed.
V
I was awakened at 4 a.m. by a great pounding upon my door.
Bill, a husky American truck-driver, was going up to Tegucigalpa, the
Honduran capital, and desired company. The business-like Chinese were
already on the job with breakfast. We ate it in grouchy early-morning
silence, and drove off toward the mountains through an inky-black fog.
“I know every inch of the way,” consoled Bill. “There’ll be no trouble
unless somebody takes a shot at us, or blows up a bridge. They haven’t
started yet, but they’re likely to, any minute. Somebody cut the
telegraph wires last night.”
From time to time, as we raced through the darkness, stern voices
called upon us to halt. From the road ahead a group of hard-faced
natives would emerge into the glare of our searchlights, covering us
with rifles. They were the federal soldiers, barefoot and tattered,
with nothing to distinguish them from revolutionists. They examined
my passport, ransacked the cargo in search of arms or ammunition, and
finally permitted us to continue.
Eventually the sun made its appearance, revealing the most broken of
landscapes. The name “Honduras” means depths, and the land is well
named. A forty-five degree slope was considered fairly level here. On
such grades, the peasants had built their patches of cornfield. Even
these patches were infrequent, for the whole tumbled country seemed to
go straight up or down. The road itself scaled precipitous heights, and
twisted around narrow cliffs, where the least mistake of a chauffeur
might send a car tumbling over and over into infinity. It was all
ruggedly beautiful, particularly as we climbed into the coolness of six
thousand feet above the sea, where the hills were covered with pines,
but it was a cruel country--such a country as discourages agriculture
and effectually prevents the transportation that might open up its
vast store of mineral wealth--a country suited only for warfare and
revolution. And from the time of the conquest revolution has been its
principal product.
Bill, however, who had lived here for something over a decade, loved
both the country and its people.
“They’re all right, if you know how to handle ’em. Take that boy of
mine up there on the cargo. Mighty good boy. I got ’im tied up with
rope just now. Came in drunk and kinder ugly last night. But he’s
comin’ out of it. I’ll buy him a bracer at the next stop, and he’ll be
all right. Best boy on the road.”
Bill spoke always with conviction. He finished off each sentence with
ejaculations suitable only to the pulpit. Then he spat.
“I wouldn’t go home for a million dollars. Can’t stand the damned
sissies back there. Give me roughnecks! I ain’t got much use for them
society fellows. I’ve got a brother in Minneapolis. He was a regular
guy when we was kids. Could lick anybody in school. But he made a lot
of money and married one of them fiddle-ly-diddle-lies, and went all to
pieces. I came home to see him two years ago. He met me at the station
with a big car, all dressed up in a fur overcoat, and he says, ‘Bill,
you’re just in time for luncheon.’ I _looked_ at him. I says, ‘I guess
you mean lunch, don’t you?’ He took me to a regular mansion. Out came
the fiddle-ly-diddle-ly. He says, ‘Mable, may I present my long-lost
brother from Honduras?’ Christ! Why couldn’t he say, ‘Bill, meet the
old woman’? She holds out her hand, way up in the air, like they do in
the movies, and says, ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ God!”
He gave the wheel a violent twist, and we shot around a mountain cliff.
He drove along a narrow precipice with one wheel almost hanging over
the rugged gulch below.
“They took me down to ‘luncheon.’ One of them big English stiffs in
a boiled shirt came out and gave us each a little cup of soup and
a cracker. I just looked at my brother. ‘Joe,’ I says, ‘ain’t this
lime-juicer goin’ to give us nothin’ to eat?’ He says, ‘We’ll have
dinner in the evening; you’ll soon get accustomed to it.’ ‘Accustomed
hell!’ I says; ‘to-night I’ll be down in a restaurant, gettin’ a
regular feed. I’ll be eatin’ corn-beef and cabbage, same as you used to
eat. I ain’t sore at you, Joe, I’m disappointed. You was a regular guy
before you got them society ideas. But you don’t make a sissy out of
me. I’m goin’ straight back to Honduras.’”
He drove along the precipice with savage relish. Presently, as we
passed a little native farm in a rugged valley, he called my attention
to it.
“That’s where _my_ wife comes from. No fiddle-ly-diddle-ly for me.
She’s an Indian--pure-blooded Indian--but she’s white--whiter’n you
are--and a damned good wife, too. We don’t take luncheon in our house.
We eat lunch. _Luncheon!_ Christ!”
