Journey up river continued.
Wild pigs and jaguar.
Bungos.
Reach Machuca.
Castillo.
Capture of Castillo by Nelson.
India-rubber trade.
Rubber-men.
Method of making india-rubber.
Congo monkeys.
Macaws.
The Savallo river.
Endurance of the boatmen.
San Carlos.
Interoceanic canal.
Advantages of the Nicaraguan route.
The Rio Frio.
Stories about the wild Indians.
Indian captive children.
Expeditions up the Rio Frio.
American river steamboats.
AFTER breakfast we again continued our voyage up the river, and
passed the mouth of the San Carlos, another large stream running
down from the interior of Costa Rica. Soon after we heard some wild
pigs (Dicoteles tajacu) or Wari, as they are called by the natives,
striking their teeth together in the wood, and one of the boatmen
leaping on shore soon shot one, which he brought on board after
cutting out a gland on its back that emits a musky odour, and we
afterwards had it cooked for our dinner. These Wari go in herds of
from fifty to one hundred. They are said to assist each other
against the attacks of the jaguar, but that wary animal is too
intelligent for them. He sits quietly upon a branch of a tree until
the Wari come underneath; then jumping down kills one by breaking
its neck; leaps up into the tree again and waits there until the
herd depart, when he comes down and feeds on the slaughtered Wari
in quietness. We shortly afterwards passed one of the large boats
called bungos, that carry down to Greytown the produce of the
country and take up merchandise and flour. This one was laden with
cattle and india-rubber. The bungos are flat-bottomed boats, about
forty feet long and nine feet wide. There is generally a little
cabin, roofed over at the stern, in which the wife of the captain
lives. The bungo is poled along by twelve bungo-men, who have
usually only one suit of clothes each, which they do not wear
during the day, but keep stowed away under the cargo that it may be
dry to put on at night. Their bronzed, glistening, naked bodies, as
they ply their long poles together in unison, and chant some
Spanish boat-song, is one of the things that linger in the memory
of the traveller up the San Juan. Our boatmen paddled and poled
until eleven at night, when we reached Machuca, a settlement
consisting of a single house, just below the rapids of the same
name, seventy-miles above Greytown.
We breakfasted at Machuca before starting next morning, and I
walked up round the rapids and met the canoe above them. About five
o'clock, after paddling all day, we came in sight of Castillo,
where there is an old ruined Spanish fort perched on the top of a
hill overlooking the little town, which lies along the foot of the
steep hill; hemmed in between it and the river, so that there is
only room for one narrow street. It was near Castillo that Nelson
lost his eye. He took the fort by landing about half a mile lower
down the river, and dragging his guns round to a hill behind it by
which it was commanded. This hill is now cleared of timber and
covered with grass, supporting a few cows and a great many goats.
In front of the town run the rapids of Castillo, which are
difficult to ascend, and as there is no road round them excepting
through the town of Castillo, advantage has been taken of the
situation to fix the custom-house there, where are collected the
duties on all articles going up to the interior. The first view of
Castillo when coming up the river is a fine one. The fort-crowned
hill and the little town clinging to its foot form the centre of
the picture. The clear, sparkling, dancing rapids on one side
contrast with the still, dark forest on the other, whilst the whole
is relieved by the bright green grassy hills in the background.
This view is the only pleasant recollection I have carried away of
the place. The single street is narrow, dirty, and rugged, and when
the shades of evening begin to creep up, swarms of mosquitoes issue
forth to buzz and bite.
I here made the acquaintance of colonel McCrae, who was largely
concerned in the india-rubber trade. He afterwards distinguished
himself during the revolutionary outbreak of 1869. He collected the
rubber men and came to the assistance of the government, helping
greatly to put down the insurrection. Originally a British subject,
but now a naturalised Nicaraguan, he has filled with great credit
for some time the post of deputy-governor of Greytown, and I always
heard him spoken of with great esteem both by Nicaraguans and
foreigners. He showed to me pieces of cordage, pottery, and stone
implements brought down by the rubber men from the wild Indians of
the Rio Frio. Castillo is one of the centres of the rubber trade.
Parties of men are here fitted out with canoes and provisions, and
proceed up the rivers, far into the uninhabited forests of the
Atlantic slope. They remain for several months away, and are
expected to bring the rubber they obtain to the merchants who have
fitted them out, but very many prove faithless, and carry off their
produce to other towns, where they have no difficulty in finding
purchasers. Notwithstanding these losses, the merchants engaged in
the rubber trade have done well; its steadily increasing value
during the last few years having made the business a highly
remunerative one. According to the information supplied to me at
Greytown by Mr. Paton, the exports of rubber from that port had
increased from 401,475 pounds, valued at 112,413 dollars, in 1867,
to 754,886 pounds, valued at 226,465 dollars, in 1871. India-rubber
was well-known to the ancient inhabitants of Central America.
