II.
We had no guide-book, no one told us what to do, no one seemed to know what we ought to do; so, freed from all restraint, we had the delightful sensation of unlimited liberty.
It was Ash Wednesday and the church-bells rang incessantly. We took to the left, passing the Cathedral, whose black shades enveloped one after another of the faithful, and kept straight on, to where the women in white frocks and lace mantillas, and the black serving-girls with baskets, and the small boys, and trains of burros were streaming down in the direction of the market. Most naturally we join the procession, now in the street, with the cabs and carriers of all sorts of things, and now jostling in among the people on the narrow sidewalk of the shady side.
We have no intention of telling about the flies and the smells and the dirt. They were all there and can easily be pictured, and we really have no intention of staying but a moment in the market, for we have seen so many before; but once a part of the big throng of buyers and sellers; once fairly free from the South Americans who insist upon speaking English, once free to use our own laboriously acquired Spanish, we stay on and on, buy and eat all sorts of curious fruit, until we fear for the consequences, and are delightfully uncomfortable and happy.
It was a surprise to find in Caracas a market which surpassed in varieties and quantities any other place we had ever seen.
Caracas, with its abortive palms, its dusty, dried-up appearance, gave one the impression of unproductiveness; and the dinner of the night before, with meat, meat, meat,—an exaggerated Trinidadian affair—led us to expect anything but fresh, sweet, delectable fruits; but here they were in masses! We had searched every port for pineapples, and these were the first ones we had found which answered to our ideals formed years ago by the pineapples of Amatlan and Southeastern Mexico. And such dear little thin-skinned refreshing limes! I wonder why they are not exported more freely in place of the big, thick-coated lemons? I suppose the impression prevails that the American wants everything on a big scale, so he gets the big lemon in place of the dainty aromatic lime. There we found in great abundance all the fruits with which we had grown familiar on the islands, but more surprising, the fruits of the temperate regions as well. There were some queer kinds of melons, too. We tried them, of course; we tried everything, buying here a slice of pineapple for dos centavos, and over at another stall a medio’s worth of mangoes; then we take up a piece of a curious fruit and examine it rather suspiciously. Its meat is yellow and covered with little black seeds, just the size and appearance of capers, and when one eats it, the seed is the only element of flavour. It has so exactly the taste of water-cress that one needs to use considerable will-power to believe it is a melon, and not a salad.
Here were grapes, both white and black, and sweet and sour lemons, and all sizes of oranges. There were peaches and apricots, and curious little apples, about the size of a small crab-apple; and delicious little Alpine strawberries from away up in the Andes, and then there were in every stall mangoes, and sapodillas, and granaditas, and pineapples sweet as honey and luscious, and curious aguacotes and zapotas and many unknown fruits—besides the ever-present cocoanut.
And vegetables! I only wish we could tell you the names of all the aromatic herbs and green stuffs spread out to tempt us. But there was one thing we did recognise at first sight: the beans—nine different varieties in one stall and maybe as many more in another—“frijoles de todas clases,” the market-woman announced for our encouragement. A procession of bulging baskets crowds us along out of the market, and we move on to make room for a stream of empty baskets coming from the opposite direction.