CENTRAL AMERICA. COSTA RICA--SAN JOSÉ.
All travellers when entering unknown towns for the first time have
felt that intense interest on the subject of hotel accommodation
which pervaded our hearts as we followed our guide through the
streets. We had been told that there were two inns in the town, and
that we were to go to the Hotel San José. And accordingly we went to
it.
It was quite evident that the landlord at first had some little doubt
as to the propriety of admitting us; and but for our guide, whom he
knew, we should have had to explain at some length who we were. But
under his auspices we were taken in without much question.
The Spaniards themselves are not in their own country at all
famous for their inns. No European nation has probably advanced
so slowly towards civilization in this respect as Spain has done.
And therefore, as these Costa Ricans are Spanish by descent and
language, and as the country itself is so far removed from European
civilization, we did not expect much. Had we fallen into the
hands of Spaniards we should probably have received less even
than we expected. But as it was we found ourselves in a comfortable
second-class little German inn. It was German in everything; its
light-haired landlord, frequently to be seen with a beer tankard in
hand; its tidy landlady, tidy at any rate in the evening, if not
always so in the morning; its early hours, its cookery, its drink,
and I think I may fairly add, its prices.
On entering the first town I had visited in Central America, I had of
course looked about me for strange sights. That men should be found
with their heads under their shoulders, or even living in holes
burrowed in the ground, I had not ventured to hope. But when a man
has travelled all the way to Costa Rica, he does expect something
strange. He does not look to find everything as tame and flat and
uninteresting as though he were riding into a sleepy little borough
town in Wiltshire.
We cannot cross from Dover to Ostend without finding at once that we
are among a set of people foreign to ourselves. The first glance of
the eye shows this in the architecture of the houses, and the costume
of the people. We find the same cause for excitement in France,
Switzerland, and Italy; and when we get as far as the Tyrol, we come
upon a genus of mankind so essentially differing from our own as to
make us feel that we have travelled indeed.
But there is little more interest to be found in entering San José
than in driving through the little Wiltshire town above alluded to.
The houses are comfortable enough. They are built with very ordinary
doors and windows, of one or two stories according to the wealth of
the owners, and are decently clean outside, though apparently rather
dirty within. The streets are broad and straight, being all at right
angles to each other, and though not very well paved, are not rough
enough to elicit admiration. There is a square, the pláza, in which
stands the cathedral, the barracks, and a few of the best houses in
the town. There is a large and tolerably well-arranged market-place.
There is a really handsome set of public buildings, and there are
two moderately good hotels. What more can a man rationally want if
he travel for business? And if he travel for pleasure how can he
possibly find less?
It so happened that at the time of my visit to Costa Rica Sir William
Ouseley was staying at San José with his family. He had been sent,
as all the world that knows anything doubtless knows very well, as
minister extraordinary from our Court to the governments of Central
America, with the view of settling some of those tough diplomatic
questions as to the rights of transit and occupation of territory,
respecting which such world-famous Clayton-Bulwer treaties and
Cass-Yrrisari treaties have been made and talked of. He had been
in Nicaragua, making no doubt an equally famous Ouseley-something
treaty, and was now engaged on similar business in the capital of
Costa Rica.
Of the nature of this August work,--for such work must be very
august,--I know nothing. I only hope that he may have at least as
much success as those who went before him. But to me it was a great
stroke of luck to find so pleasant and hospitable a family in so
outlandish a place as San José. And indeed, though I have given
praise to the hotel, I have given it with very little personal
warrant as regards my knowledge either of the kitchen or cellar. My
kitchen and cellar were beneath the British flag at the corner of the
pláza, and I had reason to be satisfied with them in every respect.
And I had abundant reason to be greatly gratified. For not only was
there at San José a minister extraordinary, but also, attached to the
mission, there was an extra-ordinary secretary of legation, a very
prince of good fellows. At home he would be a denizen of the Foreign
Office, and denizens of the Foreign Office are swells at home. But at
San José, where he rode on a mule, and wore a straw hat, and slept
in a linendraper's shop, he was as pleasant a companion as a man
would wish to meet on the western, or indeed on any other side of
the Atlantic.
I shall never forget the hours I spent in that linendraper's shop.
