FOOTNOTES:
[6] Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. 2 vols. Bentley.
From the London Literary Gazette.
MR. SQUIER ON NICARAGUA.[7]
Many causes are combining to give great importance to the States of Central America. Their own fertility and natural advantages, the commerce of the Pacific, and the gold of California, unite to attract the earnest attention of enterprising men and politicians towards them. At the present moment, the appearance of this full and able account of Nicaragua is peculiarly well-timed. The writer of it describes himself as "late chargé d'affaires of the United States to the Republics of Central America." His official position has evidently enabled him to get at much information that would otherwise have been inaccessible. His name is well and favorably known to ethnologists and antiquarians by his researches into the history of the aboriginal monuments of the United States, and by his very curious, though somewhat fanciful, essay on "The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America." The bias and extent of his studies make him a very competent person to investigate the antiquities of Nicaragua. The chapters devoted to this subject in the work before us are full of interest, and highly to be valued for the abundance of fresh observations they contain. Like many American archæologists and historians, Mr. Squier is inclined to over-estimate the peculiarities and antiquity of the aborigines of the New World. If we understand rightly, he claims for them an independent origin. His ethnology is of the romantic school, and rather loose. His imagination gets the better of his reasoning, and his "organ of wonder," to speak in the manner of phrenologists, is over-developed. His habits of mind and training do not seem to be such as to qualify him for strict scientific research. He is more of the littérateur than the philosopher. His writings are, in consequence, very amusing, but require to be dealt with cautiously. The facts must be winnowed from the fancies with which they are mingled, if we wish to use them for scientific purposes.
Imaginative men are usually warm lovers and fierce haters. Our American envoy's appreciation of female charms is so intense, that he cannot pass a pretty woman without inscribing a memorandum respecting her in his note-book, afterwards to be printed more at length with additional expressions of admiration. A pair of black eyes cannot sparkle behind a lattice without being duly recorded. His affection for the ladies is only equalled by his dislike of the "Britishers." The handsomest girl and the ugliest idol could scarcely distract his thought from the vices and crimes of England and the English. If he is to be trusted, the whole population of Central America regards every Englishman as a bitter enemy. He paints us in the blackest hues, and prophesies the fall of England with undisguised delight. Bluster about Britain is the prominent fault of the book, and one for which the writer will, when he knows more about us, be ashamed of himself. Every day it is becoming more and more the interest of Englishmen and Americans to pull together. Consanguinity and the love of constitutional liberty are strong ties. They may be forgotten for a time, but in the end must work uppermost. Recent events have done much to remind us of our near relationship with our transatlantic cousins, and them of the Anglo-Saxon blood to which they owe their pre-eminence among the nations of the New World. The grasping and interfering qualities that bring down upon us the unmitigated censures of Mr. Squier are quite as prominently manifested in the doings of his countrymen; and whilst in one chapter he censures our meddlings with, and claims upon, the Mosquito shore, in another he anticipates something very like the annexation of all Central America to the United States.
The Mosquito country, about which we have seen of late so many very unsatisfactory paragraphs in our newspapers, is a thinly populated and most unhealthy tract on the Atlantic sea-board of Central America. It is inhabited by a mixed breed of Indians and Negroes, supposed to be ruled by a semi-civilized individual, who rejoices in the entomological title of King of the Mosquitoes, one by no means inappropriate, considering the amount of small annoyance we have endured through disputes about his territory. He is supposed to be under British protection; it is difficult to understand exactly why. The main purpose we have in view seems to be the securing a proper supply of the peculiar hard woods of this region. Britons at home generally make peace over their mahogany; abroad they seem to pick quarrels over it.
