is surrounded by a group of volcanoes, two of which are active, one,
Yzalco, discharging immense volumes of smoke, ashes, and lava at regular
intervals of seven minutes from one year’s end to the other. San
Salvador is reached by coaches over a picturesque mountain-road, but the
journey is not pleasant in the dry season on account of the dust, nor in
the rainy season on account of the mud. The city was founded in 1528 by
George Alvarado, a brother of the renowned lieutenant of Cortez, who was
the discoverer, conqueror, and the first viceroy of Central America. The
situation it occupies is one of the most beautiful that can be imagined,
being in the midst of an elevated _mesa_, or tableland, which overlooks
the sea to the southward, and is surrounded by mountains upon its three
other sides. As the prevailing winds are from the ocean, the climate is
always cool and healthful, and the mountain streams are so abundant
that the foliage is fresh during the entire year. Through each street
runs an _asequia_, or irrigating ditch, which is always filled with
water. Pipes lead from it into the gardens of the people, and supply
hydrants for their use.
[Illustration: SPANISH-AMERICAN COURTSHIP.]
There is very little architectural taste shown in the construction of
the dwellings or of the public buildings. This is because of the
frequency of earthquakes. The walls are of thick adobe, with scarcely
any ornamentation, and the streets are dull and unattractive; but
within the houses are gardens of wonderful beauty, in which the people
spend the greater portion of the time, more often sleeping in a hammock
among the trees in the dry season than under the roofs of their houses.
The public buildings are of insignificant appearance, and even the
cathedral and the other churches are painfully plain and commonplace
compared with those of other cities of its size. All this is owing to
the fact, as has been stated, that the danger of their destruction at
any moment forbids a lavish expenditure in construction or unnecessary
display.
The women of San Salvador are neater in appearance, more careful in
their dress, and are therefore more attractive than their sisters in
Nicaragua, where, if there is any difference between the sexes, they are
less tidy than the men. The girls in the rural districts always bathe in
the _asequias_ every morning at daylight, and the traveller who starts
out early generally surprises groups of Naiads disporting in the
streams. They plunge into the bushes or keep their bodies under the
water until the intruder passes by, but do not hesitate to exchange a
few words of banter with him, and good-naturedly bid him godspeed.
There is more freedom between the sexes in San Salvador than in the
sister republics; and it is not at the cost of morals, for, as a rule,
in countries where social restrictions are the most severe there is the
greatest amount of licentiousness. The education of the masses has
proved to be the greatest safeguard, and the number of illegitimate
births is reduced as the standard of intelligence is elevated. The
constitutional provision in San Salvador which confers superior
advantages upon married men, together with a law limiting the marriage
fees of the priests, have proven to be wise and effective policy. The
girls marry at fifteen and over, and very few peons reach their majority
without taking a lawful wife.
There is a public theatre, subsidized by the Government, at which
frequent entertainments are given, and nearly every season an opera
company comes from Italy or France. The performances are liberally
patronized, at high prices of
[Illustration: A HACIENDA.]
admission. But the most popular _funcions_, as they are called, are by
local amateurs, the programmes being made up of vocal and instrumental
music, recitations, and original poems and orations. The latter are
always the popular features of the occasion, and the _funcions_ are
usually arranged to give some young orator an opportunity to show his
talents before the foot-lights. There is a great deal of rivalry, too,
among the local poets, each aspirant for honors having his clique of
admirers, or _faccions_, who feel it their duty to applaud no one else,
however meritorious, and to hiss all others down. When two of these
popular idols appear upon the platform on the same evening, as they
often do, there are scenes of sensational excitement and sometimes mob
violence. The subjects of all the orations and poems are usually
patriotic--the praise of San Salvador--for the love of country is a
theme of which the people never tire. The programmes of all public
entertainments are mostly composed of local compositions, national
airs, and patriotic songs. The musicians prefer the scores of their own
composers, and everything foreign is to a degree offensive, to be
tolerated only as a matter of variety.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A SAN SALVADOR HOUSE.]