Before the Spanish conquest the Mexicans played with balls made
from it, and it still bears its Aztec name of Ulli, from which the
Spaniards call the collectors of it Ulleros. It is obtained from
quite a different tree, and prepared in a different manner, from
the rubber of the Amazons. The latter is taken from the Siphonia
elastica, a Euphorbiaceous tree; but in Central America the tree
that yields it it is a species of wild fig (Castilloa elastica). It
is easily known by its large leaves, and I saw several whilst
ascending the river. When the collectors find an untapped one in
the forest, they first make a ladder out of the lianas or "vejuccos
" that hang from every tree; this they do by tying short pieces of
wood across them with small lianas, many of which are as tough as
cord. They then proceed to score the bark, with cuts which extend
nearly round the tree like the letter V, the point being downwards.
A cut like this is made about every three feet all the way up the
trunk. The milk will all run out of a tree in about an hour after
it is cut, and is collected into a large tin bottle made flat on
one side and furnished with straps to fix on to a man's back. A
decoction is made from a liana (Calonyction speciosum), and this on
being added to the milk, in the proportion of one pint to a gallon,
coagulates it to rubber, which is made into round flat cakes. A
large tree, five feet in diameter, will yield when first cut about
twenty gallons of milk, each gallon of which makes two and a half
pounds of rubber. I was told that the tree recovers from the wounds
and may be cut again after the lapse of a few months; but several
that I saw were killed through the large Harlequin beetle
(Acrocinus longimanus) laying its eggs in the cuts, and the grubs
that are hatched boring great holes all through the trunk. When
these grubs are at work you can hear their rasping by standing at
the bottom of the tree, and the wood-dust thrown out of their
burrows accumulates in heaps on the ground below. The government
attempts no supervision of the forests: any one may cut the trees,
and great destruction is going on amongst them through the young
ones being tapped as well as the full-grown ones. The tree grows
very quickly, and plantations of it might easily be made, which
would in the course of ten or twelve years become highly
remunerative.
We left Castillo at daylight the next morning, and continued our
journey up the river. Its banks presented but little change. We saw
many tall graceful palms and tree ferns, but most of the trees were
dicotyledons. Amongst these the mahogany (Swietonia mahogani) and
the cedar (Cedrela odorata) are now rare near the river, but a few
such trees were pointed out to me. High up in one tree, underneath
which we passed, were seated some of the black congo monkeys
(Mycetes palliatus) which at times, especially before rain and at
nightfall, make a fearful howling, though not so loud as the
Brazilian species. Screaming macaws, in their gorgeous livery of
blue, yellow, and scarlet, occasionally flew overhead, and tanagers
and toucans were not uncommon.
Twelve miles above Castillo we reached the mouth of the Savallo,
and stayed at a house there to breakfast, the owner, a German,
giving us roast wari, fowls, and eggs. He told me that there was a
hot spring up the Savallo, but I had not time to go and see it.
Above Savallo the San Juan is deep and sluggish, the banks low and
swampy. The large palm, so common in the delta of the river, here
reappeared with its great coarse leaves twenty feet in length,
springing from near the ground.
Our boatmen continued to paddle all day, and as night approached
redoubled their exertions, singing to the stroke of their paddles.
I was astonished at their endurance. They kept on until eleven
o'clock at night, when we reached San Carlos, having accomplished
about thirty-five miles during the day against the current. San
Carlos is at the head of the river, where it issues from the great
lake of Nicaragua, about one hundred and twenty miles from
Greytown. The mean level of the waters of the lake, according to
the survey of Colonel O.W. Childs, in 1851, is 107 1/2 feet, so
that the river falls on an average a little less than one foot per
mile. The height of the lowest pass between the lake and the
Pacific is said to be twenty-six feet above the lake, therefore at
that point the highest elevation between the two oceans is only
about 133 feet; but even allowing that an error of a few feet may
be discovered when a thorough survey is made across from sea to
sea, there can be no doubt that at this point occurs the lowest
pass between the Atlantic and the Pacific in Central America. This
fact, and the immense natural reservoir of water near the head of
the navigation, point out the route as a practicable one for a ship
canal between the two oceans.
