THE CARIBS OF GUATEMALA
In 1839, curious as to the rumours of general anarchy prevailing
throughout most of the Central American countries, the United States
Government sent a young Foreign Office official--Mr. John Lloyd
Stephens--to find out the truth of the matter. At first glance there
seems nothing specially alarming or hazardous about such a mission,
nor would there be nowadays; but, at the date of which we are
speaking, there were no means of rapid communication between the
towns, and many of the roads, rivers, and forest or mountain tracks
were in the hands of strong parties of Carib and Mosquito Indians,
Zambos, and Mestizos (white and Indian half-bloods), who would have no
more respect for an agent of the American Government than for the
colonists of their own country, against whom many of them were uniting
their forces.
Under the circumstances, Mr. Stephens thought it wisest to land at
Belize, and learn from the English officials there the best plan to
pursue. British Honduras at that time was not strictly a Crown Colony,
but was governed by the executive in Jamaica. The commanding officer
of the garrison, Colonel McDonald, received him with great geniality,
and entertained him for a couple of days. But he could promise him no
material help, he said, when once he was off British soil; he had no
authority even to lend him a boat or launch, and dared not take upon
himself to send an armed escort beyond the frontier.
"There is a Guatemala steamer starting up the Belize river to-morrow
night," he said. "I will send down and book you a passage. After you
land you must not rely on us"--the Colonel laughed--"in our official
capacity, that is to say. Of course, some of the staff are often up
country after game, and if we should happen to find you in a tight
corner on somebody else's ground, we couldn't, as private individuals,
leave you in the lurch. You've got a nasty job; Guatemala and Honduras
are both more or less in rebellion; so's Mexico for that matter; and
the Indians are plundering Government and revolutionaries alike. We've
had a little trouble of our own with the Caribs; you'll probably meet
some of our firing-parties, any of whom will guarantee you protection
as long as you're our side of the boundary."
The next evening, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by his secretary, Mr.
Catherwood, went on board the little steamer--a boat which an American
or English owner would send round the world with a ship's company of
six, but which, here, was manned by no less than twenty Mestizos, an
English engineer, and a Spanish skipper. The only other passenger was
a young Irish Franciscan, who proved very jovial company, and who
professed to regard the Indian risings as a mere idle scare. He, too,
was going into the first native territory through which the
travellers must pass, and offered himself as their guide thus far.
They could not have had a better, for his "cloth" was of more use to
them than a small escort might have been. Soon after leaving the
steamer they came to the first of the Carib camps. The Irishman
baptised all the babies in the place, good-humouredly "chaffed" the
warriors over their unwisdom in taking part in white men's squabbles,
procured a supply of provisions for himself and his companions, and
all three set off across the boundary into the more dangerous
territory.
They should by right have reached a Spanish village that night, where
they would have been able to obtain horses; but a storm came on, and
there was nothing for it but to wait on the plain till it was over. A
question arose as to shelter and fuel, and this was solved by their
seeing a sheep-fold in the distance. They came up to it and found it
untenanted; there was a hut big enough for three persons to sit in,
but too small for even one to lie in. For a fire, they broke down some
of the rails of the fold, from which they cut kindling wood, and soon
had a cosy blaze which defied the rain; they ate their supper and
slept on the floor of the hut, huddled together.
In the morning they were awakened by a loud chattering of men, and
Stephens, who was nearest the door, found himself being dragged
forcibly into the open, while he was rubbing his eyes and trying to
remember where he was. Catherwood sprang out after him, pistol in
hand, only to be overpowered and relieved of it by a crowd of Caribs.
But, at sight of the friar, the Indians hesitated and became less
noisy. He spoke to them in their own language, and demanded to know
the cause of this violence.
"These men have broken up and burnt our sheep-fold," exclaimed one of
the Caribs.
"Well, well; leave go and I'll explain. Give that gentleman his pistol
back; he doesn't want to hurt you."
"Tell them we'll pay for our night's lodging," added Stephens.
An explanation was offered and accepted, as were five dollars (about
the value of the whole enclosure in a country where wood was
plentiful) from the Americans; and the mollified Caribs led the way to
their camp, gave the strangers a good breakfast, and put them on their
road for the Spanish village. There they found everything quiet and
orderly, though reports were rife as to terrible doings farther west;
the Irishman obtained two good horses for his friends and bade them
good-bye, as their ways divided here.
"We're on our own resources now, and no mistake," said Stephens when,
coming to the end of the plain, they found themselves in the hilly
district which grows higher and higher till it becomes the Central
Guatemala Range, 13,000 feet high. "Let's have a look at the chart."
Colonel McDonald had warned them of the mountains, and had given them
a plan showing one or two deep river valleys, here and in Salvador, by
following which they could reach the Pacific coast without any
climbing that a horse could not manage. Upon this an Indian village
was marked at a distance of about six miles from where they now were;
and they might expect to reach it easily by nightfall, after allowing
themselves ample time for making notes of the country by the way. They
were tolerably sure of a civil reception and a night's lodging, for
their thoughtful Irish friend had given them a letter of introduction
to the resident Spanish padre of the place.