The rooms over the shop, over that shop and over two or three others,
were occupied by Sir W. Ouseley and his family. There was a chemist's
establishment there, and another in the possession, I think, of a
hatter. They had been left to pursue their business in peace; but
my friend the secretary, finding no rooms sufficiently secluded for
himself in the upper mansion, had managed to expel the haberdasher,
and had located himself not altogether uncomfortably, among the
counters.
Those who have spent two or three weeks in some foreign town in which
they have no ordinary pursuits, know what it is to have--or perhaps,
more unlucky, know what it is to be without--some pleasant accustomed
haunt, in which they can pretend to read, while in truth the hours
are passed in talking, with some few short intervals devoted to
contemplation and tobacco. Such to me was the shop of the expelled
linendraper at San José. In it, judiciously suspended among the
counters, hung a Panamá grass hammock, in which it was the custom of
my diplomatic friend to lie at length and meditate his despatches.
Such at least had been his custom before my arrival. What became of
his despatches during the period of my stay, it pains me to think;
for in that hammock I had soon located myself, and I fear that my
presence was not found to be a salutary incentive to composition.
The scenery round San José is certainly striking, but not
sufficiently so to enable one to rave about it. I cannot justly go
into an ecstasy and sing of Pelion or Ossa; nor can I talk of deep
ravines to which the Via Mala is as nothing. There is a range of
hills, respectably broken into prettinesses, running nearly round
the town, though much closer to it on the southern than on the other
sides. Two little rivers run by it, which here and there fall into
romantic pools, or pools which would be romantic if they were not
so very distant from home; if having travelled so far, one did not
expect so very much. There are nice walks too, and pretty rides; only
the mules do not like fast trotting when the weight upon them is
heavy. About a mile and a half from the town, there is a Savanah,
so-called, or large square park, the Hyde Park of San José; and it
would be difficult to imagine a more pleasant place for a gallop. It
is quite large enough for a race-course, and is open to everybody.
Some part of the mountain range as seen from here is really
beautiful.
The valley of San José, as it is called, is four thousand five
hundred feet above the sea; and consequently, though within the
tropics, and only ten degrees north of the line, the climate is good,
and the heat, I believe, never excessive. I was there in April, and
at that time, except for a few hours in the middle of the day, and
that only on some days, there was nothing like tropical heat. Within
ten days of my leaving San José I heard natives at Panamá complaining
of the heat as being altogether unendurable. But up there, on that
high plateau, the sun had no strength that was inconvenient even to
an Englishman.
Indeed, no climate can, I imagine, be more favourable to fertility
and to man's comfort at the same time than that of the interior
of Costa Rica. The sugar-cane comes to maturity much quicker than
in Demerara or Cuba. There it should be cut in about thirteen or
fourteen months from the time it is planted; in Nicaragua and Costa
Rica it comes to perfection in nine or ten. The ground without manure
will afford two crops of corn in a year. Coffee grows in great
perfection, and gives a very heavy crop. The soil is all volcanic,
or, I should perhaps more properly say, has been the produce of
volcanoes, and is indescribably fertile. And all this has been given
without that intensity of heat which in those southern regions
generally accompanies tropical fertility, and which makes hard work
fatal to a white man; while it creates lethargy and idleness, and
neutralizes gifts which would otherwise be regarded as the fairest
which God has bestowed on his creatures. In speaking thus, I refer
to the central parts of Costa Rica only, to those which lie some
thousand feet above the level of the sea. Along the sea-shores, both
of the Atlantic and Pacific, the heat is as great, and the climate
as unwholesome as in New Granada or the West Indies. It would be
difficult to find a place worse circumstanced in this respect than
Punta-arenas.
But though the valley or plateau of San José, and the interior of the
country generally is thus favourably situated, I cannot say that the
nation is prosperous. It seems to be God's will that highly-fertile
countries should not really prosper. Man's energy is brought to
its highest point by the presence of obstacles to be overcome, by
the existence of difficulties which are all but insuperable. And
therefore a Scotch farm will give a greater value in produce than an
equal amount of land in Costa Rica. When nature does so much, man
will do next to nothing!