The Salvadorians have a dozen or more “Fourths of July”--memorial
days--sometimes two patriotic celebrations occurring in a month, on the
anniversary of historical events. All classes of people join in the
demonstrations, closing their places of business, decorating the
streets, attending high-mass in the morning, engaging in processions and
hearing patriotic orations during the day, and in the evening closing
the festivities with fireworks, banquets, and balls. But the two great
days of the year are Christmas and the Feast of San Miguel (St.
Michael), the patron saint of the republic. The latter is celebrated
very much like our Independence Day was in ancient times, except that
the hours from sunrise to noon are devoted to solemn religious services
in all the churches, the bishop himself officiating at the cathedral,
and the rest of the time to the next morning to holiday festivities.
There is much powder wasted in fire-crackers, or _bombas_, as they are
called, fireworks, and salutes by the artillery.
The annual fair of St. Miguel, which is held in February, is always a
notable event, being not only a national anniversary, but the greatest
market season of the year, and the occasion of general and prolonged
festivities. It lasts about two weeks, and is attended by buyers and
sellers from all parts of Central America. The importing houses always
have their representatives present on such occasions. The days are
occupied with trading, and the nights with balls, concerts, theatrical
performances, and gambling. Everybody plays cards, and no one, man or
woman, ever sits down to a game without stakes. Women play at their
residences with or without their gentlemen friends, and large sums of
money often pass across the table. At the fairs, and in fact on all
occasions which bring people together, the peons are entertained with
cock-fights and bull-fights, although the latter cruel sport is
nominally forbidden by law. The bull-rings and cock-pits are invariably
crowded every Sunday afternoon, and always on saints’ days, and often
the best people are found among the spectators, particularly the young
men, who ruin themselves with reckless betting. It is the fashion for
the swells to keep gamebirds, and employ professional cock-fighters to
train and handle them.
The Christmas festivities commence about midnight, and the explosions of
cannon and fireworks always begin as soon as the clock in the cathedral
tower strikes twelve. Everybody is up and dressed before daylight to
attend early mass, and when the sun rises the streets are full of people
saluting each other by exchanging the compliments of the day, and
throwing egg-shells filled with perfumed water. From morning till night
the air is full of the noise of fireworks, cannonades, the shouts of
people, and the music of military bands, while processions are
continually passing through the principal streets. In nearly every house
preparations have been going on for weeks, not for the exhibition of
Christmas-trees or the exchange of gifts, but for the representation of
the _naciamiento_, or birth of Christ. The best room in the house is
often fitted up to resemble a manger, asses being brought in from the
stable to make the scene more realistic. Several incidents in the life
of the Saviour are portrayed in a like manner. In other residences are
different representations. Sometimes the parlor is arranged like a
bower, filled with tropical plants and flowers, moss-covered stones and
sea-shells, and draped with vines. Within the bower are figures of the
Virgin and Child, surrounded by the kneeling Magi and the members of the
Holy Family.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL TOWN.]
It is the ambition of the mistress of the house to surpass all her
friends and neighbors in the realism of her representation and in the
elegance with which the puppets are dressed. During the day there is a
general interchange of calls to see the displays, to criticise them, and
make comparisons. The grandest display is always made in the cathedral,
the cost often amounting to many thousands of dollars, while the
subordinate churches enter into an active and expensive rivalry, raising
funds for the purpose by soliciting subscriptions in the parish. The
ceremonies usually begin before daylight, and last for a couple of
hours, high-mass being sung by the leading vocalists of the country,
assisted by orchestras and military bands.
[Illustration: WHAT ALARMS THE CITIZENS.]
The favorite incident for portrayal is the Adoration of the Magi, and
human figures are usually trained by the priests to play the various
characters. The most beautiful woman in the city is selected to act the
part of the Virgin, and some young infant is volunteered to represent
the baby Christ. The church is always crowded, and illuminated by
thousands of candles. At the proper moment the curtain is drawn, and the
choir breaks out in a glorious anthem; the bells of the churches ring,
and the vast audience, rising to their feet, join in the exultant song,
“Jubilate! jubilate! Christ is born!” Processions of priests enter, and
at the close of the anthem the bishop sings high-mass to a living
representation of the Virgin and Child.
