Nicaragua--"Mahomet's Paradise"--Buccaneering visitors--Philip II. and
an Isthmian Canal--Nelson defeated by a girl--The apocryphal heroine of
San Carlos.
Nature in lavishing her favours on Nicaragua, left little for man to
add. It is a tropical country with a temperate climate, one half of its
territory having a mean elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the
sea. In that favoured land the primeval curse is stayed; where nature
forestalls every necessity, no need for man to toil or want. Fruits
grow in the reckless profusion of the tropics, and clothing is a
superfluity wisely counted as such. Two-hundred and fifty thousand
children, young and old, occupy a domain as large as New England. They
are poor in accumulated wealth as the poorest peasantry of Europe; they
are rich, knowing no want unsatisfied, as a nation of millionaires. But
Nicaragua is a country in which to study with doubt the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest. The early discoverers called it "Mahomet's
Paradise," an apt name for a land of sensuous happiness.
There man reaps without sowing, and the harvest never fails. He has but
to stretch forth his hand and feast on dainties such as seldom grace
the tables of kings; the citron, the lemon, the orange (with often
10,000 on a single tree), the banana, the mango, the papaya, the cocoa,
the tamarind, the milk-tree, the butter tree, and a spontaneous
perennial growth of coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and everything that
grows or can be grown in any tropical or temperate clime. Half the year
he may sling his hammock beneath the shady trees. In the rainy season a
few stakes and a thatch of palm leaves afford him ample shelter.
Medicinal trees and herbs abound everywhere, for the relief of the few
ills to which his flesh is heir. Birds of gayest plumage, flowers of
loveliest hue, greet his eyes on every side. In the noble forests,
where the pine and the palm grow beside the ceiba, the mimosa, and the
stately cactus, the splendours of the rainbow are rivalled in the
plumage of parrots, macaws, humming-birds, toucans, and the beautiful
winged creature that bears the imperial name of Montezuma. It is the
latest and the fairest land of earth, and the heavenly radiance of
youth is on its face. So young, that the fires of nature's workshop
have not yet died out. The volcano, towering thousands of feet towards
heaven, still smoulders or flames, and the earth is shaken ever and
anon by the engines of the Titans. Ometepe the glorious lifts his
cloud-capped head five thousand feet out of the placid bosom of Lake
Nicaragua; Madera, his neighbour, is but eight hundred feet less lofty.
Momotombo and Mombacho and El Viejo, and the twin peaks which watch the
mouth of Fonseca Bay, are flaming swords guarding the Eden to which the
serpent has come, as of old, with a human tongue.
Little note takes the Nicaraguan of the lavish favours of nature, whose
grandest mystery but awakens a languid _Quien Sabe?_ and whose most
winning plea extorts only a more languid _Poco tiempo_--the eternal by
and by of indolence. One per cent. of the whole population makes a show
of studying the elements of education. Why should they vex their souls
in search of knowledge, when all that life needs can be had for the
asking? Not, surely, to heap up wealth. Nature takes care even of that,
for money grows upon trees of Nicaragua--that is to say, the fractional
currency of the people is nuts, one cacao-nut being equal to a fortieth
of a _medio_ in value, and passing current as such in all the smaller
affairs of trade. Nor is it worth the trouble of mastering letters
where illiteracy is no bar to civil or military advancement, and where,
especially if the "Serviles" be in power, an unlettered bandit ranks
almost as high as a rascally advocate. In the days of President
Chamorro the most notorious ruffians held high office, the revenues of
the state were farmed out on the system which prevails to-day only in
the more barbarous parts of Asia, so that it was a saying in the
neighboring states, where, too, glass-houses are not scarce, that "the
calf was not safe in the cow, from the thieves of Nicaragua."
It was not always so in Nicaragua. Years before the mail-clad Spaniard
brought the curse of civilization across the western ocean, the simple
Aztec built his altars to the sun on every hill-top from sea to sea.
Centuries ere the Aztec, there flourished a semi-civilized race whose
history is written in hieroglyphics of a language utterly dead and
forgotten, and who have left no lineal descendants. Even such fragments
of Aztec lore as survived the fanaticism of the Conquistadores in
Mexico are wanting to the annals of the earlier Central American
civilization. It was a culture of rich growth in its day and place,
destined like that of the contemporary Roman Empire, to tempt the
cupidity of a hardier race, and after an unavailing struggle, to fall
before the might of numbers and superior physique. Howbeit, the Aztec
Goths and Vandals overran the isthmus, and when the Spanish invasion
came, it met only the late subjects of Montezuma's widespread,
ill-governed kingdom.
The religion of Nicaragua before the conquest was a gloomy idolatry.
The predecessors of the Aztec are conjectured to have been a gentle
race, but no match in prowess for their conquerors. The Spaniards found
a people of sun-worshippers degraded by human sacrifice and attendant
cannibalism. Between them and distant Anahuac, to which they owed
allegiance, lay the dense forests and trackless swamps of Yucatan. The
journey by land at this day is long and toilsome. Cortez, nevertheless,
projected and carried out an exploration as far as Honduras, until his
appalled veterans refused to go further southward.