Central America includes an era of 150,000 square miles. Under Spanish dominion it was divided into the provinces of Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. These became independent states in 1821, and subsequently united to form the "Republic of Central America." They separated again, in 1839, into so many distinct republics. Nicaragua, Honduras, and San Salvador have recently confederated. The entire region of Central America presents very marked and important physical features. These are the great plain, six thousand feet above the sea, upon which stands the city of Guatemala; the high plain forming the centre of Honduras and part of Nicaragua; and the elevated country of Costa Rica. Between the two latter lies the basin of the Nicaraguan Lakes, with broad and undulating verdant slopes broken by steep volcanic cones, and a few ranges of hills along the shores of the Pacific, intermingled with undulating plains. Of the two great lakes, the lesser, Managua, is one hundred and fifty-six feet, and the larger, Nicaragua, one hundred and twenty-eight feet above the Pacific ocean. The former is fifty or sixty miles in length by thirty-five wide, the latter above a hundred miles long by fifty wide. On or near their western borders are the chief cities of the country. Enormous isolated volcanic cones rise to the height of from 4000 to 7000 feet in their neighborhood or on the islands that stud them. Numerous remains of antiquity, ruins of temples, and deserted monolithic idols, give interest to their precincts, whilst the scenery is described as being surpassingly grand and beautiful. The sole outlet is the river San Juan, a magnificent stream flowing from the southeastern extremity of Lake Nicaragua, for a length of about ninety miles, into the Atlantic. The climate is generally healthy, more especially towards the Pacific side. Nicaragua is inhabited by a population of about 260,000, one-half of which, or more, is composed of mixed breeds, Indians, in great part civilized, coming next in number, then whites, of whom there are about 25,000, and, lastly, some 15,000 Negroes. They live chiefly in towns, and cultivate the soil, which is very productive, and capable of supporting a much larger population. The natural resources of Nicaragua appear to be very great. Sugar, cotton, coffee, indigo, tobacco, rice, and maize, are the chief productions. There is, besides, great mineral wealth. In ancient times the aborigines appear to have occupied considerable cities, and to have attained a civilization comparable with that of the Mexicans. Indeed, Mr. Squier has proved, by philological and other evidence, that a Mexican colony did exist in Nicaragua at the period of the discovery of the country in the fifteenth century. This had been surmised before, but not clearly made out.
Much interest attaches to the population of Nicaragua, on account of the large proportion of families of Indian blood, pure and mixed, of whom it is made up. The qualities which enabled the ancient Indian people of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, to become civilized nations after a peculiar fashion, are not extinct, and seem to be retained and re-developed in proportion to the prevalence of Indian over Spanish blood. The Indians of Nicaragua are remarkable for industry and docility; they are unobtrusive, hospitable, and brave, although, fortunately for themselves, not warlike. They make good soldiers, yet have no morbid taste for the military profession. The men are agriculturists; the women occupy themselves with the weaving of cotton, and make fabrics of good quality and tasteful design. It is interesting to find the Tyrian dye still employed in their manufactures. They procure it from a species of Murex inhabiting the shores of the Pacific. They take the cotton thread to the sea-side, where, having gathered together a sufficient quantity of shell-fish, they patiently squeeze over the cotton the coloring fluid, at first pellucid and colorless, from the animals, one by one. At first the thread is pale blue, but on exposure to the atmosphere becomes of the desired purple. This color is so prized that purple thread dyed by cheaper and speedier methods, imported from Europe, cannot supplant the native product. With mingled humanity and thrift they replace the whelks in their native element, after these shell-fish have yielded up the precious liquor for which they were originally gathered. The Indian population also exclusively manufacture variegated mats and hammocks from the Pita, a species of Agave, and are as skilful as their ancient ancestors in the making of pottery. They do not use the potter's wheel. Politically they enjoy equal privileges with the whites, and all positions in church and state are open to them. Among them are men of decided talent. Physically they are a smaller and paler race than the Indians of the United States, but are well developed and muscular. Their women are not unfrequently pretty, and when young are often very finely formed.
Happily in Nicaragua no distinctions of caste are recognized, or, at any rate, they have no influence. Such of the people as claim to be of pure Spanish blood are, in most instances, evidently partly of Indian descent. The Sambos, or offspring of Indian and Negro parents, are a fine race of people, taller and stronger than the Indians.