The people are not so priestridden as those of some of the
Spanish-American countries, being naturally more self-reliant and
independent. They know what liberty is, and insist upon being allowed to
enjoy it, both civil and religious. They choose their own priests, and
the latter elect their own bishop, without regard to the Pope or the
College of Cardinals. The clerical party in politics, or the Serviles,
as they were called, because of their slavery to the Church, has long
been extinct in San Salvador, and the political struggles are more
personal than over abstract issues. There is a considerable degree of
superstition among the people, and they believe in all sorts of signs
and omens, but the priests do not attempt to humbug them with bogus
miracles or wonder-working images.
Much of this superstition relates to the earthquakes and volcanic
disturbances to which the country is so subject. Within view of the
capital are eleven great volcanoes, two of which are unceasingly active,
while the others are subject to occasional eruptions. The nearest is the
mountain of San Salvador, about eight thousand feet high, and showing to
great advantage because it rises so abruptly from the plain. It is only
three miles from the city, to the westward, very steep, and its sides
are broken by monstrous gorges, immense rocky declivities, and
projecting cliffs. The summit is crowned by a cone of ashes and scoriæ
that have been thrown out in centuries past, but since 1856, subsequent
to the greatest earthquake the country has known, the crater has been
extinct, and is now filled with a bottomless lake. Very few people have
ever ascended to the summit, because of the extreme difficulty and peril
of making the climb, while even a smaller number have entered the chasm
in which the crater lies. Some years ago a couple of venturesome French
scientists went down, but became exhausted in their attempts to return.
Their companions who remained at the top lowered them food and blankets
by lines, and they were finally rescued, after several days of
confinement in their rocky prison, by a detachment of soldiers, who
hauled them up the precipice by ropes.
The two active volcanoes, or _vivos_, as the people call them, are San
Miguel and Yzalco, and there are none more violent on the face of the
globe. They present a magnificent display to the passengers of steamers
sailing by the coast, or anchored in the harbor of La Libertad and
Acajutla, constantly discharging masses of lava which flow down their
sides in blazing torrents, and illuminating the sky with the flames that
issue from the craters at regular intervals. Yzalco is as regular as a
clock, the eruption occurring like the beating of a mighty pulse every
seven minutes.
It is impossible to conceive of a grander spectacle than this monster.
It rises seven thousand feet, almost directly from the sea, and an
immense volume of smoke, like a plume, is continually pouring out of its
summit, broken with such regularity by masses of flame that rise a
thousand feet that it has been named _El Faro del Salvador_--“The
Light-house of Salvador.” Around the base of the mountain are fertile
plantations, while above them, covering about two-thirds of its surface,
is an almost impenetrable forest, whose foliage is perpetual and of the
darkest green. Then beyond the forest is a ring of reddish scoriæ, while
above it the live ashes and lava that are cast from the crater so
regularly are constantly changing from livid yellow, when they are
heated, to a silver gray as they cool.
Yzalco is in many respects the most remarkable volcano on earth; first,
because its discharges have continued so long and
[Illustration: YZALCO FROM A DISTANCE.]
with such great regularity; again, because the tumult in the earth’s
bowels is always to be heard, as the rumblings and explosions are
constant, being audible for a hundred miles, and sounding like the
noises which Rip van Winkle heard when he awakened from his sleep in the
Catskills; and, finally, it is the only volcano that has originated on
this continent since the discovery by Columbus.
