ANTIGUA.
My dreams faded away for a time when we reached the Hotel Rojas, which
had been recommended to us as the best in Antigua. Probably it is the
best, but it certainly is very bad. The rooms are small and ill-kept,
and the dreadfully dirty maids seemed to consider their duty done when
they had swept the dust from our room into the corridor on which all
the bedrooms opened, and thrown the bath-water across the corridor into
the courtyard beyond.
The table was provided with an abundance of beef, poultry, fresh
eggs, vegetables, and fruits; but it was untidy beyond description,
and almost all the food was ruined in the cooking by a too free
use of greasy lard. However, it was evidently the style of cooking
most appreciated in Antigua, for numbers of townspeople as well as
travellers took their meals at the hotel, the "comedor" was seldom
deserted, and the dirty attendants were kept at work from before six
in the morning until after ten o'clock at night. Our tempers were not
improved by being obliged to eat with, or after, so many people, whose
methods of feeding were not the nicest. However, the Hotel Rojas, with
all its drawbacks, was the best we came across during our travels in
the Republic.
When once outside the house, the charm of the surroundings banished
all thoughts of discomfort from our minds. The climate seemed to be
absolutely perfect, and the brilliant blue sky, the bright sun, shaded
now and again by the fleecy clouds one associates with a trade wind,
the temperature never too hot or too cold, and the delicious freshness
in the air stirred by gentle breezes, all together produced in me a
feeling of exhilaration I never thought to experience in a tropical
country. It all sounds too good to be true, but it is no exaggerated
description of the climate as we found it. The situation of the city,
too, is beautiful. It stands over 5000 feet above the sea-level on the
north side of a plain surrounded by bold hills and towering volcanoes,
and there appears to the eye to be only one gap in this circle of
hills, where the slopes of Agua and Fuego overlap, and through this gap
the road passes down to the Pacific coast. A few miles distant along
this road are the remains of the Ciudad Vieja, once the capital of the
country, for the city of Santiago, as the capital of Guatemala has
always been named, has passed through many vicissitudes and changes of
location.
[Illustration: ANTIGUA AND THE VOLCAN DE AGUA.]
Early in the year 1524 Pedro de Alvarado entered the country from
Mexico, and after subduing the Quichés and other powerful Indian
tribes, led his conquering army of Spaniards and Mexican auxiliaries
to Patinamit or Iximché, the stronghold of the Cachiquels; and here,
on St. James's day, 25th July, 1524, the solemn ceremony of founding
a city and dedicating it to Santiago, the patron saint of Spain, took
place, and the first municipal officers were nominated.
On this first site, however, the city can hardly be said to have
had any real existence, for Alvarado and his captains were too much
occupied with expeditions against Indian tribes in distant parts of the
country to be able to give any attention to the building of a city, and
the Cachiquels themselves rose again and again in revolt.
In the year 1527 the Cabildo, or Municipality of Santiago, met in the
plain of Almolonga to decide on a permanent location for the city, and
chose a site on the edge of the plain at the foot of the south-west
slope of the Volcan de Agua. During the following year this new
Santiago (now the Ciudad Vieja) was declared to be the capital of the
province, and began rapidly to rise in importance.
Meanwhile the restless Alvarado had journeyed to Mexico and Spain,
and the government of the province was left to others. In 1530 he
returned to Guatemala with the full powers and title of Adelantado,
and again took the direction of affairs; but the government of an
already-conquered province did not satisfy his ambition, and with
his mind bent on new and greater exploits he built a fleet with the
intention of setting sail for the Spice Islands. From this project
he was turned by the news of the marvellous successes of Pizarro in
the south, and in 1534 he sailed on his ill-fated expedition to Peru.
Within a year he was back again in Guatemala, and then, after another
visit to Spain, he finally met his death on the 4th July, 1541, through
an accident, whilst endeavouring to quell a local revolt in Mexico.
When the news of his death reached Guatemala (at the end of August)
mourning was universal, and his widow Doña Beatriz de la Cueva was
beside herself with grief. At the meeting of the Cabildo, the unusual
step was taken of electing Doña Beatriz as governor in her late
husband's place, and the unfortunate lady signed her name in the
books of the Cabildo on Friday the 9th September, with the prophetic
additions of "la sin ventura," the hapless one. It had been an
unusually wet season, and from Thursday the 8th the rain fell without
ceasing, and the gale was violent until Saturday the 10th, when soon
after dark a flood of water and liquid mud, carrying with it huge
boulders and uprooted trees, rushed down the mountain side and
overwhelmed the town. The hapless one and her maidens were buried under
the ruins of the chapel where they had taken refuge, and thirty or
forty Spaniards and some hundreds of Indians shared a like fate.