VI
No one having shot at us from the hills or blown up a bridge, we raced
into Tegucigalpa in the early afternoon.
Every one in the Capital was awaiting the revolution, but the city
remained unperturbed.
It was an old, weatherbeaten town. A river wandered through it,
bordered by high cement walls, and spanned by an aged stone bridge of
many arches. The streets were hilly. Sidewalks might be level, but
after one had followed them for a certain distance, one was apt to
find himself ten feet above the driveway, sometimes able to descend
by a flight of steps, but usually forced to jump or retrace his way.
The houses were aged and bullet-scarred. If any of them had been
constructed within the past forty years, the climate had quickly given
it an appearance of venerability.
The central _plaza_ was unattractive. There were a few palms and much
purple bougainvillea, but they were surrounded by a rickety railing
green with mildew, and interspersed with unattractive monuments. The
buildings facing the _plaza_ were of nondescript architecture. On
one side was a yellowed cathedral, with several varieties of weeds
sprouting in niches originally intended for images of the saints. On
another was a row of arched _portales_, of flimsy wooden structure,
housing several courtrooms, a barber shop, a fashionable club, and a
number of cheap saloons. On the other two sides were stores.
The most imposing edifice in the city was the Presidential Palace. It
stood upon the river bank, towering above massive ramparts like an
ancient feudal castle. From its loop-holed walls machine-guns could
sweep the old Spanish bridge. And from its windows the president could
maintain a watchful eye upon the National Treasury across the street--a
dilapidated old building whose contents at the moment consisted
principally of a national debt.
[Illustration: FROM HIS PALACE THE PRESIDENT COULD WATCH THE TREASURY
TO SEE THAT NO ONE STOLE THE NATIONAL DEBT]
Why any one should fight for possession of this city, with its depleted
finances, was a mystery later explained.
“The government took in eight million _pesos_ last year,” said a
well-posted American resident, “and only spent five million, yet it
describes itself as penniless, and pays only the soldiers and police,
keeping such employees as the school teachers waiting six months for
their salaries. Three million _pesos_, almost half the country’s
receipts, have disappeared. That’s why everybody is constantly
squabbling for the presidency of the republic. That’s why Tegucigalpa
remains the most ramshackle capital in Central America.”
VII
The current political controversy was but a typical incident in the
history of Honduras.
The term of President Rafael López Gutiérres had come to an end. During
his two and a half years of office, he had weathered thirty-three
insurrections. He was ready to retire. But his fellow politicians,
although they had already prospered to the extent of three million
pesos, demanded that he follow the Central-American custom of turning
over his office to one of their own group, in order that their
prosperity might continue. And the President gave his support to his
personal friend, Bonilla.
At the elections recently held, there had arisen two other candidates,
Carías and Árias. Through some oversight, the President had allowed
a few of their supporters to help in the counting of the ballots. As
a result, Carías led with fifty thousand votes, Árias following with
thirty-five thousand, and Bonilla (the presidential favorite) bringing
up the rear with only twenty thousand. And although Carías led, he
failed to receive the absolute majority required by the Constitution
to insure his election. It therefore devolved upon Congress to choose
one of the three. And Congress favored Árias. To sum up the situation,
the people preferred one candidate, Congress another, and the President
another.
A revolution appeared inevitable. The President had declared martial
law. Soldiers were everywhere. One could distinguish them from
civilians because they carried rifles, and because when there were
two or more of them they marched one behind the other in the center
of the street, sometimes in cadence. A few had blue uniforms, a few
had khaki; most of them wore whatever garments they happened to be
wearing when drafted. Many were soldiers of fortune from neighboring
countries--professional scrappers called in by a President who
knew that his people were against him. They would stop me on the
street occasionally to ask that I lend them a _peseta_--twenty-five
cents--until pay-day, but they impressed me as a doubtful risk.
The city was ablaze with election slogans, scribbled with chalk upon
every doorway--“Viva Árias!”--“Viva Carrías!”--“Muerto Bonilla!”
Translated into “Live Árias,” “Live Carrías,” and “Death to Bonilla,”
they seemed indicative of the earnest nature of Central-American
political campaigns. All three candidates were now in the city. Each
had a troop of his followers living at his residence for protection.
One, who was stopping at the principal hotel, was surrounded by twenty
armed gunmen, who sat about the bar-room and the lobby, scanning
everybody who entered, and ready to take a precautionary shot at a
member of another party. Each had spies watching the others, to see
that they did not slip out of town to some assembly-point in the
mountains. Some day, one of them would do it. In the meanwhile, the
President in office kept a close eye on all three. From time to time a
detachment of soldiers would come marching through town, bringing to
prison a party of conspirators caught hatching insurrections in the
neighboring villages.
