aggregating one-tenth of the entire revenues of the Government, an
amount larger in proportion than is paid by any of the United States.
Not only is tuition free, but textbooks are furnished by the Government.
In 1884 the total number of schools in the republic was 934, with an
attendance of 42,549 pupils, supported at a cost of $451,809, being an
average cost to the public treasury of about ten dollars per pupil. Of
this aggregate 850 were public graded schools with 39,642 pupils, 55
were private schools with 1780 pupils, 20 were academies for the
education of teachers and others desiring education in the higher
branches. In addition to these the Government supports a university,
with a faculty of high reputation, some of them imported from Germany
and Spain, who are paid salaries of four thousand dollars a year each, a
compensation greater than is received by instructors in the colleges of
the United States, except in rare instances. Under this university are
two law-schools with fifty-two pupils, one school of engineering with
eleven pupils, a music-school with sixty-six pupils, a school of arts
and drawing with one hundred and seventeen pupils, and a commercial
college with fifty pupils, besides a deaf and dumb asylum with nine
inmates. It is required that students in this university shall study the
English language, and in a female college adjacent to it nothing but
American textbooks are used. No language but English is spoken by the
pupils residing in the institution, and the teachers as well as the
principal are from the United States. This system of education was
established about ten years ago, but has gradually improved until it has
reached its present importance, and cannot but have a wholesome
influence in the elevation of the people and the development of the
State.
Having overthrown the religion in which the people had been reared,
Barrios recognized the necessity of providing some better substitute. He
therefore, through the British minister, invited the Established Church
of England to send missionaries to Guatemala; but owing to the disturbed
condition of the country it was not considered advisable to commence
work at that time, and the opportunity was neglected. In 1883 President
Barrios visited New York, where he had conferences with the officers of
the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, which resulted in diverting
the Rev. John C. Hill, of Chicago, who was _en route_ to China, into
this field of labor. Mr. Hill returned with the President to Guatemala,
receiving a cordial welcome, and the President not only paid the
travelling expenses of himself and family from his own pocket, but the
freight charges upon his furniture, and purchased the equipment
necessary for the establishment of a mission and school.
[Illustration: A REMNANT.]
The reception of the President on his return to the country after an
absence of nearly two years was a royal one, and the journey from San
José, the Pacific seaport, to the capital of Guatemala was a triumphal
march. Of all the honors, of all the attentions General Barrios
received, he insisted that Mr. Hill should have a share, and the
blushing young parson found himself again and again on public platforms,
with the President of Guatemala leaning upon his shoulder and
introducing him to the people as his friend. This demonstration had its
purpose, and resulted precisely as General Barrios intended it should.
He meant that the people should know that he had taken the missionary
and the cause he represented under the patronage of the Government, and
expected them to show the same respect and honor he bestowed himself. He
went still further. He placed Mr. Hill in one of his own houses, and
there the school and chapel were opened. He sent his own children to the
new Sunday-school, and notified members of his Cabinet to follow his
example. He issued a decree to the Collectors of Customs to admit free
of duty all articles which Mr. Hill desired to import, and in every
possible manner showed his interest in the success of the work. The
Protestant Mission became fashionable, and was known as the President’s
“pet.”
The encouragement President Barrios gave to the Presbyterian Mission was
an example the people were glad to follow, and the mission met with
nothing but the most cordial and respectful treatment. The Catholics
looked very sour at the rapidity with which the breach was widened in
the walls they were nearly four hundred years in erecting, but they
dared not utter even a remonstrance against those favored by the potent
force behind the military guard. They saw the monks and nuns expelled,
the churches sold at public auction for the benefit of the public
treasury, and with a muttered curse against the power by which all these
things were done, submitted servilely to his will for fear of losing
what they had been able to retain.
Mrs. Barrios was the loveliest woman in Guatemala; beautiful in
character as well as person, socially brilliant and graceful, charitable
beyond all precedent in a country where the poor are usually permitted
to take care of themselves, generous and hospitable, a good mother to a
fine family of children, and a devoted wife, loyal to all the
President’s ambitions, and an enthusiastic supporter of all his schemes.