The cause of this catastrophe is usually said to have been the bursting
of the side of a lake which had been formed in the crater of the
extinct Volcan de Agua; but an examination of the crater shows this
explanation to be improbable, as the break in the crater-wall is in an
opposite direction, and no water flowing from it could have reached the
town. Moreover, there is no evidence to show that the deeper portion of
the crater, which is still intact, has held water since the reported
outbreak. Indeed, an accumulation of water during the exceptionally
heavy rain, through some temporary obstruction in one of the deep
worn gullies which indent the beautiful slope of that great mountain,
and a subsequent landslip would probably account for the damage done
without the aid of either an eruption of water from the crater or the
supernatural appearances which are duly noted by the old chroniclers.
Again the Cabildo of the Ciudad de Santiago had to meet and decide on a
more suitable position for their city, and the choice fell on the site
of the present city of Antigua, on the other side of the plain and a
few miles distant from the base of the treacherous mountain. There the
town grew and flourished, and the half-ruined churches, convents, and
public buildings still attest its former magnificence.
In this volcanic region a year seldom or never passes without the
shocks of earthquake being felt, and eruptions are not of rare
occurrence, but in the beginning of the eighteenth century the great
peak of Fuego, which forms such a beautiful feature in the view from
the city, was more than usually active. Eruptions and earthquakes
followed in quick succession, and in the year 1717 the continual shocks
laid the city in ruins. However, the damage was repaired again, and the
city increased in prosperity; but from 1751 to 1773 earthquakes again
wrought terrible havoc, and in July of the last year the Cathedral was
shattered and every church and house in the city damaged or destroyed.
Then in 1774 the Cabildo finally moved its home to the present site
of the city of Guatemala. This last change was not altogether a
popular measure, and the Archbishop and the clergy strongly opposed
the removal; but the principal laymen were in its favour, partly
influenced, so says tradition, by the heavy liens which the numerous
ecclesiastical bodies held on their property in the old city. The
poorer people, when they had once recovered from their fright, were
content to stay until oppressive laws were enacted to compel them to
leave their old homes. Backed by official influence the new city rose
in dignity and wealth; but Antigua, as the old town is now called,
was never altogether deserted, and although now not more than half
alive, is increasing somewhat both in wealth and importance. Religious
services continue to be held in the one or two churches which have
escaped the wreck, but the greater number of churches and nearly all
the monastic buildings are roofless and crumbling into ruin. Others
which still afford some shelter are used as cartsheds or blacksmiths'
shops, and one has been converted into a large furniture factory.
[Illustration: ANTIGUA.]
The destruction which began by the convulsions of nature is being
completed by her slower processes. Trees are growing inside the
buildings, and smaller plants find foothold in every crack and cranny,
whilst into the surfaces of the rubble and adobe walls innumerable bees
bore holes in which to deposit their eggs and thus prepare the way for
further destruction from the heavy rains. The best place to see the
bees at work is on the sunny side of one of the high "tapias" or mud
walls which enclose the gardens and coffee fincas, where they may be
sometimes seen poising on their rapidly moving wings and darting in and
out of their holes in such numbers as to give the appearance of a mist
over the surface of the wall.
These walls, I am told, were of greater use formerly than they are
now, for it is only of late years that coffee has been cultivated on
this plain; in earlier times the preparation of cochineal was the
chief industry, and where coffee-trees are now growing there formerly
stood rows of nopal cactus on which the cochineal insect lived. This
white fluffy-looking creature, which exudes a drop of crimson fluid
when crushed, could not survive the wet season without protection,
so a framework of rough sticks, divided into many compartments like
a plate-rack, was arranged under shelter all along the garden walls,
and in each of these compartments one of the flat branches of the
nopal cactus was lodged before the rains began, bearing a number of
cochineal insects sufficient to repopulate the whole plant as soon as
the dry weather came round again. The value of this crop disappeared
with the introduction of aniline dyes and the successful cultivation
of cochineal in the Canary Islands, and the coffee-plant then took the
place of the cactus and has again brought some measure of prosperity
to the planters. But even now the situation is not altogether
satisfactory, for the trees on the plain have more than once been cut
down to the roots by frost, although, curiously enough, those planted
on the hillsides have escaped damage.