Those who seem to do best in this country, both in trade and
agriculture, are Germans. Most of those who are carrying on
business on a large scale are foreigners,--that is, not Spanish by
descent. There are English here, and Americans, and French, but
I think the Germans are the most wedded to the country. The finest
coffee properties are in the hands of foreigners, as also are the
plantations of canes, and saw-mills for the preparation of timber.
But they have a very uphill task. Labour is extremely scarce, and
very dear. The people are not idle as the negroes are, and they love
to earn and put by money; but they are very few in number; they have
land of their own, and are materially well off. In the neighbourhood
of San José, a man's labour is worth a dollar a day, and even at that
price it is not always to be had.
It seems to be the fact that in all countries in which slavery has
existed and has been abolished, this subject of labour offers the
great difficulty in the way of improvement. Labour becomes unpopular,
and is regarded as being in some sort degrading. Men will not
reconcile it with their idea of freedom. They wish to work on their
own land, if they work at all; and to be their own masters; to grow
their own crops, be they ever so small; and to sit beneath their own
vine, be the shade ever so limited. There are those who will delight
to think that such has been the effect of emancipation; who will
argue,--and they have strong arguments on their side,--that God's
will with reference to his creatures is best carried out by such
an order of things. I can only say that the material result has
not hitherto been good. As far as we at present see, the struggle
has produced idleness and sensuality, rather than prosperity and
civilization.
It is hardly fair to preach this doctrine, especially with regard
to Costa Rica, for the people are not idle. That, at least, is not
specially their character. They are a humdrum, contented, quiet,
orderly race of men; fond of money, but by no means fond of risking
it; living well as regards sufficiency of food and raiment, but still
living very close; anxious to effect small savings, and politically
contented if the security of those savings can be insured to them.
They seem to be little desirous, even among the upper classes,
or what we would call the tradespeople, of education, either
religious or profane; they have no enthusiasm, no ardent desires, no
aspirations. If only they could be allowed to sell their dulce to the
maker of aguardiente,--if they might be permitted to get their little
profit out of the manufacture of gin! That, at present, is the one
grievance that affects them, but even that they bear easily.
It will perhaps be considered my duty to express an opinion whether
or no they are an honest people. In one respect, certainly. They
steal nothing; at any rate, make no great thefts. No one is attacked
on the roads; no life is in danger from violence; houses are not
broken open. Nay, a traveller's purse left upon a table is, I
believe, safe; nor will his open portmanteau be rifled. But when
you come to deal with them, the matter is different. Then their
conscience becomes elastic; and as the trial is a fair one between
man and man, they will do their best to cheat you. If they lie to
you, cannot you lie to them? And is it not reasonable to suppose
that you do do so? If they, by the aid of law, can get to the windy
side of you, is not that merely their success in opposition to your
attempt--for of course you do attempt--to get to the windy side of
them? And then bribes are in great vogue. Justice is generally to be
bought; and when that is in the market, trade in other respects is
not generally conducted in the most honest manner.
Thus, on the whole, I cannot take upon myself to say that they are
altogether an honest people. But they have that kind of honesty which
is most essential to the man who travels in a wild country. They do
not knock out the traveller's brains, or cut his throat for the sake
of what he has in his pocket.
Generally speaking, the inhabitants of Costa Rica are of course
Spanish by descent, but here, as in all these countries, the blood
is very much mixed: pure Spanish blood is now, I take it, quite an
exception. This is seen more in the physiognomy than in the colour,
and is specially to be noticed in the hair. There is a mixture of
three races, the Spanish, the native Indian, and the Negro; but the
traces of the latter are comparatively light and few. Negroes, men
and women, absolutely black, and of African birth or descent, are
very rare; and though traces of the thick lip and the woolly hair are
to be seen--to be seen in the streets and market-places--they do not
by any means form a staple of the existing race.
The mixture is of Spanish and of Indian blood, in which the Spanish
no doubt much preponderates. The general colour is that of a white
man, but of one who is very swarthy. Occasionally this becomes so
marked that the observer at once pronounces the man or woman to be
coloured. But it is the colouring of the Indian, and not of the
negro; the hue is rich, and to a certain extent bright, and the
lines of the face are not flattened and blunted. The hair also is
altogether human, and in no wise sheepish.