Like a wise man who knows the perils which constantly surround him, and
the uncertainty of the head which wears a crown in these countries, he
had made ample provision for his family by purchasing for Mrs. Barrios
a handsome residence in Fifth Avenue near Sixty-fifth Street, New York,
and investing about a million dollars in her name in other New York real
estate. His life was also insured for two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in New York companies, which, it must be said, carried a
hazardous risk, as there were hundreds of men who lived only to see
Barrios buried. Very few of them were in Guatemala, however, during his
lifetime. They did not find the atmosphere agreeable there. They were
exiles in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, or elsewhere,
waiting for a chance to give him a dose of dynamite or prick him with a
dagger.
[Illustration: FORT OF SAN JOSÉ, GUATEMALA.]
Mrs. Barrios and her children talk English as well as if they had always
lived in New York. While the President himself could not speak the
language fluently, he could understand what was said to him, and
apologized for what he called a misfortune, on the ground that he did
not have the opportunity to learn it until he was too old to master its
intricacies. But he required English to be taught in all the
common-schools, and the children use nothing but American text-books. I
talked with him one day, with his little girl as an interpreter. She was
a beautiful child, about ten years of age, and when she said she was an
American (which means a citizen of the United States) the President
patted her fondly upon the head and cried “bueno” (good).
Several years ago there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President. A
woman, who was the Mrs. Surratt of the plot, and at whose house the
conspirators were in the habit of meeting, did not like the arrangement,
and on the afternoon of the night on which the plan was to be carried
into execution revealed the whole thing to the President. He had the
conspirators arrested, and ordered the men shot who proposed to ravish
his wife, but he pardoned his treacherous private secretary. The latter
rewarded the President’s generosity by forging an order to the
commandant of the prison to release the condemned men. He was arrested
again, confessed his crime, even boasted of it, and was shot also.
Several other attempts were made to assassinate Barrios. The last came
very near being successful. He was on his way to the theatre, when three
men, who had been employed by an ambitious politician for the purpose,
threw a bomb at him. He coolly stepped on the fuse, extinguished it,
picked up the dose of death that had been prepared for him, and remarked
to his companion,
“The rascals don’t know how to kill me!”
The leader of the plot was sent into exile, but his tools were pardoned,
and are walking the streets of the city of Guatemala to-day.
The prettiest and most picturesque of the native costumes to be found in
Spanish America is worn by the women of Guatemala, who are of a dark
complexion, nearly that of the mulatto type, but are famous for their
beauty of form. A Guatemala girl in her native costume makes as pretty a
picture as one can find anywhere. Her face is bright and pretty, her
figure as perfect as nature unaided by art can be, and her movements
show a supple grace and elasticity that cannot be imitated by those of
her sex who are encumbered by modern articles of feminine apparel. Her
head is usually bare, in-doors and out, and her thick black tresses hang
in braids often reaching to her heels.
[Illustration: YNIENSI GATE, GUATEMALA.]
Her garments are only two--a _guipil_ and a _sabana_. The first is a
square piece of cotton of coarse texture, covered with embroidery of
brilliant colors and simple but artistic designs. In the centre of the
_guipil_ is an aperture like that in the ordinary poncho, through which
her head goes, and it is usually wide enough to constitute, when worn, a
low-neck waist. The ends are tucked in her skirts at the belt. Her bare
arms come through the open folds of her _guipil_, and when she raises
them her side is exposed. Her skirt is a straight piece of plaid cotton
of brilliant colors, like the Scotch plaids, and is wound tightly around
her limbs. It is secured at the waist by a sash, usually of scarlet,
woven by her own hands of the fibres of the _pita_ grass, and executed
in the most skilful manner. These belts in their texture resemble the
Persian camel’s-hair shawl, and often cost months of labor. Very often
the name of the owner, and sometimes mottoes, are woven into the
texture, and they are brought away from the country as curiosities by
travellers.
Every article the Guatemala girl wears she makes with her own hands, and
the natives of that country are as ingenious, industrious, and
intelligent as are found in Spanish America. Even her sandals are
home-made, and her little stockingless feet look very pretty in them.