Instead of cutting a canal from the head of the delta of the San
Juan to the sea, as has been proposed, the Colorado branch might be
straightened, and dredged to the required depth. Higher up, the
Torre, Castillo, and Machuca Rapids form natural dams across the
river. These might be raised, locks formed round them, and the
water deepened by dredging between them. In this way the great
expense of cutting a canal, and the fearful mortality that always
arises amongst the labourers when excavations are made in the
virgin soil of the tropics, especially in marshy lands, would be
greatly lessened between the lake and the Atlantic. Another great
advantage would be that the deepening of the river could be
effected by steam power, so that it would not be necessary to bring
such a multitude of labourers to the isthmus as would be required
if a canal were cut from the river; the whole track, moreover,
passes through virgin forests rich in inexhaustible supplies of
fuel.* (* The commission appointed by the United States Government
to examine into the practicability of making a canal across the
isthmus reported in favour of the Nicaraguan route, and the work
was begun at Greytown in 1889. But after an expenditure of 4,500,
000 dollars, the scheme was abandoned, for political reasons, in
favour of the Panama route.)
San Carlos is a small town at the foot of the great lake, where it
empties its waters into the San Juan river, its only outlet to the
ocean. On a hill behind the town, and commanding the entrance to
the river, are the ruins of a once strong fort built by the
Spaniards, the crumbling walls now green with the delicate fronds
of a maiden hair fern (Adiantum). The little town consists of a
single rugged street leading up from the lake. The houses are
mostly palm-thatched huts, with the bare earth floors seldom or
never swept. The people are of mixed origin, Indian, Spanish, and
Negro, the Indian element predominating. Two or three better built
stores, and the quarters of the military governor, redeem the place
from an appearance of utter squalor. Behind the town there are a
few small clearings in the forest, where maize is grown. Some
orange, banana, and plantain trees exhaust the list of the
productions of San Carlos, which is supported by being a calling
place for all vessels proceeding up and down the river, and by the
Ulleros or rubber-men who start from it for expeditions up the Rio
Frio and other rivers. We found there two men who had just been
brought down the Rio Frio by their companions, greatly injured, by
the lianas up which they had made their ladder to ascend one of the
rubber trees, having broken and precipitated them to the ground. I
learnt that this was a very unusual accident, the lianas generally
being very tough and strong, like great cables.
Most fabulous stories have been told about the Rio Frio and its
inhabitants; stories of great cities, golden ornaments, and
light-haired people, and it may be useful to relate what is known
about it.
The Rio Frio comes down from the interior of Costa Rica, and joins
the San Juan, near where the latter issues from the lake. The banks
of its upper waters are inhabited by a race of Indians who have
never been subjugated by the Spaniards, and about whom very little
is known. They are called Guatuses, and have been said to have red
or light-coloured hair and European features, to account for which
various ingenious theories have been advanced; but, unfortunately
for these speculations, some children, and even adults, have been
captured and brought down the river by the Ulleros, and all these
have the usual features and coarse black hair of the Indians. One
little child that Dr. Seemann and I saw at San Carlos, in 1870, had
a few brownish hairs amongst the great mass of black ones; but this
character may be found amongst many of the indigenes, and may
result from a very slight admixture of foreign blood. I have seen
altogether five children from the Rio Frio, and a boy about sixteen
years of age, and they had all the common Indian features and hair;
though it struck me that they appeared rather more intelligent than
the generality of Indians. Besides these, an adult woman was
captured by the rubber-men and brought down to Castillo, and I was
told by several who had seen her that she did not differ in any way
from the usual Indian type.
The Guatuse (pronounced Watusa) is an animal about the size of a
hare, very common in Central America, and good eating. It has
reddish-brown fur, and the usual explanation of the Nicaraguans is
that the Indians of the Rio Frio were called "Guatuses" because
they had red hair. It is very common to find the Indian tribes of
America called after wild animals, and my own opinion is that the
origin of the fable about the red hair was a theory to explain why
they were called Guatuses; for the natives of Nicaragua, and of
parts much nearer home, are fond of giving fanciful explanations of
the names of places and things: thus, I have been assured by an
intelligent and educated Nicaraguan, that Guatemala was so-called
by the Spaniards because they found the guate (a kind of grass) in
that country bad, hence "guate malo," "bad guate,"--whereas every
student of Mexican history knows that the name was the Spanish
attempt to pronounce the old Aztec one of Quauhtemallan, which
meant the Land of the Eagle. I shall have other occasions, in the
course of my narrative, to show how careful a traveller in Central
America must be not to accept the explanations of the natives of
the names of places and things.