I do not think that the inhabitants of Costa Rica have much to boast
of in the way of personal beauty. Indeed, the descendant of the
Spaniard, out of his own country, seems to lose both the manly
dignity and the female grace for which old Spain is still so noted.
Some pretty girls I did see, but they could boast only the ordinary
prettiness which is common to all young girls, and which our friends
in France describe as being the special gift of the devil. I saw no
fine, flaming, flashing eyes; no brilliant figures, such as one
sees in Seville around the altar-rails in the churches: no profiles
opening upon me struck me with mute astonishment.
The women were humdrum in their appearance, as the men are in their
pursuits. They are addicted to crinoline, as is the nature of women
in these ages; but so long as their petticoats stuck out, that seemed
to be everything. In the churches they squat down on the ground, in
lieu of kneeling, with their dresses and petticoats arranged around
them, looking like huge turnips with cropped heads--like turnips
that, by their persevering growth, had got half their roots above the
ground. Now women looking like turnips are not specially attractive.
I was at San José during Passion Week, and had therefore an
opportunity of seeing the processions which are customary in Roman
Catholic countries at that period. I certainly should not say that
the Costa Ricans are especially a religious people. They are humdrum
in this as in other respects, and have no enthusiasm either for or
against the priesthood. Free-thinking is not the national sin; nor is
fanaticism. They are all Roman Catholics, most probably without an
exception. Their fathers and mothers were so before them, and it is a
thing of course.
There used to be a bishop of Costa Rica; indeed, they never were
without one till the other day. But not long since the father of
their church in some manner displeased the President: he had, I
believe, taken it into his sacred head that he, as bishop, might
make a second party in the state, and organize an opposition to the
existing government; whereupon the President banished him, as the
President can do to any one by his mere word, and since that time
there has been no bishop. "And will they not get another?" I asked.
"No; probably not; they don't want one. It will be so much money
saved." Looking at the matter in this light, there is often much to
be said for the expediency of reducing one's establishment. "And who
manages the church?" "It does not require much management. It goes on
in the old way. When they want priests they get them from Guatemala."
If we could save all our bishoping, and get our priests as we want
them from Guatemala, or any other factory, how excellent would be the
economy!
The cathedral of San José is a long, low building, with side aisles
formed by very rickety-looking wooden pillars--in substance they are
hardly more than poles--running from the ground to the roof. The
building itself is mean enough, but the internal decorations are not
badly arranged, and the general appearance is neat, orderly, and
cool. We all know the usual manner in which wooden and waxen virgins
are dressed and ornamented in such churches. There is as much of this
here as elsewhere; but I have seen it done in worse taste both in
France and Italy. The façade of the church, fronting the pláza is
hardly to be called a portion of the church; but is an adjunct to it,
or rather the church has been fixed on to the façade, which is not
without some architectural pretension.
In New Granada--Columbia that was--the cathedrals are arranged as
they are in old Spain. The choir is not situated round the altar, or
immediately in front of it, as is the custom in Christian churches
in, I believe, all other countries, but is erected far down the
centre aisle, near the western entrance. This, however, was not the
case in any church that I saw in Costa Rica.
During the whole of Passion Week there was a considerable amount
of religious activity, in the way of preaching and processions,
which reached its acme on Good Friday. On that day the whole town
was processioning from morning--which means four o'clock--till
evening--which means two hours after sunset. They had three figures,
or rather three characters,--for two of them appeared in more than
one guise and form,--each larger than life; those, namely, of our
Saviour, the Virgin, and St. John. These figures are made of wax,
and the faces of some of them were excellently moulded. These are
manufactured in Guatemala--as the priests are; and the people there
pride themselves on their manufacture, not without reason.
The figures of our Saviour and the Virgin were in different dresses
and attitudes, according to the period of the day which it was
intended to represent; but the St. John was always represented in
the dress of a bishop of the present age. The figures were supported
on men's shoulders, and were carried backwards and forwards through
every portion of the town, till at last, having been brought forth in
the morning from the cathedral, they were allowed at night to rest in
a rival, and certainly better built, though smaller church.