The small size of the hands and feet of the men and women is always
noticed by those who visit Guatemala, and they are usually very shapely
and delicately formed.
The costume which has been described is worn only by the peasants. The
upper classes dress just as they would in New York, and the fashions are
followed quite as closely. The women are very pretty, but have the habit
of plastering their faces over with a paste or rouge that makes them
look as if they had been poking their heads into a flour-barrel. This
cosmetic is made of magnesia and the whites of eggs, stirred into a
thick paste, and plastered on without regard to quantity. The natural
beauty of complexion is thus concealed, and in time totally ruined.
There is a Swiss lady at the head of a large seminary in Guatemala City
to which the daughters of the aristocracy are sent. She has forbidden
the use of this plaster by the young ladies under her charge to prevent
the boarding pupils from destroying their fair skins, but over the
day-scholars she has no control out of school-hours. Every morning she
stands at the entrance with a basin of water, a sponge, and a towel, and
puts the girls through a system of scrubbing that arouses their
indignation.
The natives are fond of bright colors, and have a remarkable deftness in
their fingers, which hold the embroidery-needle as well as the hoe and
machete. The _guipils_ are embroidered in gay tints and artistic
patterns, and a group of peons
[Illustration: A VOLCANIC LAKE.]
returning from or going to market looks as quaint and picturesque as the
peasants of Normandy or Switzerland. The women are short, squarely
built, and very muscular, and carry as much load as a mule. Their cargo
is always borne upon their heads in a large basket, and they seldom
walk, but move in a jog-trot, with a swaying, graceful motion, swinging
their arms and carrying their shoulders as erect as a West Point cadet.
They travel up hill and down without changing this gait, and make about
six miles an hour, being able to outstrip any ordinary horse or mule not
only in speed but in endurance. It is a common thing to see a woman not
more than twenty-five or twenty-eight years of age coming to town with a
hundred pounds of meat or vegetables upon her head, a baby slung in a
_reboso_ or blanket fastened around her hips, and several children from
six to twelve years of age, each heavily laden, trotting along by her
side. Almost as soon as they are able to walk, the children receive
loads to carry, and the little ones come seven, eight, and ten miles to
market every day or so, thinking nothing of bearing on their heads a
weight that would be a burden to the ordinary man of North America.
The men do not carry their loads upon their heads, but upon their backs
in a pannier, which is held by bands around the shoulders and across the
forehead. They are wonderfully strong and fleet of foot. “If you are
going to buy wood or hay,” said a friend who has lived long in the
country, “always take the man’s load. You will get more than if you
bought the load of a mule.” These men come into town driving ahead of
them three or four pack-mules loaded with coffee, sugar, corn, hay, or
wood, which they sell to the commission merchants or at the market. When
they return at night to their homes in the country they never ride, but
drive the unladen mules ahead of them, and many of them are so
accustomed to a weight upon their backs that they place a great stone in
the pannier to give them a proper balance.
Some are very fleet of foot. Barrios had a runner attached to his
retinue of whom some tall stories are told. He was sent as a courier
into the country with messages, and his average speed was ten miles an
hour. This runner was kept pretty busy in war times, and was constantly
in motion. Once he carried a despatch thirty-five leagues into the
interior and returned with the answer in thirty-six hours, making the
two hundred and ten miles over the mountains at six miles an hour,
including detentions and delays for food and sleep.
These men wear short trousers, like bathing-trunks, and a white cotton
shirt, with sandals made of cowhide. The shirt is kept for occasions of
ceremony, and is worn only in town. While on the road they are naked
except for the trunks.
When Barrios issued his decree that the peasants should wear clothing
the country narrowly escaped a revolution; but policemen were stationed
on all the roads leading into the city, and confiscated all the cargoes
borne by those who did
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO THE CAPITAL.]
not comply with the regulations and put on a shirt or a _guipil_. The
peons pleaded poverty, when Barrios, who was as generous as he was
tyrannical, furnished the cloth to make the garments.
It is a novel sight to see a native policeman wearing a uniform like
that worn by the policemen of New York--helmet, club, badge, and all.