There is little to remind one of the modern world in Antigua, it is in
all respects a charming old-world place, with long narrow streets, low
white houses, charming patios, and a fine plaza. The view across the
plaza with its background of mountains is always attractive, and during
market-time on Saturday it is brilliant and picturesque.
We were fortunately in the town during the celebration of the "fiesta
de Reyes," which commemorates the visit of the three kings from the
East to the cradle at Bethlehem. We saw nothing of any function in the
churches, although such no doubt took place, but contented ourselves
by watching the streams of people in the streets and the great market
in the plaza, which was crowded with Indians and ladinos. The Indian
women were seated on the ground shaded by big square umbrellas made of
matting tilted at every angle, and their wares were heaped up in big
baskets or spread on mats around them.
Pottery, mats, fruits, and vegetables of wonderful variety and colour,
in fact everything that is made or grows in the land was offered for
sale. New arrivals continually added to the store of produce, and
heavily burdened Indians picked their way through the crowd until
they could find a clear space where to deposit their loads of black
charcoal and golden maize; whilst in the stalls at one end of the
plaza the ladinos offered for sale cutlery, saddlery, and dress
materials, both native and imported. To this festival all the Indians
in the neighbourhood come dressed in the costume peculiar to their
village or clan, and each village sends a deputation, headed by a very
solemn-looking alcalde, to offer prayers at some favourite shrine and
to pay a visit of ceremony to the Jefe Político, or Chief Magistrate.
The Alcaldes were dressed in white trousers and round jackets of coarse
coloured home-spun cloth, and they wore white or more often black straw
hats with black velvet bands adorned with small black spangles.
[Illustration: AN ALCALDE.]
The costumes of the different villages varied considerably. Those who
came from the slopes of Agua wore the smallest amount of clothing,
consisting only of a loose cotton shirt and drawers of black woollen
cloth reaching halfway down the thigh, whilst the men from the Lake
region were quite elaborately dressed, with the bands of their black
straw hats sparkling with spangles--always, I believe, a sign of wealth
and importance--and beneath their hats they wore red and white cotton
handkerchiefs wound round their heads. Their black or striped woollen
jackets were woven or embroidered down the front in pretty designs,
a striped cotton belt or sash was wound round the waist, and the
short black woollen trousers, which reached just below the knee, were
embroidered on the seams with coloured threads, and left open halfway
up the sides to show the white cotton drawers beneath. All, of course,
wore leather sandals.
[Illustration: THE PLAZA, ANTIGUA.]
The "huipils," or loose cotton blouses worn by the Indian women, were
much more richly embroidered than any we had seen at the Capital, and
with their bright-coloured "enaguas" make up an effective costume. This
enagua or skirt is usually a cotton cloth about a yard in width wrapped
round the body and reaching from the waist to below the knee, but its
simplicity has given way in some Indian villages to a more Europeanized
form of skirt pleated at the top.
The ladino women of the poorer class were dressed in full skirts of
printed cotton or coarse muslin, which just cleared the ground, aprons
woven in the country, with stripes of brilliant colour, white bodices
cut low in the neck and leaving their pretty brown arms bare, and most
of them carried a long striped shawl, also a native product, thrown
over the head or flung loosely round the shoulders. The ladino women
higher in the social scale add nothing to the picturesqueness of the
groups, for they affect trailing skirts, ill-cut bodices, or any other
bad imitations of the fashion of the day.
An Indian baby slung in a shawl over its mother's back is a
delightfully grotesque mite; but what charmed me most were the little
girls about eighteen inches high, just able to toddle by their mothers'
sides, who were miniature copies of their mothers in dress and
appearance. They seemed to be contented little things, and we never saw
a child roughly treated throughout our journey.
The more I saw of Antigua the greater the longing grew to settle there,
and to surround myself with a garden. The picturesque ruin of the
buildings and garden walls already garlanded with flowers and ferns
fascinated me, and in imagination I revelled in the glories of bower
and blossom which taste and care might achieve, and the thought of
dreaming away one's days in such a perfect climate surrounded by so
much loveliness was strangely enticing. The rides and walks immediately
around the city are delightful, no barrancas bar the way, and the two
great volcanoes with their ever-changing colour and fleecy mantles
of shifting cloud are a constant source of delight. Alas! we had but
little time to spare for sauntering rides and woodland rambles, for
with true northern energy we had set our hearts on making the ascent of
Agua, and sleeping a night in the crater.