It arose suddenly from the plain in the spring of 1770, in the midst of
what had been for nearly a hundred years the profitable estate of Señor
Don Balthazar Erazo, who was absent from the country at the time, and
was greatly amazed upon his return to discover that his magnificent
coffee and indigo plantation had, without his knowledge or consent, been
exchanged for a first-class volcano. In December, 1769, the peons on the
hacienda were alarmed by terrific rumblings under the ground, constant
tremblings of the earth, and frequent earthquakes, which did not extend
over the country as usual, but seemed to be confined to that particular
locality. They left the place in terror when the tremblings and noises
continued, and returning a week or two after, found that all the
buildings had been shaken down, trees uprooted, and large craters opened
in the fields which had been level earth before. From these craters
smoke and steam issued, and occasionally flames were seen to come out of
the ground. Some brave _vaqueros_, or herdsmen, remained near by to
watch developments, and on the 23d of February, 1770, they were
entertained by a spectacle that no other men have been permitted to
witness, for about ten o’clock on the morning of that day the grand
upheaval took place, and it seemed to them, as they fled in terror, that
the whole universe was being turned upside down.
First there were a series of terrific explosions, which lifted the crust
of the earth several hundred feet, and out of the cracks issued flames
and lava, and immense volumes of smoke. An hour or two afterwards there
was another and a grander convulsion, which shook and startled the
country for a hundred miles around. Rocks weighing thousands of tons
were hurled into the air, and fell several leagues distant. The surface
of the earth was elevated about three thousand feet, and the internal
recesses were purged of masses of lava and blistered stone, which fell
in a heap around the hole from which they issued. These discharges
continued for several days
[Illustration: YZALCO.]
at irregular intervals, accompanied by loud explosions and earthquakes,
which did much damage throughout the entire republic; the disturbance
was perceptible in Nicaragua and Honduras. In this manner was a volcano
born, and it has proved to be a healthy and vigorous child. In less than
two months from a level field arose a mountain more than four thousand
feet high, and the constant discharges from the crater which opened then
have accumulated around its edges until its elevation has increased two
thousand feet more. Unfortunately, the growth of the monster has not
been scientifically observed or accurately measured, but the cone of
lava and ashes, which is now twenty-five hundred feet from the
foundation of earth upon which it rests, is constantly growing in bulk
and height by the incessant discharges of lava, ashes, and other
volcanic matter upon it.
The capital of San Salvador has been thrice almost entirely, and eleven
times in its history partially, destroyed by earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions coming together. These catastrophies occurred in 1575, 1593,
1625, 1656, 1770, 1773, 1798, 1839, 1854, 1873, and 1882. The most
serious convulsions took place in 1773 and 1854, when not only the City
of Our Saviour, but several other towns were entirely ruined, and nearly
every place suffered to a greater or less degree; but the restoration
was rapid and complete.
The chief products of the country are coffee, cocoa, sugar, indigo, and
other agricultural staples, which are raised by the same process that
prevails in other States, with the addition of a balsam that is very
valuable, and is grown exclusively on a little strip of land lying along
the coast between the two principal seaports, La Libertad and Acajutla.
Lying to the seaward of the volcanic range is a forest about six hundred
square miles in extent that is composed almost exclusively of
balsam-trees, and is known as the “Costa del Balsimo.” It is populated
by a remnant of the aboriginal Indian race, who are supported by the
product of their forest, and are permitted to remain there undisturbed,
and very little altered from their original condition.
The forest is traversed only by foot-paths, so intricate as to baffle
the stranger who attempts to enter it; and it is not safe to make such
an attempt, as the Indians, peaceful enough when they come out to mingle
with the other inhabitants of the country, violently resent any
intrusion into their
[Illustration: IN THE INTERIOR.]
strong-hold. They live as a community, all their earnings being
intrusted to the care of _ahuales_--old men who exercise both civil and
religious offices, and keep the common funds in a treasure-box, to be
distributed among the families as their necessities require. There is a
prevailing impression that the tribe has an enormous sum of money in its
possession, as their earnings are large and their wants are few. The
surplus existing at the end of each year is supposed to be buried in a
sacred spot with religious ceremonies. Both men and women go entirely
naked, except for a breech-clout, but when they come to town they assume
the ordinary cotton garments worn by the peons. They are darker in
color, larger in stature, more taciturn and morose, than the other
Indians of the country, but are temperate, industrious, and adhere to
their ancient rites with great tenacity. They are known to history as
the Nahuatls, but are commonly spoken of as “Balsimos.”