I must notice one particularity in the church-going population of
this country. The women occupy the nave and centre aisle, squatting
on the ground, and looking, as I have said, like turnips; whereas the
men never advance beyond the side aisles. The women of the higher
classes--all those, indeed, who make any pretence to dress and
finery--bring with them little bits of carpet, on which they squat;
but there are none of those chairs with which churches on the
Continent are so commonly filled.
It seemed that there is nothing that can be called society among the
people of San José. They do not go out to each other's homes, nor
meet in public; they have neither tea-parties, nor dinner-parties,
nor dancing-parties, nor card-parties. I was even assured--though
I cannot say that the assurance reached my belief--that they never
flirt! Occasionally, on Sundays, for instance, and on holidays, they
put on their best clothes and call on each other. But even then there
is no conversation among them; they sit stiffly on each other's
sofas, and make remarks at intervals, like minute guns, about the
weather.
"But what _do_ they do?" I asked. "The men scrape money together,
and when they have enough they build a house, big or little according
to the amount that they have scraped: that satisfies the ambition
of a Costa Rican. When he wishes to amuse himself, he goes to a
cock-fight." "And the women?" "They get married early if their
fathers can give them a few ounces"--the ounce is the old doubloon,
worth here about three pounds eight shillings sterling--"and then
they cook, and have children." "And if the ounces be wanting, and
they don't get married?" "Then they cook all the same, but do not
have the children,--as a general rule." And so people vegetate in
Costa Rica.
And now I must say a word or two about the form of government in this
country. It is a republic, of course, arranged on the model plan. A
president is elected for a term of years,--in this case six. He has
ministers who assist him in his government, and whom he appoints; and
there is a House of Congress, elected of course by the people, who
make the laws. The President merely carries them out, and so Utopia
is realized.
Utopia might perhaps be realized in such republics, or at any rate
the realization might not be so very distant as it is at present,
were it not that in all of them the practice, by some accident, runs
so far away from the theory.
In Costa Rica, Don Juan Rafael Mora, familiarly called Juanito, is
now the president, having been not long since re-elected (?) for the
third time. "We read in the 'Gazette' on Tuesday morning that the
election had been carried on Saturday, and that was all we knew about
it." It is thus they elect a president in Costa Rica; no one knows
anything about it, or troubles his head with the matter. If any one
suggested a rival president, he would be banished. But such a thing
is not thought of; no note is taken as to five years or six years.
At some period that pleases him, the President says that he has been
re-elected, and he is re-elected. Who cares? Why not Juanito as well
as any one else? Only it is a pity he will not let us sell our dulce
to the distillers!
The President's salary is three thousand dollars a year; an income
which for so high a position is moderate enough. But then a
further sum of six thousand dollars is added to this for official
entertainment. The official entertainments, however, are not
numerous. I was informed that he usually gives one party every year.
He himself still lives in his private house, and still keeps a shop,
as he did before he was president. It must be remembered that there
is no aristocracy in this country above the aristocracy of the
shopkeepers.
As far as I could learn, the Congress is altogether a farce. There is
a congress or collection of men sent up from different parts of the
country, some ten or dozen of whom sit occasionally round a table in
the great hall; but they neither debate, vote, nor offer opinions.
Some one man, duly instructed by the President, lets them know what
law is to be made or altered, and the law is made or altered. Should
any member of Congress make himself disagreeable, he would, as a
matter of course, be banished; taken, that is, to Punta-arenas,
and there told to shift for himself. Now this enforced journey to
Punta-arenas does not seem to be more popular among the Costa Ricans
than a journey to Siberia is among the Russians.
Such is the model republic of Central America,--admitted, I am
told, to be the best administered of the cluster of republics there
established. This, at any rate, may certainly be said for it--that
life and property are safe. They are safe for the present, and will
probably remain so, unless the filibusters make their way into the
neighbouring state of Nicaragua in greater numbers and with better
leaders than they have hitherto had.