The American Minister, Franklin Morales, was holding daily conferences
at the Legation, bringing the candidates together in an effort to
reach an agreement. Each took turns making speeches about his love of
Honduras, his aversion to bloodshed, and his earnest hope that the
muddle might be solved peacefully. When asked for a specific suggestion
as to the solution, each seemed to think that it could be most
satisfactorily achieved by the withdrawal of the other two candidates.
Meanwhile, every one in Tegucigalpa ripped up the boards of his floor,
brought out the rifle and ammunition secreted for such an emergency,
and waited for the fireworks. And the time-scarred old Capital seemed
to be saying to itself: “Another revolution can’t do me any harm.”
But when I inquired as to just when the fireworks would start, it
developed that a revolution was as undependable as transportation
facilities had been.
“Who knows, _señor_? Perhaps the day after to-morrow, perhaps the day
after that. _Quién sabe?_”
VIII
I settled at a small hotel, where one enjoyed the advantage of intimate
association with a native family.
There were only two other guests, but the family was multitudinous.
A young man had fallen in love with the landlady’s daughter, and
married her, and had brought so many relatives of his own to live at
his mother-in-law’s expense, that they filled all the rooms, until
there was space only for three boarders. Just how they all managed to
exist on the trifling income of the establishment was an unfathomable
mystery, but they contrived somehow not only to feed and clothe
themselves, but also to keep a servant.
She was an anemic little girl in a tattered linen dress. She was always
smiling as she raced from one room to another to answer a summons.
Everybody seemed to take fiendish delight in calling for her. The cry
of, “Petrona! Petrona!” echoed across the _patio_ from morning until
night. Even the parrot had adopted the slogan, and throughout his
waking hours would screech, “Petrona!” And Petrona, always cheerful,
obeyed each call.
One of the other guests was a married lady, whose husband had sent
her to Tegucigalpa to keep her out of the way of an expected battle
elsewhere. With the extreme faithfulness of Latin-American wives,
she locked herself in her room, to which Petrona brought her meals.
She emerged only to wash baby clothes at the hotel pump, or to
scream instructions to her numerous progeny in the _patio_--a noisy
little brood of future revolutionists who paid no heed to her many
injunctions.
The other guest was a Spaniard, who had just come up from Nicaragua to
bring twenty-four prize game-cocks for Sunday’s rooster fight. He was
a tall, horse-faced, loquacious individual, who talked continuously
at the table, mostly in subtle smut. He was an artist at the use
of _double entente_, and had raised vulgarity above the level of
pure nastiness, so that it was now quite suitable for dinner-table
conversation in the presence of ladies. He was a jovial person,
predisposed toward the singing of love songs, to which he could wave
time with his knife and never spill a bean. If his game-cocks won on
Sunday, he was planning to hire an airplane and fly home to Nicaragua.
He intended to load it with beautiful women, and sail as close as
possible to the romantic tropical moon.
His roosters were tied to stanchions in the _patio_. They were
continually glaring at one another, flapping their wings, crowing
challenges, and straining at the cords that held each of them by the
foot. Whenever the Spaniard ceased his vigilance, one of the married
lady’s children was certain to unloose a bird, and watch him peck a
neighbor to death. But on Saturday the survivors were sent to the
arena, packed into individual compartments in a large wooden box,
and thereafter the hotel was peaceful. The box disappeared down the
street on the shoulders of a _peon_, accidentally inverted, so that the
game-cocks stood on their heads--an indignity which should have made
them scrapping mad for the morrow.
The revolution not having materialized, I went to the cock-fight. It
was held in a back yard, where a rude board shack had been improvised.
There was a dirt-floored ring, surrounded by a four-foot wall, and
overlooked by a rickety grand-stand and a still more rickety bleachers.
The ring was already thronged with natives, each holding a rooster
in his arms, and shoving it at another fellow’s rooster in order to
provoke the martial spirit. The birds were fluttering, blinking beady
eyes at other birds, and clucking loudly to express their irritation.
Back against the adobe rampart of the establishment were some forty
other prospective contestants, each in an individual cage, crowing
noisily as though he would proclaim himself the father of the largest
egg ever laid in Honduras.