Don Pedrarias d'Avila, Governor of Panama, undertook its exploration
from the south in 1514. Nine years later he was encouraged to send a
force for its subjugation, under command of Francisco de Cordova, who
secured the submission of its cacique, Nicarao or Nicaya. The
conquerors gave that chieftain's name to his country. They founded Leon
and Granada, which have remained its leading cities. Nicaragua gave a
few recruits to Pizarro. Philip II., with narrow-minded foresight, sent
a commission to survey the isthmus and judge of the feasibility of
cutting a ship canal. The report was favourable, the route by way of
Panama being chosen. It was too favourable, as it pointed out the
advantages of such a passage to international commerce. Spain did not
want such broad liberality, and Philip decreed the punishment of death
to any one who might thereafter propose to wed the two oceans together.
But, as high tariffs encourage smuggling, so prohibited commerce takes
refuge in privateering. The Buccaneers arose to dispute with Spain the
monopoly of her American trade. The isthmus suffered most from their
ravages. Panama, then as now, the most important city on the coast, was
the depôt for the royal treasure gathered at the adjacent mines of
Cana. Drake paid it a predatory visit in 1586. It was afterwards taken
and sacked at different times by Morgan, Sharpe, Ringrose, and Dampier.
It was burned three times between 1670 and 1680. Finally it was
abandoned for the new town, three miles inland.
Nicaragua, though liable to predatory forays, had not wealth enough to
tempt the buccaneers from richer prey. Cape Gracias a Dios, on its
north-eastern boundary, was a rendezvous of the freebooters; but the
Atlantic coast was even less inviting to the plunder-seekers than the
Pacific. The narratives of the buccaneers touch lightly on it. Its name
of the Mosquito Coast appears to have been well deserved. De Lussan
speaks with lively horror of the pestiferous little insect which "is
sooner felt than seen."
The buccaneers passed away, but left a legacy. Great Britain in 1742
laid claim to the Bay Islands, which had been captured by English
buccaneers just a century before. A war with Spain ensued, without
material gain to either party. By the treaty of 1763, England renounced
her claim on Central America, and evacuated all the disputed territory,
except the Island of Ruatan, on the Atlantic coast of Honduras, a
shirking of her obligations which awakened a renewal of hostilities. In
1780 Colonel Polson was sent to invade Nicaragua. Landing a force of
two hundred sailors and marines at San Juan del Norte, he ascended the
river in boats, carrying with little trouble the half-dozen fortified
positions on its banks. At the head of the river, where it receives the
waters of Lake Nicaragua, the expedition was confronted by the frowning
batteries of Fort San Carlos, then, as now, guarding the mouth of the
lake.
At this point in the narrative, history and tradition part company, the
former averring, upon historical and biographical English authority,
that Horatio Nelson, then a simple unknown captain commanding the naval
forces, reduced the fort, inflicted a severe chastisement upon the
enemy and returned victorious to his ships. Tradition tells a prettier
story.
As the flotilla neared the shore in line of battle, the stillness was
unbroken, save by the plash of their oars and the music of the surf.
Not a soldier was visible on the ramparts, for the cowardly varlets of
the garrison, taking advantage of the Commandante's sickness, had fled
to the woods at the first sight of the enemy. The gallant hidalgo in
command was left without a single attendant, save his lovely daughter.
But she was a true soldier's child, with the spirit of a heroine. The
boats drew rapidly near the shore, their oars flashing in the morning
sun, the gunners awaiting with lighted matches the order to fire.
Nelson stood up to bid his men give way, and at the instant a flash was
seen in one of the embrasures of the fort; the next moment the roar of
a cannon broke the stillness of lake and forest. Immediately gun after
gun echoed the sound, but the first had done the work of an army, by
striking down Horatio Nelson. The boats pulled rapidly out of range and
down the river, beaten and discouraged. Nor did they escape heavier
losses; for the Spaniards so harassed and plagued them on the retreat
that, of the two hundred men who had started from San Juan, but ten
returned in safety. Nelson's wound cost him the loss of an eye; and he
who had never turned his back on a foe-man fled from the guns of San
Carlos, served by a girl of sixteen. It was the Commandante's daughter,
Donna Rafaela Mora, who had fired the battery and saved Nicaragua. The
heroine of Fort San Carlos was decorated by the King of Spain,
commissioned a colonel in the royal service, and pensioned for life.
Such is the tradition, accepted as authentic by the natives and
supported by the testimony of several trustworthy travellers. None of
Nelson's biographers make mention of the heroic maiden. According to
those historians, Nelson ascended the river as far as Fort San
Juan--probably Castillo Viejo--which he reduced after a somewhat
protracted siege and a heavy loss to his forces. They place the scene
of the accident by which he lost his eye at the siege of Calvi, in the
Island of Corsica. Yet Captain Bedford Pim, of the Royal Navy, in his
book of Nicaraguan travel, gives unquestioning credence to the legend
of the country; which has also been accepted by other English writers
who may be supposed to have a familiar acquaintance with the life of
Nelson. So firmly is it believed in Nicaragua that, upon the strength
of his inherited glory, General Martinez, a grandson of the heroine,
was chosen President of the state in 1857, although there was at the
time a regularly-elected President claiming and lawfully entitled to
the office--a fact which should suffice to silence the most captious
critic. In an iconoclastic age it were needless cruelty to rob the poor
Nicaraguan of the only bit of heroic history he possesses. Possibly
Nelson's biographers suppressed an incident which did not redound to
the glory of their hero; perchance, his Catholic Majesty was imposed
upon, or the tradition of the Maid of San Carlos may be but another
transplanted solar myth. _Quien sabe?_