Here extremes meet. Quite as significant and striking a contrast is
often furnished in the picture of one of these peons, laden down with
his pannier, leaning for a moment’s rest upon a letter-box like those
used in the United States, attached to a telephone-pole; or one of the
gayly dressed women, with a load of vegetables upon her head, dodging a
still more gayly painted mail-wagon, the exact counterpart of those used
in our postal service, except that the coat of arms of Guatemala appears
in the place of the American eagle.
Barrios imported a sergeant of the New York police force two years ago,
bought a lot of uniforms, and organized a patrol system that is
remarkably successful. He put letter-boxes on nearly every
street-corner, and had the mail carried to and from the railroad-station
in wagons made by the same man and after the same pattern as those in
use in the United States. He introduced the letter-carrier system also.
It is not successful, because the natives object to have their
correspondence carried through the streets, preferring to send for it
themselves.
The military law of Guatemala requires the enrolment in the militia of
every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and forty, and when
Barrios issued his pronunciamento they were all called out for service.
Even the hotels were stripped of servants, the business houses of
porters, and all industries of laborers. Jesus Maria was the name of a
male chamber-maid at the Grand Hotel, where all the work is done by men.
Jesus was very patriotic, and made many vows, he said, for the success
of Barrios, but he did not want to go to war, and appealed to all the
boarders who had influence with the Government to secure him an
exemption-paper. He could say a few words of English, and expressed his
sentiments concerning the pending struggle in the words, “La union much
grande; la guerra no good.” That exactly describes the attitude the
United States took in the contest.
When the conscripts come in from the country, rag-tag and bob-tail, in
all kinds of costumes, and usually barefooted, they are sent to the
garrison, where each receives a uniform made of white drilling from the
United States. About every twelfth one bears across the seat of his
trousers or between his shoulders the legend, “Best Massachusetts
Drillings XXXX Mills.” This rather adds to the beauty of the uniform,
and there is quite a strife among the volunteers to secure trousers or
blouses so marked. Each is given a straw hat, a cartridge-box, a gun,
and a blanket, with which they were marched to the front at the rate of
five or six hundred a day, while the streets were lined with tearful
women giving parting words to sons, husbands, and sweethearts. The
Guatemalatacos, as the inhabitants are called, are said to be the best
fighters in Central America, and were inspired with an intense
admiration for Barrios, who had never shown anything but a fatherly
solicitude for the welfare of the common people. He may have been cruel
to his political enemies, and arbitrary in his treatment of aspiring
rivals, but to the masses, the poor, he was always generous and kind.
Much of his strength came from the fact that he always shared the
shelter and food of the common soldier. He never took any camp equipage
with him, but slept on the ground, and ate beans and tortillas
(corn-cakes), which constitute the ordinary soldier’s rations.
Although the hotels are clean, and have better beds and food than are
found elsewhere in Spanish America, there is one peculiarity which is
decidedly objectionable--the bill of fare is never changed. One gets the
same dinner and the same breakfast every day. There is enough and a
variety at both tables, but there is always the same amount and the same
variety. First, at breakfast, there is always soup; there is an
omelette, or eggs cooked as you want them; next comes cold beef or
mutton left from the previous day; then beefsteak, usually with onions;
then beans and fritters. For dinner, soup is first served; second, rice
with curry; next, boiled beef with cabbage; then turkey or chicken; then
roast beef, salad, fruit, and cheese in order. All the native food
(beef, fowls, fruit, and vegetables) is cheap, but flour and other
imported products are very expensive. The hotel-keepers are usually
Frenchmen or Germans. You seldom find a native keeping a hotel, but if
you do, avoid it.
The people of Guatemala have a peculiar way of preparing their coffee
for the table. Every week or so a quantity of the berry is ground and
roasted, and hot water is poured upon it. The black liquid is allowed to
drip through a porous jar, and when cool is bottled up and set upon the
table like vinegar or Worcestershire sauce. Pots of hot water or milk,
with which the coffee-drinker can dilute the cold, black syrup to such a
weakness as he likes, are set before him. This plan has its advantages,
but it takes a long time to become accustomed to it.