There was much delay. It seems that the gentlemen in the ring were
trying to match their birds, but each desired to pair off his own with
one that could be easily licked. There was much argument, much waving
of hands, much indignant protest. At length it was settled. A little
fat man beside me commenced sawing off the spurs from a rooster’s legs,
and fitting thereon two sharp curved blades of steel. At the money
counter--a rough wooden board presided over by a tall stony-faced man
with heavy black eyebrows and the general air of the professional
gambler--there was great excitement. Men crowded about it, shouting,
“Two pesos on the red one!” “One peso on the _gallina_!”
The umpire--a well-dressed, impressive-looking individual who had once
held office in the Honduran cabinet--inspected the steel gaffs, and the
fight commenced. The two owners released their birds, and withdrew. For
a moment both cocks eyed one another. Then, in apparent indifference,
they turned away, and pecked unconcernedly at the ground, strolling
around the ring as though neither saw the other. They walked clumsily,
bothered by the long blades they carried. Occasionally they stopped,
raised their heads, and crowed. Then they resumed their pecking at the
earth, hunting imaginary worms. This, however, was all bluff, designed
to throw the adversary off his guard. Quick as a flash one turned and
flew at the other. They met in mid-air with a great flurry of feathers.
Back they drew, crouching. Then they were at it again, clawing and
pecking until the world became saturated with flying rooster.
The spectators went frantic with joy. They screamed applause. They
shouted advice at the contestants.
Again the cocks drew back, crouching. A wild yell went up from the
stands. I could observe nothing, but these fellows were experts, and
they saw the end before it came. For suddenly, without warning, one of
the cocks toppled upon its side, gushing blood from its trembling beak.
In a flash the other was upon it, pecking triumphantly at its head. And
the crowd poured into the ring.
There were other combats. The intermissions were long, and marked
always with much bickering. The fight might end in a minute; the
intermission was always at least a half hour. After the roosters were
paired there was delay for the fixing of the gaffs, delay for the
betting, delay while each owner brought in another cock to peck his
fighter into the proper rage. But these people could tolerate any
delay, especially if it were in the interests of the national sport.
When two cocks did not appear eager to slaughter themselves to make a
Honduran holiday, the wrathful spectators hurled abuse at them.
“Cowards! You are worse than hens! _Carramba!_”
But there was only one such pair. The others were game. They might
strut about interminably in their effort to secure an advantage,
but once they clashed, they fought to the death. Sometimes it came
unexpectedly, with one quick blow of the knife. Usually one of the
birds sank weakly on a severed leg, yet wriggled valiantly toward the
other, only to be pecked again and again until the whole back of its
neck was a ghastly wound. And two of the contestants--big strong birds,
with glorious plumage of many shades, and equipped with long, powerful
legs--hurled themselves at each other the moment they were released.
They met with a crash, and tumbled over and over, clawing and biting,
and rolling the length of the arena in an indistinguishable mess of
feathered warrior. The crowd was upon its feet. Men screamed with joy.
And after it was all over they hugged one another.
The little fat man turned to me:
“How do you like it? _Muy bonita, verdad?_ Very nice, what?”
“Awfully nice.”
“There will be others. We shall fight until dark.” But I strolled back
to the comparative quiet of the hotel. The Spaniard’s birds had all
been defeated, wherefore he was going home by the usual means of travel.
IX
A week passed, and nothing happened.
Rumors flew thick and fast, however. Every one discussed the
forthcoming revolution as a certainty. Now and then a _peon_ would
drop casually into the hotel to inquire in whispers whether the guests
had any ammunition to sell. He never used the word “ammunition,” but
resorted to harmless-sounding synonyms unintelligible except to the
born conspirator.
One noticed that the men of the upper classes were more democratic
than usual. Men of distinguished appearance would stop in the _plaza_
to chat with the barefoot rabble whom they ordinarily passed without
recognition. Politicians were now cultivating good will. They would
soon need this rabble as cannon fodder.
It was said that Carías would start _his_ insurrection on Christmas
Eve. The government, as a precaution against the assembling of a crowd,
forbade the holding of the usual midnight mass at the Cathedral. When
I spoke English over the telephone the day before, in conversation
with a member of the American colony, I was interrupted by the frantic
voice of a censor, clamoring that I confine myself to Spanish, and
shortly thereafter a police official waited upon me and put me through
a courteous third degree.