Mr. Squier's admiration for the gentler (in Nicaragua we can scarcely say the fair) sex, has led him to picture very vividly the charms and appearance of the ladies he encountered during his travels. The following is a precise and tempting description:
"The women of pure Spanish stock are very fair, and have the embonpoint which characterizes the sex under the tropics. Their dress, except in a few instances where the stiff costume of our own country had been adopted, was exceedingly loose and flowing, leaving the neck and arms exposed. The entire dress was often pure white, but generally the skirt, or nagua, was of some flowered stuff, in which case the guipil (anglicè, vandyke) was white, heavily trimmed with lace. Satin slippers, a red or purple sash wound loosely round the waist, and a rosary sustaining a little golden cross, with a narrow golden band or a string of pearls extending around the forehead and binding the hair, which often fell in luxuriant waves upon their shoulders, completed a costume as novel as it was graceful and picturesque. To all this, add the superior attractions of an oval face, regular features, large and lustrous black eyes, small mouth, pearly white teeth, and tiny hands and feet, and withal a low but clear voice, and the reader has a picture of a Central American lady of pure stock. Very many of the women have, however, an infusion of other families and races, from the Saracen to the Indian and the Negro, in every degree of intermixture. And as tastes differ, so many opinions as to whether the tinge of brown, through which the blood glows with a peach-like bloom, in the complexion of the girl who may trace her lineage to the caziques upon one side, and the haughty grandees of Andalusia and Seville on the other, superadded, as it usually is, to a greater lightness of figure and animation of face,—whether this is not a more real beauty than that of the fair and more languid señora, whose white and almost transparent skin bespeaks a purer ancestry. Nor is the Indian girl, with her full, little figure, long, glossy hair, quick and mischievous eyes, who walks erect as a grenadier beneath her heavy water-jar, and salutes you in a musical, impudent voice as you pass—nor is the Indian girl to be overlooked in the novel contrasts which the 'bello sexo' affords in this glorious land of the sun."
The Nicaraguan ladies occupy themselves with smoking and displaying little feet in satin slippers when daily they go to church and back. In the early evening they occasionally pay visits, and if a number of both sexes happen to assemble at the same house a dance is improvised, though regular parties or balls are rare and ceremonial.
At festival seasons the Nicaraguans have some curious customs, apparently derived from their ancient heathen worship.
In some of the Nicaraguan towns, especially in Leon, the pernicious practice of burying the dead within the walls of city churches is persisted in, even as in London, and, just as with us, against the opposition of all sensible persons, including the government itself. Fees to the church and attendant officials are at the root of the evil, and give it a vitality that defies all attempts at eradication. The priests of Leon have evaded all edicts about this nuisance, and have improved upon the practice of our metropolitan parishes; for, not content with the revenues they derive from funerals, they charge according to the length of time (from ten to twenty-five years) the dead are to be permitted by them to rest in their graves. When the purchased time is up, the bones and the earth derived from the decomposed corpses are removed and sold to the manufacturers of nitre! The least warlike of citizens may thus in the end become a defender of his country, when converted into a constituent of gunpowder. The most quiet and unambitious of mortals may complete his career by making a noise in the world, when fired off from a mortar. Assuredly this is a very novel and original method of shooting churchyard rubbish, and we recommend a fair consideration of it to our vested parochial authorities.
Mr. Squier claims to be the first person who has described the ancient monuments of Nicaragua, or, indeed, to have indicated their existence. Excellent and numerous plates and cuts of these very interesting though rather frightful relics are given in his work. Hitherto the antiquities of the northern portion of Central America only have been explored, and are familiar to us through the researches of Stephens and of Catherwood. The Indians still reverence the shrines and statues of their ancient gods, and are apt to conceal their knowledge about their localities and existence. Those described by our traveller have mostly suffered dilapidation through the religious zeal of the conquerors. They appear to differ among themselves somewhat in degree of antiquity, but there is no good reason—this is the conclusion to which Mr. Squier comes—for supposing that they were not made by the nations found in possession of the country. The structures in or about which, they were originally placed were probably of wood, and great mounds and earthworks, like the teocallis of Mexico, were associated with them.
A section of Mr. Squier's work is devoted to an elaborate dissertation on the proposed interoceanic canal, illustrated by an excellent map. We recommend these chapters to the consideration of all who are interested upon this important subject. Like most parts of his book it is defaced by not a few sneers at, and misstatements about, the English. About the bad taste of these outbursts we shall not say more. That they should come from a man who is professionally a diplomatist, is evidence of his indiscretion and unfitness for his political calling. As an amusing traveller and diligent antiquarian, however, we can do Mr. Squier full honor, and were glad to see the just compliment lately paid to him in London, when our Antiquarian Society elected him an honorary member.
[This interesting and important work of our countryman is reviewed in a flattering manner in most of the great organs of critical opinion in England, and its sale there, as well as in this country, has been very large for one so costly.]