The laundry work of the city is never done at home, but always at the
public fountains, which are scattered over the city, and have basins of
stone for the purpose. The wet clothes are placed in a basket and
carried home on the head of the laundress to be dried. Every morning and
evening, Sundays included, there is a long procession of washer-women
going to and from these fountains, with baskets of soiled or wet
garments upon their heads.
Sunday is observed in Guatemala more than in any other Spanish-American
city. Usually, in all these nations, Sunday is the great market-day of
the week, when all the denizens of the country dress in their best suits
to come to town to trade and have a little recreation; but in Guatemala
there is a law, which is respected and generally enforced, requiring the
market and all other places of business to remain closed on the Sabbath.
Sometimes a cigar shop or a saloon will be found open, and the hotel
bar-rooms, or “canteens,” as they are called, do more business than on
any other day but there is no more general business done on Sunday than
in the cities of the United States.
All the city stores sell what is known in the slang of trade as “general
merchandise;” that is, they keep all sorts of goods. You buy your canned
fruit or sardines where you get your shoes or hat, and can fill an order
for every variety of edible or apparel in the same establishment. An
exception should be made of drugs, for the apothecary shops are usually
kept by the physicians, who compound their own prescriptions, and the
drug-stores in Guatemala, as in every other city of Central and South
America, are usually fine establishments. But when you send for a
“doctor” a lawyer comes. If you are sick, always ask for an apothecary
or a physician. When you see a man alluded to as Dr. Don So-and-so, you
may know that he is an attorney of distinction. The notaries draw all
legal documents, as in Europe. Nobody ever asks a lawyer to draw a
contract or a will.
The photographers of Central and South America are almost invariably
from the United States, and there is usually one in every town of
importance. The people are vain of their personal appearance, hence
photography is a lucrative business. But customs differ. In Venezuela,
or Havana, or the Argentine Republic, if a gentleman possesses the
photograph of a lady, he is either a near relative or is engaged to
marry her. Otherwise her brother or father has good cause to thrash him,
or challenge him to fight a duel. If the photographer sold the picture,
or gave it away, he is liable to be punished by fine and imprisonment.
In Guatemala, on the other hand, as in Peru, the pictures of the belles
of the city, whether married or maidens, can be purchased by any one who
wants them at the photographers’, and often at the shops, and the rank
and popularity of the subject is usually estimated by the number of her
portraits so disposed of. Codfish is a luxury. It is served at
fashionable dinners in the form of a stew or patties, or a salad, and is
considered a rare and dainty dish. They call it _bacalao_ (pronounced
“backalowoh”), and the shop-windows contain handsomely illuminated
signs announcing that it is for sale within. It costs about forty cents
a pound, and is therefore used exclusively by the aristocracy.
[Illustration: TILED HOUSE-TOPS.]
The railroads in Guatemala are run on the credit system. Freight charges
are seldom paid upon the delivery of the goods, but merchants and others
expect three or four months’ time, and sometimes more. If a package
arrives with your address upon it, the railroad company is expected to
deliver it at your residence, unless it happens to be very bulky, and a
few weeks after a collector comes around for the freight money.
The cars came into Guatemala for the first time in August, 1884, and
have not yet ceased to be a novelty. There is always a large crowd of
spectators at the station upon the arrival and departure of every train,
and among these are the best people of the place. Twice a week, at train
time, the National Band plays in the plaza fronting the station, to
entertain the people who are waiting.
The Government owns the telegraph line, and charges low tariffs, the
cost being twenty-five cents for a message to any part of the republic.
But the cable rates are very high--$1.15 per word to the United States,
and $1.50 per word to Europe.
The literary people here always spell general with a “J.” Barrios was
the “Jeneral Presidente,” but after his pronunciamento “Supremissimo
Jefe Militar”--Most Supreme Military Chief.
When a letter is addressed to a person of distinction the envelope
reads, “Exmo y’ Illustra Señor Don John Smith”--The Most Excellent, or
His Excellency, the Illustrious Señor Don, etc. One is apt to feel very
highly complimented when he gets a letter bearing this inscription.