A later report stated that the government had taken five hundred
prisoners, and that the revolution was postponed. But an air of
expectancy still hung over the Capital. Christmas Eve--_La Noche
Buena_--was gloomy. A drizzle of rain fell intermittently. The street
lamps, never very bright in Tegucigalpa, seemed unusually dim. The
sidewalks were deserted save for patrols of soldiers, who stopped me at
each corner to search for weapons.
[Illustration: SOLDIERS STOPPED A PEDESTRIAN AT EVERY CORNER TO SEARCH
FOR WEAPONS]
On the night before, all had been gayety. Over in Camyaguela, the
suburb across the river, there had been a religious festival--_la
fiesta de la Concepción la Purísima_--the festival of the Purest
Conception. The Cathedral had been surrounded by improvised board
shacks where booze was sold. At tables in the open, lighted by flaring
torches, there had been roulette wheels and other gambling devices.
There had been music in the _plaza_, and the belles of the town--all
with white faces, but with tell-tale arms and necks varying in color
from a creamy tint to a deep chocolate brown--had paraded around and
around the park, while the young dandies fairly impaled themselves on
the fence-pickets to watch them.
But to-night gayety stayed indoors. Through the open windows I could
see an occasional tinsel-decked tree, but more frequently a _navidad_,
the old Spanish Christmas decoration--a triangular stage in one corner
of the parlor, covered with artificial grass, with a little cave at
the rear, wherein reposed replicas of Mary and Jesus. Other figures
filled the foreground, according to the family’s resources. There were
the three wise men, mounted on toy burros. There were tin soldiers and
paper soldiers, cardboard houses, cardboard trees, toy animals, toy
railway trains--everything imaginable--until the humble manger was
surrounded by all the creatures of the zoo and all the inventions of
modern civilization. The whole display was decked with pine-boughs and
thatches of banana leaf. Each family was very proud of its _navidad_,
and if I paused to indulge a traveler’s curiosity by staring through
the window--an impulse quite irresistible in these countries, where
windows open directly upon the street, and are left unshuttered by a
people whose greatest joy in life is to be looked at--the family would
invite me inside, that I might examine the display at close range.
They were quietly happy, these people, yet they seemed listening always
for the first boom of the cannon. Nothing happened, however. Nothing
ever did happen in Latin America while I was present. From day to day
I had heard what sounded like the rattle of musketry, and had rushed
out to see the fighting, only to learn that the rattle came from the
ungreased wheels of an ox-cart lumbering over the rough cobbles.
At the Consul’s Christmas dinner, attended by a dozen of the leading
Americans in town, every one had had the same experience.
“There was a crowd gathering on the hill to-day,” some one remarked.
“The police came up in a body and dispersed it.”
“Did you hear the shooting night before last?” another inquired. “There
were several pistol shots, and then the burst of a machine-gun. I
wonder how soon they will really start?”
But the American Minister, from the seat of honor at the right of the
host, merely smiled.
“There will be no revolution,” he predicted.
“Do you mean the United States will intervene?”
He merely smiled again. Still, I felt that there was hope. The ox-carts
were sounding more and more like musketry every day.
X
Christmas having provided no thrills, Tegucigalpa looked forward to
New Year’s. On that day Congress was to convene to choose a president.
Whoever was chosen would probably be obliged to fight the other two
candidates.
In the meantime, I hired a mule and rode out to see the American-owned
Rosario mines at San Juancito, forty kilometers from the capital.
The trail was rugged, but it led through magnificent scenery, among
pine-clad mountains, ascending a ridge seven thousand feet high, where
the clouds formed a heavy wet blanket yet opened occasionally to permit
a glimpse of wild tropical forest below.
Most mining properties are situated in barren, desolate regions. That
of the Rosario Company, the largest silver mine in Central America,
is situated in a glorious valley, and from its neat white buildings
one looks down upon a misty wilderness that stretches away through
countless lower valleys, with a silver ribbon of water curling through
them toward the sea. Despite its isolation, and the one rough
mule trail that connects the mine with the rest of the world, it roared
with industry. There was a reverberating chorus of giant crushers,
the rattle of cars on many miles of narrow-gauge track, the crash
of ore-bearing rock dumped into the stamp-mills, the hum of massive
machinery.
“We brought everything out in ox-cart or on muleback,” said the
young-appearing superintendent. “We now have seventy miles of tunnel,
and employ eight hundred men in Rosario--thirteen hundred indirectly.
And less than thirty _gringo_ bosses run the whole thing. We used
to have twice the force, but we’ve cut it down. There’s efficiency,
nowadays, even forty kilometers from a town in Honduras. We turned out
two million ounces of silver this year.”