They made very few notes, for they had no fancy for a second night
over a fire of palings; another storm was threatening, and they
spurred for the village without further delay, arriving at the same
time as the rain. It was just at the end of the _invierno_, or wet
season, which consists, in Central America, of lengthy thunderstorms
at very irregular intervals. The priest happened to be absent, but
letters of recommendation were superfluous here; the travellers had
landed on a tribe of Caribs as different from the others as
yeoman-farmers are from gypsies. The others had been one part
shepherds and nine parts brigands; these were the agricultural
Guatemalans, descendants of the most highly civilised of the ancient
Indians, whom--by reason of their very civilisation--Cortez could
easily subdue in war, while the other tribes rendered his march
through the country anything but safe or triumphant. Their inoffensive
disposition made the Spaniards treat them rather as proteges than as
victims.
The only difficulty that presented itself was that few of the
inhabitants spoke any language but their own, for the tribe had, for
four centuries, resisted all attempts to force a new language or new
laws upon them; even their Christianity was but a hundred years old.
They entertained the visitors well, but could give them no information
as to the state of the country; they were not interested in the doings
of the outer world; they cultivated their cochineal insects, grew
their coffee, tended their cattle, and minded their own business. They
gave the Americans an unoccupied hut, brought them a generous supply
of meat, wine, and cakes, and left them to amuse themselves for the
night, with instructions to ring if they wanted anything; the ringing,
by the way, to be performed by beating a drum which they hung outside
the hut door.
Just before it was light, Stephens waked to hear a low cry from his
friend. He sat up and struck a light. Catherwood was lying with his
knees drawn up, hands clenched, and eyes staring, and, in reply to the
other's questionings, answered only in an incoherent babble. Stephens
crossed over to him and saw that his teeth were chattering and his
face almost scarlet; there was no doubt as to his condition; he was in
a burning fever. Nothing could have been more unlucky. He had brought
the young fellow with him purely on his own account, and unauthorised
by his department. He was not in Government service, but merely a
personal friend whom Stephens' private means enabled him to keep in
constant employment as amanuensis; therefore, to lose several days, or
weeks, nursing him, at such a time, would be to bring himself into
serious disgrace with the ministry. Yet how could he leave him in an
Indian camp, to the tender mercies of some mad witch-doctor, who would
charm and physic him to death with the most generous intentions?
He paced up and down for a while, and, at daylight, went out into the
open, forced by his own ignorance of medicine, and his anxiety for his
friend's safety, to stoop to ask advice of a people whom his American
upbringing had taught him to despise. And it was just possible that
the Spanish padre might have returned by now, and he would be sure to
possess some knowledge of drugs and minor surgery. In the village
street he met the chief, one of the few natives who spoke Spanish.
"I will call the physician of the tribe," he said, when Stephens,
learning to his dismay that the priest was not expected till
night-time, had communicated his difficulty.
The native doctor was a little old man who had no small opinion of his
own importance, and was as contemptuously ignorant of Spanish as the
Yankee was of Huaxtecan and Cariban. He passed his hand over the
patient's brow, breathed on him, muttered incantations, and then
walked round the hut about a dozen times, solemnly talking to himself,
till Stephens could scarcely resist the temptation to give him a lift
into the street with his foot. After a time the _piache_, doctor,
conjurer, or whatever he called himself, took out two powders from his
girdle, poured water on them, sipped the drink, breathed and mumbled
over it, opened the sufferer's mouth, and poured it down his throat
before the spectator could make up his mind whether to interfere or
no. Then the old image strutted out of the hut, as proud as Punch.
This was all very well, but Stephens' mind was ill at ease. He
followed the man of medicine into the street, and found the chief
waiting modestly but expectantly outside.
"Ask him what he has given my friend," he said, curtly. The chief
bowed, but shook his head.
"These are mysteries into which I may not inquire. The physician's
secrets are sacred. You may rest assured that the young white man will
soon be well."
Of course, Stephens did anything but rest assured of this. He turned
into the hut again, and lo! Catherwood was sleeping as peacefully as a
child, with no sign of indisposition except the flush on his face. The
chief peeped in apologetically.
"He says that the sick senor will be well enough to travel by midday,"
he whispered. It was now four o'clock; Stephens ate some breakfast
fretfully, looked at the patient, walked about the village, and sought
to kill time as best he could. Every time he re-entered the hut,
Catherwood's temperature was less high; and, about the middle of the
day, he awoke of his own accord, ravenous for some breakfast. The old
medicine-man had known his business; had administered two, out of the
thousand and two, healing drugs which the American forests and valleys
produce--probably quinine and some preparation of poppy--and had
nipped in the bud what was doubtless an attack of malarial fever.
Catherwood paid his doctor's bill by the gift of a four-bladed
pen-knife, his friend forced a similar present on the chief, and early
in the afternoon they rode away about their business. The next few
weeks were passed in hurried journeys from town to town, in false
alarms, in being potted at by revolutionaries, and humbugged by
officials; and by the time they had crossed once more to the Bay of
Honduras and the Guatemala coast, they had found out all that there
was to learn.
