After riding for about four leagues we were thoroughly baked through and were glad to find shelter from the sun in the verandah of the only respectable-looking house in the little village of La Reforma. The people of the house were kind and attentive and gave us such food as they had, but could not accommodate us with a room, nor could Gorgonio find food enough for the mules. As soon as the sun sank low in the west we set out again to cross the waterless plain, the Llano de la Fragua, a journey best made by night, for the track is even more shadeless than that we had just traversed, and the arid ground supports little vegetation but cacti and euphorbiæ and scrubby prickly bushes, which vie with one another in ugliness. The sun set in a blaze of glory and we bid him farewell with a sense of relief. Saving the starlight the night was dark, but fortunately the road was broad and well marked by hedges of vicious-looking organ-pipe cactus. We were favoured with a breeze increasing in freshness as the night drew on, and our mules made good time over the plain, so that by 9 o’clock we had reached the river which runs within a mile of the town. Just at this moment the moon rose and in the half-light the stream looked black and formidable, and our men hesitated and began to discuss the situation, as none of them knew the depth of the water; but the ever-ready Gorgonio pulled off some of his clothes, and soon put our doubts at rest by wading across and shouting back to us that the water was no more than breast high. My mule gave me a moment’s anxiety during the crossing by floundering into a hole, but she soon pulled herself together and scrambled into shallow water.
Ten minutes’ ride brought us to the town of Zacapa, and the so-called “Hotel,” where we were forced to spend several days in heat, dirt, and discomfort. It was a very poor house, and one very scantily furnished room had to serve us for all purposes. Our host appeared to devote the whole of his energy to imbibing aguardiente and loafing, whilst his wife, a kindly faced mestiza, did the cooking, and always looked hot and overworked. Two of the children, Candelaria and Felicita, aged eight and ten years, did most of the housework, and took care of several younger members of the family (including an ever-crying baby), who sprawled about in the dust and dirt of the patio all day long, and at night the whole family slept side by side on the floor of the corridor. Candelaria and Felicita, in addition to their other duties, were told off to wait on us; and remarkably pleasant and bright little creatures they proved to be, but amazingly dirty. One day I remonstrated with them and delivered a lecture on cleanliness, which was greeted with loud applause and shouts of laughter, but my advice as to the use of soap and water was never followed.
As the hotel was not a bad example of a middle-class house in the country towns I will endeavour to describe it. Looked at from the street it showed a flat white-washed wall pierced by two heavily-barred windows, and a large doorway fitted with heavy double wooden doors which when thrown open would permit the passage of laden mules through the house into the patio. There were rooms opening into a verandah or corridor on two sides of the patio, the other sides being enclosed by high walls. The two front rooms were used as guest rooms, one of the side rooms was the patrona’s bedroom, and the other served as a kitchen. In the back wall was a doorway leading to a mule-shed and stable-yard, also enclosed by high walls. The house was well supplied with water by a pipe, from which a thin stream continually flowed into a masonry tank or “pila” built against the back wall of the patio. When such a house is being built the first operation is to set into the ground, about twelve feet apart in the line of the projected walls, a number of roughly dressed wooden posts with forked tops; on these are laid equally rough wall-plates to which tie-beams and rafters are fixed, and the whole framework is then lashed together with natural lianes or strips of a bark called “capulin”; the tile roof, which towards the patio extends across the corridor, is then put on, and not until this is finished are the walls of adobe or talpetate (sun-dried mud) commenced and carried up to the eaves, almost imbedding the upright posts on the inside. Last of all, partitions are run up to separate the rooms, which are roughly ceiled with reeds or canes lashed across the tie-beams. The matter of brick or mud floor and the amount of plaster laid on the walls depends on the wealth of the householder; but even a poorly-built house, such as our hotel, will show a good coat of plaster and blue or white wash to the street.
Curiously enough, it is from the plasterers that one has the best chance of buying the highly polished prehistoric stone axes, “piedras de rayo” (lightning stones), as they call them, firmly believing them to be of the nature of thunderbolts; for they collect them as useful tools with which to smooth down and give a burnished surface to the plaster.
In some of the houses there are no windows giving on the street, all the light for the rooms coming through the door opening onto the patio. When the windows do open towards the street they rise above heavy projecting sills, into which the bars of the iron reja are fixed. Here, as in old Spain,—
“Las ventanas en las calles son muy peligrosas
Para madres que tienen hijas hermosas,”
for it is between the bars of the reja that most of the lovemaking is carried on. All the windows are fitted with thick wooden shutters, and it is only in the larger towns that glass casements have come into use.
We were consumed with impatience to get out of the heat and dirt of Zacapa; but even after we had come to an arrangement with an arriero to carry our additional luggage he kept on finding pretexts for delay, and it was not until the 28th February that we set out for Copan, despite the well-intentioned warnings of two young Americans, newly arrived in the country, who had shared the discomforts of the hotel with us and told us alarming stories of the dangers of travelling in Honduras since the outbreak of the most recent revolution.
Indian cargadores are not an institution in this part of the country, and in consequence our pack-train had been increased to the number of twenty-five mules. Those under the charge of Santos, carrying our own pack-saddles and boxes, went well, as they had done throughout the journey; but the hirelings driven by a loud-voiced and exceedingly profane arriero, caused incessant delays. Something was always going wrong with the badly-adjusted cargos, and the clumsy native pack-saddles galled the backs of the poor beasts, which were already marked with a hundred scars; but the sight of their raw wounds failed to awaken the sympathy of the arriero, who goaded them on with a stick and yells of “arré!” “arriba!” followed by a burst of expletives, throughout the sultry uncomfortable day. The track was of the worst description. A long drought had parched all colour from the hills, and the fringe of vegetation along the banks of the Copan River was the only green thing to be seen. The path followed the winding of this stream for a long distance, often high above it, then crossing it, again rising and winding along narrow ledges, turning sharp corners and revealing fine bits of landscape which would have been beautiful in a less parched condition. Before sunset we reached our camping-ground for the night, a spot named La Laguna; but there was no lagoon there, only a clearing by the roadside, and the nearest water was half a league distant.
It was a stifling night and we hailed the dawn with pleasure and set off again as soon as the tent could be packed and the twenty-five mules loaded. A short ride brought us again to the Copan River; but as the ford was too deep for the cargo-mules we parted company, leaving them to follow a track along the right bank, whilst we rode through the stream, barely escaping a wetting, and took a short cut by the villages of Jocotan and Comitan, which stand about a mile apart. To judge from the size of the churches, these two villages must at one time have been important towns: now they are squalid, half-deserted places, where pigs and goats alone seem to flourish, and the huge dilapidated churches would be capable of holding not only the whole of the sallow-faced, dyspeptic-looking population, but nearly all the houses as well. At Comitan, the last village before reaching the Honduras frontier, the Alcalde stopped us and demanded Gorgonio’s passport. This document was produced, but he was nevertheless taken to the Cabildo, where it was copied and viséd before he, as a citizen, was allowed to leave his own country. No one being in the least interested in us we rode on, leaving Gorgonio to follow when all the formalities had been gone through.