The _gringo_ bosses were quiet, earnest young men, intent upon their
work. There were none of the roistering adventurers that one looks
for in the wilds of a Honduran jungle. They drank moderately--very
moderately, it seemed to one who had worked in an Andean mining
camp--and never carried revolvers, except when visiting the native town
in the gulch below, which averaged two murders every Sunday. They spent
most of their spare time in the club room--a comfortable room with a
big fireplace, pool tables, piano and victrola, and a complete library.
The camp was at an altitude of five thousand feet. The night was cold.
The blazing fire was agreeable.
“This is the tropics,” said one of them, “and I have to pay double life
insurance rates for living here, when it’s much more healthy than any
place in the United States.”
The superintendent drew me aside, and led me upstairs to hear his
radio. The blare of jazz was as clear as though one listened in from
New York.
“That’s Vincent Lopez, in the grill-room of the Pennsylvania. Wait a
minute ’til I get Schenectady, and we’ll have a bed-time story.”
Out here in the wilderness, forty kilometers from the nearest town, and
many hundred miles from a railway, _gringo_ energy had produced all
the comforts of home. And _gringo_ industry was furnishing much of the
wealth that flowed into the Honduran treasury.
XI
The real mainstay of the Honduran treasury is the East Coast, where
several American fruit companies own extensive banana plantations.
It has little connection with the rest of the country. A newly
instituted service by airplane now enables one to reach it from
Tegucigalpa in a couple of days, but unless one can afford this method
of travel, one must go by mule, and the journey takes about two weeks.
The several _gringo_ concerns have so developed the formerly
worthless, fever-stricken swamps of the Caribbean, that to-day
it contains almost half the population of Honduras, and produces
eighty-two per cent. of the country’s revenue, and both ratios are
increasing in favor of the Coast. Nearly all the revolutions start in
this region, partly because of its isolation from the Capital where the
government holds sway, and partly because in cutting off the revenue
the revolutionists can starve the government into surrender.
With every revolution--as in all these countries--come rumors that some
American company is back of it, financing a new régime as the cheapest
road to new concessions. The rumors are so recurrent that some of them
are probably true. But the Honduraneans as a whole are rather fond of
insurrection, whether started by foreigners or by their own countrymen.
Living in a country for the most part unfertile and unproductive, whose
resources can be developed only by much toil and trouble, they find it
easier to leave constructive work to the _gringo_, while they squabble
among themselves for control of the government.
XII
January first arrived, and Congress met.
I went to the Capitol with Mario Ribas, who was the Associated Press
Correspondent and the editor of Tegucigalpa’s leading magazine. He was
a Spaniard and a neutral in politics.
“If any one starts shooting,” he advised, “the quickest way out of the
building is that of sliding down the shed, running across the _patio_,
and climbing over the roof.”
The legislators met in a long, narrow room filled with plain wooden
benches. On the wall were the pictures of former presidents, almost
none of whom had been able to finish his term before succeeded by one
of the others. The chamber’s only real embellishments were the many
flags and draperies of blue and white that hung from the ceiling.
At the entrance was a company of boy soldiers from the military
school--none of them twenty years of age, but considered the most
dependable of the government troops. Their officers scanned every one
who entered the Capitol, but they knew Ribas, and passed us without
question.
The congressmen assembled gradually, each of them appearing a trifle
nervous. They wore high hats and Prince Albert coats, but a suspicious
bulge at the hip testified that each was ready for a possible
emergency, and when a coat swung accidentally open, one caught a
glimpse of a well-filled cartridge belt.
Still, the first day passed without disturbance. There was a slight
row when the august body voted down a motion to make some trifling
alteration to the minutes of the last meeting. The deputy whose motion
was defeated rose indignantly. With the amazing sensitiveness of the
Latin-American, he felt that he had been personally insulted. Furiously
he turned and stamped out of Congress, seizing his hat and cane from
the rack outside, and knocking down the hats of several other deputies
in his haste. They all rushed out, picked up their hats, wiped off the
dust, and hung them up again. Then the meeting resumed, interrupted by
other slight rows, as other men took offense because their suggestions
were not received enthusiastically, and followed the exit of the first.