About a mile from the British boundary they encountered their most
exciting adventure. Outside a Carib village were a dozen Indians and
Mestizos, all armed with guns, and in heated argument with five young
men, who were obviously British officers in mufti; these also had
guns, and two of them carried well-filled game-bags.
"You intend to keep us here? It will be the worse for you if you try
it," the eldest of the white men was saying in Spanish.
"Unless you give us what we ask," replied a Mestizo insolently. "You
have no right to be over the border."
The Americans pulled up their horses, and Stephens drew a pistol.
"All right," he said. "We're going to be in this."
"Then pray begin by putting that pistol out of the way, there's a good
fellow," said Major Walrond, the young man who had spoken to the
half-caste. "We shall be very glad if you'll back us up. We want to
get out of it without firing on them if we can."
"What's the row?"
"These Mestizos belong to the rebels, and are recruiting among the
Indians; promising them all sorts of plunder, no doubt, and they
rather think of practising on us for a start; want us to empty our
pockets and game-bags, and give up our guns and ammunition. Look out,
you fellows."
Seeing a reinforcement for the white men, yet not one that need be
feared so far as they could see, the ruffians were becoming impatient,
and one or two had cocked their guns.
"Ride 'em down; use your whips, but for goodness' sake don't fire a
shot while we're on this side of the boundary," said the senior
officer hurriedly. "Bravo, Spencer; over with him"; for a subaltern
had seized the rifle of one of the half-breeds and was wrenching it
out of his hands. "Thank you, Mr. Stephens."
The last remark was occasioned by the American's felling with his
pistol-stock an Indian who was taking aim at the Major. Then the white
men began to hit out, shoulder to shoulder. The Indians were quickly
overpowered, for they were more than half afraid of the guns they
held, and, on these being wrested from them, fled to the nearest
ravine. But the Mestizos were more of a handful. There had been five
of them to begin with; the subaltern had disarmed one, and he had
fled; Major Walrond had just knocked another down with his fist,
and he lay unconscious; but the other three, artful enough to reflect
that even if their opponents decided to fire on them, their guns
were only charged with bird-shot, harmless at any appreciable
distance, were running away with the evident intention of using their
own ball-cartridges from some point of vantage.
Stephens' matter-of-fact Yankee way of looking at things now became a
valuable asset.
"_We're_ no British subjects," he said hurriedly, "and you'll not be
to blame if we fire on these chaps"; and, pistol in hand, he spurred
after one fugitive while Catherwood pursued a second. The third fired
at Catherwood, the bullet carrying away his hat, but one of the
subalterns was on him before he could load again, wrenched the rifle
out of his hands, and gave him a complimentary tap on the head with
the butt thereof. The other two, seeing that the horsemen at least
would have no scruple about using firearms, stopped when called upon
to do so, and sullenly gave up their guns.
But that mile back to British territory seemed a most amazingly long
one. The Carib fugitives had alarmed the neighbourhood, and knots of
Indians were gathering, armed with bows and arrows, which they seemed
desirous of using on the white men, for the two or three venomous lies
circulated all in a moment by the Mestizos had soon swelled to two or
three dozen; and to the Caribs, the opportune arrival of the two men
on horseback was part of a deep-laid plot against their liberties.
"Shall we ride in and disperse them?" suggested Catherwood.
"Better not; it'll only make matters worse," said one of the
Englishmen gloomily. "They'll let go with their bows if you do. I
think we look fools enough as it is, sneaking along like this; better
not make it any worse."
"No; we can't afford to have Guatemala declaring war against Great
Britain," laughed Walrond. "If they attempt to shoot we must let them
have it; but it mustn't be said that we fired first."
It was a queer procession; every man felt that he was cutting a
hang-dog figure; he was not afraid of an arrow, but he was mortally
afraid of looking ridiculous. All knew, too, that if serious trouble
arose, the commanding officer would forbid their crossing the frontier
any more, and there was no shooting to be had on their own side of it
that could compare with that here.
"All right, my chickens," muttered Walrond at last; "if you follow us
just fifty yards farther, we may be able to deal with you."
The fifty yards were covered; the white men were on their own ground
again, but still the Indians--proudly indifferent to frontiers other
than those recognised by their own tribe--followed at a distance of
about forty paces, debating their tactics in low tones, and by no
means unwilling to make a rush for the Englishmen and rob them of
their guns.
"Now let's tickle them a little," said Major Walrond; and he turned
sharply and sent a charge of small shot among the Indians. "Down,
quick; 'ware arrows."
The two horsemen jumped out of their stirrups and fell on the grass,
and the little shower of arrows passed harmlessly over the heads of
all. The other four officers fired in quick succession. This was too
much for the Caribs, many of whom were peppered right painfully; and,
with no further pretence at shooting, they turned and fled towards
their village, leaving the white men masters of the field.