[Illustration: HAULING SUGAR-CANE.]
Agriculture is carried on by them only to an extent sufficient to supply
their own wants, and usually by the women, while the men are engaged in
gathering the balsam, of which they sell about twenty thousand dollars’
worth each year. They number about two thousand people, and including
what they spend at their festivals, which are more like bacchanalian
riots than religious ceremonies, and are accompanied by scenes of
revolting bestiality, their annual expenses cannot be more than one half
of their incomes.
The balsam is obtained by making an incision in the tree, from which the
sap exudes, and is absorbed by bunches of raw cotton. These, when
thoroughly saturated, are thrown into vats of boiling water and replaced
by others. The balsam leaves the cotton, rises to the surface of the
water, and at intervals is skimmed off and placed in wooden bowls or
gourds, where it hardens, and then is wrapped in the leaves of the tree
and sent to market. In commerce it is known as Peruvian balsam, because
in early times Callao was the great market for its sale, but the product
comes exclusively from San Salvador.
There is one railroad in San Salvador, extending from Acajutla to the
city of Sonsonate, the centre of the sugar district, and it is being
extended to Santa Ana, the chief town of the Northern Province. It is
owned by a native capitalist, and operated under the management of an
American engineer. The plan is to extend the track parallel with the sea
through the entire republic, in the valley back of the mountain range,
with branches through the passes to the principal cities. It now passes
two-thirds of the distance around the base of the volcano Yzalco, and
from the cars is furnished a most remarkable view of that sublime
spectacle. The entire system when completed will not consist of more
than two hundred and fifty miles of track, and the work of construction
is neither difficult nor expensive.
SAN JOSÉ.
THE CAPITAL OF COSTA RICA.
Nearly four hundred years ago an old sailor coasted along the eastern
shore of Costa Rica in a bark not much bigger than a canal-boat,
searching for a passage to the western sea. He had a bunk built in the
bows of his little vessel where he could rest his weary bones and look
out upon the world he had discovered. There was little left of him but
his will. He had explored the whole coast from Yucatan to Trinidad, and
found it an unbroken line of continent, a contradiction of all his
reasoning, a defiance of all his theories, and an impassable obstacle to
the hopes he had cherished for thirty years. The geography of the New
World was clear enough in his mind. The earth was a globe, there was no
doubt of it, and there must be a navigable belt of water around. So he
groped along, seeking the passage he felt should be there, cruising into
each river, and following the shorelines of each gulf and bay.
Instinctively he hovered around the narrowest portion of the continent,
where was but a slender strip of land, upheaved by some mighty
convulsion, to shatter his theories and defy his dreams. It was the most
pathetic picture in all history. Finally, overcome by age and infirmity,
he had to abandon the attempt, and fearing to return to Spain without
something to satisfy the avarice of his sovereign, surrendered the
command of his little fleet to his brother Bartholomew, and wept while
the carnival of murder and plunder, that was to last three centuries,
was begun.
Among other points visited for barter with the Indians was a little
harbor in which were islands covered with limes, and Columbus marked the
place upon his chart “Puerto de
[Illustration: CRATER OF A VOLCANO.]
Limon.” To-day it is a collection of cheap wooden houses and bamboo
huts, with wharves, warehouses, and railway shops, surrounded by the
most luxurious tropical vegetation, alive with birds of gorgeous
plumage, venomous reptiles, and beautiful tiger-cats. Here and there
about the place are patches of sugar-cane and groups of cocoa-nut trees,
with the wide-spreading bread-fruit that God gave to the tropical savage
as He gave rice and maize to his Northern brother, and the slender,
graceful rubber-tree, whose frosty-colored mottled trunk looks like the
neck of a giraffe. It scarcely casts a shadow; but the banana, with its
long pale green plumes, furnishes plenty of shelter for the
palm-thatched cabins, the naked babies that play around them, and the
half-dressed women who seem always to be dozing in the sun.