Finally the remaining few sent a committee to inform the President
that they were ready to listen to his opening message. The cadets
formed a double line from the Palace to the Capitol, and the President
came in person, walking at the head of the cabinet and the diplomatic
corps. He was a worried-looking little man, and he walked with tired
step. Four bands cheered him with the National Anthem, all playing in
different tempo, a boom of cannon greeted him from the fortress, and
his boy soldiers presented arms at sixty different angles. The crowds
applauded, and I was reaching into my pocket for a handkerchief to wave
at him, when a firm hand closed upon my wrist, and I looked into the
hard face of a Honduran secret service man.
“Pardon, _señor_!” he said, as he saw that I had only a handkerchief.
“One can not be too careful these days.”
Then the President disappeared into the Capitol to read his message,
and the soldiers barred the gates to sight-seers.
“There’ll be nothing happening to-day,” said Ribas. “It takes them a
while to get started. Wait until they meet to-morrow.”
XIII
But nothing happened on the morrow, or the day after that. Congress was
still indulging in oratory. From time to time some one suggested a vote
on the presidential question, but whenever it appeared that Árias might
have enough supporters present to elect him, the adherents of Carías
and Bonilla hastily seized their high silk hats and rushed outside so
that there would be no quorum.
By this time most of the deputies were wearing two guns. Rumor stated
that one Congressman had also added to his equipment a _machete_, a
sword cane and a pair of brass knuckles. It began to look as though
_he_ might be able to settle the dispute. Then, by order of the
President, the military stopped each Congressman at the door and
disarmed him. And the indignant legislators were so incensed that they
refused to meet. The Hall of Congress stood empty.
Rumors flew thick and fast again. Carías had slipped out of the city
last night! He had gone to the east coast to organize his revolution!
No, _señor_, he had done nothing of the kind! He had gone to the west
coast. _Ay_, but he had just been seen at his dwelling in Tegucigalpa,
he was still in the city! Perhaps the revolution would start right here!
There came another night when the outbreak was expected.
“Do not go out this evening,” urged little Petrona, as she brought my
evening beans to the table. “You may be killed in the street if you are
not careful.”
But my experience in Latin America had taught me that it is always
some one else who is killed there. Having missed seeing so many
insurrections elsewhere, I felt it a duty to witness this one. And I
wandered through the dim streets, deserted as on Christmas Eve, and
gloomy again with drizzling rain. The soldiery were again on patrol,
searching me at every half block, even though they had seen me searched
by their cohorts just a few feet away.
No open windows gave me a view to-night of families gathered about a
Christmas tree. Doors and windows alike were shut and tightly barred.
Not a soul was to be met except the barefoot troops. Not a light was to
be seen except the flickering street lamp at each corner.
At the leading hotel the door was unlocked, and I pushed inside.
Instead of the usual swarm of native aristocrats, the only occupants
of the café were the bartender, a bootblack, and three _gringos_.
They were Doc, Sparks, and Pop. Doc had the little bootblack on his
knee, feeding him cheese, and teaching him to sing “The Star-Spangled
Banner.” Sparks was shaking dice with the bartender to determine
which should give the other his hat and go home bareheaded. Pop had
four bottles of whiskey before him, with which the party was about to
adjourn to his room, and he was covering the back of an envelope with
figures in his effort to determine how four bottles could be evenly
distributed among three men. Seeing me he threw the pencil in the air.
“Solved!” he cried.
And we adjourned to Pop’s quarters in the second story of the annex. I
had some qualms as to the advisability of joining, for I dreaded the
prospect of missing the revolution, but the other _gringos_ already had
reached the stage where refusal of such an invitation is considered
an affront. Arrived in Pop’s room, they listened to my protest, and
overruled it.
“You don’t need to see a revolution. We’ll tell you all about
everything that happened in the whole history of Honduras. What do you
want first?”
“How about the last revolution?”
Doc, elected raconteur for the three, assumed the attitude of a
high-school declaimer, and announced:
“The last revolution.” He cleared his throat, and commenced
dramatically. “I was standing in the doorway of the Young Men’s
Christian Association--”
“In the doorway of the Agurcia,” corrected Sparks.
“Of the Agurcia, when suddenly a machine-gun started banging down the
street, and the bar-room door went shut behind me, catapulting me into
the middle of the road. I picked myself up, and made a rush for the
W.C.T.U. across the way--
“For the what?”
“For the establishment across the way, and _they_ slammed the doors in
my face. I made a bee-line for the Epworth League meeting around the
corner, and the barkeeper there--”
He paused to pour another round and forgot to resume. He walked out
to the balcony with the empty bottle and returned with the sorrowful
comment, “Nobody to throw it at. What do you want to hear about next?”