The first people who ascended the Rio Frio were attacked by the
Indians, who killed several with their arrows. Exaggerated opinions
of their ferocity and courage were in consequence for a long time
prevalent, and the river remained unknown and unexplored, and
probably would have done so to the present day, if it had not been
for the rubber-men. When the trade in india-rubber became fully
developed, the trees in the more accessible parts of the forest
were soon exhausted, and the collectors were obliged to penetrate
farther and farther back into the untrodden wilds of the Atlantic
slope. Some more adventurous than others ascended the Rio Frio, and
being well provided with fire-arms, which they mercilessly used,
they were able to defy the poor Indians, armed only with spears and
bows and arrows, and to drive them back into the woods. The first
Ulleros who ascended the river were so successful in finding
rubber, that various other parties were organised, and now an
ascent of the Rio Frio from San Carlos is of common occurrence. The
poor Indians are now in such dread of fire-arms, that on the first
appearance of a boat coming up the river they desert their houses
and run into the woods for shelter. The Ulleros rush on shore and
seize everything that the poor fugitives have left behind them; and
in some cases the latter have not been able to carry off their
children, and these have been brought down in triumph to San
Carlos. The excuse for stealing the children is that they may be
baptised and made Christians; and I am sorry to say that this
shameful treatment of the poor Indians is countenanced and connived
at by the authorities. I was told of one commandante at San Carlos
who had manned some canoes and proceeded up the river as far as the
plantain grounds of the Indians, loaded his boats with the
plantains, and brought them down to San Carlos, where the people
appear to be too indolent to grow them themselves. All who have
ascended the river speak of the great quantities of plantains that
the Guatuses grow, and this fruit, and the abundant fish of the
river, form their principal food. Their houses are large sheds open
at the sides, and thatched with the "suiti" palm. As is often the
case amongst the Indians, several families live in one house. The
floor is kept well cleaned. I was amused with a lady in San Carlos
who, in describing their well-kept houses to Dr. Seemann and
myself, pointed to her own unswept and littered earth floor and
said, "They keep their houses very, very clean--as clean as this."
The lad and the woman who were captured and brought down the Rio
Frio both ran away--the one from San Carlos, the other from
Castillo; but neither could succeed in reaching home, on account of
the swamps and rivers in their way, and after wandering about the
woods for some time they were recaptured. I saw the lad soon after
he was taken the second time. He had been a month in the woods,
living on roots and fruits, and had nearly died from starvation. He
had an intelligent, sharp, and independent look about him, and kept
continually talking in his own language, apparently surprised that
the people around him did not understand what he was saying. He was
taken to Castillo, and met there the woman who had been captured a
year before, and had learnt to speak a little Spanish. Through her
as an interpreter, he tried to get permission to return to the Rio
Frio, saying that if they would let him go he would come back and
bring his father and mother with him. This simple artifice of the
poor boy was, of course ineffectual. He was afterwards taken to
Granada, for the purpose, they said, of being educated, that he
might become the means of opening up communication with his tribe.
The rubber-men bring down many little articles that they pillage
from the Indians. They consist of cordage, made from the fibre of
Bromeliaceous plants, bone hooks, and stone implements. Amongst the
latter, I was fortunate enough to obtain a rude stone hatchet, set
in a stone-cut wooden handle: it was firmly fixed in a hole made in
the thick end of the handle.* [* Figured in Evans' "Ancient Stone
Implements" second edition page 155. In Evans' first edition it is
erroneously stated in the text to be from Texas. It has been
pointed out that early man adopted the opposite method to the
modern in the mounting of his axes: we fix the handle into a hole
in the axe head; he jammed the head into a hole in the handle.] It
is a singular fact, and one showing the persistence of particular
ways of doing things through long ages amongst people belonging to
the same race, that, in the ancient Mexican, Uxmal, and Palenque
picture-writings, bronze axes are represented fixed in this
identical manner in holes at the thick ends of the handles.
We slept on board one of the steamers of the American Transit
Company. It was too dark when we arrived at San Carlos to see
anything that night of the great lake, but we heard the waves
breaking on the beach as on a sea-shore, and from further away came
that moaning sound that has from the earliest ages of history
connected the idea of the sea with sorrow and sadness.* (* "There
is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet" Jeremiah 49:23.) The
steamer we stayed in was one of four river-boats belonging to the
Transit Company, which was at this time in difficulties, and
ultimately the boats were sold; part of them being bought by Mr.
Hollenbeck, and used by the navigation company which he
established. These steamers are built expressly for shallow rivers,
and are very different structures from anything we see in England.
The bottom is made quite flat, and divided into compartments; the
first deck being only about eighteen inches above the water, from
which it is divided by no bulwarks or other protection. Upon this
deck are placed the cargo and the driving machinery. A vertical
boiler is fixed at the bow, and two horizontal engines, driving a
large paddle-wheel, at the stern. The second deck is for
passengers, and is raised on light wooden pillars braced with iron
rods about seven feet above the first. Above this is another deck,
on which are the cabins of the officers and the steering apparatus.
The appearance of such a structure is more like that of a house
than a boat. The one we were in, the "Panaloya," drew only three
feet of water when laden with 400 passengers and twenty tons of
cargo.