And it must be told to the credit of the Costa Ricans, that it
was by them and their efforts that the invasion of Walker and the
filibusters into Central America was stopped and repelled. These
enterprising gentlemen, the filibusters, landed on the coast of
Nicaragua, having come down from California. Here they succeeded in
getting possession of a large portion of the country, that portion
being the most thickly populated and the richest; many of the towns
they utterly destroyed, and among them Granada, the capital. It seems
that at this time the whole state of Nicaragua was paralyzed, and
unable to strike any blow in its own defence.
Having laid waste the upper or more northern country, Walker came
down south as far as Rivas, a town still in Nicaragua, but not far
removed from the borders of Costa Rica. His intention, doubtless, was
to take possession of Costa Rica, so that he might command the whole
transit across the isthmus.
But at Rivas he was attacked by the soldiery of Costa Rica, under the
command of a brother of Don Juan Mora. This was in 1856, and it seems
that some three thousand Costa Ricans were taken as far as Rivas.
But few of them returned. They were attacked by cholera, and what
with that, and want, and the intense heat, to which of course must
be added what injuries the filibusters could do them, they were
destroyed, and a remnant only returned.
But in 1857 the different states of Central America joined themselves
in a league, with the object of expelling these filibusters. I do not
know that either of the three northern states sent any men to Rivas,
and the weight of the struggle again fell upon Costa Rica. The Costa
Ricans and Nicaraguans together invested Rivas, in which five hundred
filibusters under Walker for some time maintained themselves. These
men were reduced to great straits, and might no doubt have been taken
bodily. But the Central Americans also had their difficulties to
contend with. They did not agree very well together, and they had but
slender means of supporting themselves. It ended in a capitulation,
under which Walker and his associates were to walk out with their
arms and all the honours of war; and by which, moreover, it was
stipulated that the five hundred were to be sent back to America at
the expense of the Central American States. The States, thinking no
doubt that it was good economy to build a golden bridge for a flying
enemy, did so send them back; and in this manner for a while Central
America was freed from the locusts.
Such was the capitulation of Rivas; a subject on which all Costa
Ricans now take much pride to themselves. And indeed, honour is due
to them in this matter, for they evinced a spirit in the business
when their neighbours of Nicaragua failed to do so. They soon
determined that the filibusters would do them no good;--could indeed
by no possibility do them anything but harm; consequently, they
resolved to have the first blow, and they struck it manfully, though
not so successfully as might have been wished.
The total population of Central America is, I believe, about two
millions, while that of Costa Rica does not exceed two hundred
thousand. Of the five states, Guatemala has by far the largest
number of inhabitants; and indeed the town of Guatemala may still
be regarded as the capital of all the isthmus territories. They
fabricate there not only priests and wax images, but doctors and
lawyers, and all those expensive luxuries for the production of which
the air of a capital is generally considered necessary. The President
of Guatemala is, they say, an Indian, nearly of pure descent; his
name is Carrera.
I have spoken of the army of Costa Rica. In point of accoutrement and
outward show, they are on ordinary days somewhat like the troops that
were not fit to march through Coventry. They wear no regimentals,
and are only to be known when on duty by a very rusty-looking gun.
On Sundays, however, and holidays they do wear a sort of uniform,
consisting of a neat cap, and a little braiding upon their best
clothes. This dress, such as it is, they are obliged to find for
themselves. The clothing department, therefore, is not troublesome.
These men are enrolled after the manner of our militia. The full
number should be nine thousand, and is generally somewhat above six
thousand. Of this number five hundred are kept in barracks, the men
taking it by turns, month by month. When in barracks they receive
about one shilling and sixpence a day; at other times they have no
pay.
I cannot close my notice of San José without speaking somewhat more
specially of the range of public buildings. I am told that it was
built by a German, or rather by two Germans; the basement and the
upper story being the work of different persons. Be this as it may,
it is a handsome building, and would not disgrace any European
capital. There is in it a throne-room--in England, at least, we
should call it a throne; on this the President sits when he receives
ambassadors from foreign countries. The velvet and gilding were quite
unexceptionable, and the whole is very imposing. The sitting of
Congress is held in the same chamber; but that, as I have explained,
is not imposing.
The chief produce of Costa Rica is coffee. Those who love statistics
may perhaps care to know that the average yearly export is something
under a hundred thousand quintals; now a quintal weighs a hundred
pounds, or rather, I believe, ninety-nine pounds exact.