“Tell him about the badger fight,” suggested Pop.
Pop had stripped off his clothing, and now sat naked on the bed, a
rather slender old gentleman, whose white hair still gave him something
of dignity. Young Sparks was crawling under the bureau after the
corkscrew. Doc, big and rotund, with cheerful ruddy face, again took
the floor.
“The badger fight. We got the Salvadorean minister to be the badger’s
second. He came direct from some diplomatic function, wearing his
top hat, and his long coat, and his striped pants, and his spats, and
patent leather shoes. We took him up to the hill, where we had the
badger-cage all padded with straw. The dog that was to fight the badger
was a big, ugly bloodhound. All the minister had to do was take hold of
the rope, and pull the badger out of the cage, we explained, only we
thought it best to put a stove-pipe over each of his legs, and cover
his chest with a baseball protector, and put a mask over his face, and
long gauntlets on his arms. You should have seen him in that get-up,
with a silk hat on top of it all. We gave him the end of the rope,
and said ‘Go!’ He was so scared, he forgot to let go of the rope, and
when we all started yelling down hill, he beat the whole gang, still
dragging behind him the old slop bucket that was in the badger-cage.
But he was game. He took us all back to town and bought the--”
Association of ideas brought Doc’s eye to another bottle, and he
emptied it into the glasses, shampooing Pop’s white hair with the dregs
of it.
“At-a-boy, shampoo it!” chuckled Pop.
And Doc shampooed industriously. “Gimme the scissors,” he commanded.
“Don’t cut it off!” protested Sparks. But Pop was game. “Cut it all
off!” he cried recklessly. The party was getting rough. Sparks seized
an armful of bottles and commenced hurling them from the balcony. They
crashed noisily upon the silent street. Pop seized a paper bag, blew it
up, and smote it with a loud, “Bang!”
If I were ever going to see the revolution, it was time to make my
exit. I ducked out quietly, strolled downstairs and around the corner,
and reached the avenue just in time to hear the excitement. A volley of
musketry sounded from the barracks a few blocks away. Policemen were
blowing their whistles, and running up and down. I chased after one.
“Where is it?” I demanded.
He was too busy blowing his whistle to answer me. More policemen joined
us, and we ran toward the _plaza_, colliding with another patrol
running from the opposite direction. Here or there a scattering shot
resounded, but one could not judge its source. We raced around corners,
up and down the street, asking other parties where the trouble was to
be found, but no one knew. At length the shooting subsided, and I went
home to bed.
The next morning I made inquiries.
“There was no revolution, _señor_! Only a couple of drunken
_Americanos_ blowing up paper bags and smashing bottles!”
XIV
Tegucigalpa was quiet again.
The American Minister drove past my hotel in a big automobile filled
with American naval officers in gold braid and cocked hats. The warship
_Rochester_, flag-ship of the Panama squadron, was now anchored off
Amapala. Admiral Dayton had come up to the Capital with his staff on
what was described officially as “nothing more than a courtesy visit.”
But it was reported that American gunboats were now lying off the
east coast ports, ready to protect American property at the banana
plantations. And it was humorously said in Tegucigalpa that the Admiral
was about to reconvene Congress and preside over it himself.
[Illustration: THE WARSHIP ROCHESTER HAD ANCHORED AT AMAPALA ON WHAT
WAS DESCRIBED AS A COURTESY VISIT]
“There will be much speculation regarding this visit,” suggested an
American at the Legation.
The Minister smiled.
“I think there will be no speculation at all.”
Honduras apparently had taken the hint. Just how the election
difficulties were to be solved, no one knew, but every one agreed that
they would be solved peacefully. Wherefore I caught the daily passenger
truck down to Amapala to continue my journey to Nicaragua.
But, as always in these countries, the unexpected happened. The
American warship, as soon as peace had settled upon Honduras,
steamed away. And a few days later the whole Republic was in flames.
Cable dispatches informed the world that Carías had slipped out of
Tegucigalpa, joined forces awaiting him near the Nicaraguan border,
and started back to the capital, that President Gutierrez had fled to
Amapala and died there from nervous strain, that the other candidates
were leading troops in other sections of the country, that machine-guns
were sweeping the streets of the cities, that American citizens were
taking refuge in the Legation, that the Rosario mines were calling
for protection, and that American marines were landing at the banana
plantations of the East Coast.
Such is life in Honduras!