What strikes one most in riding or walking through a tropical forest of Central America is the mixed nature of the vegetation. Between the low fringe of sea-coast, where the mangroves have full sway, and the lofty hill-tops, where the pines and oaks abound, one can nowhere give a name to the forest from the predominance of any particular tree. There are no mahogany forests and no cedar forests, although both species have many representatives. Perhaps the lightness or feathery nature of the seeds helps in their distribution; certainly I never saw a native forest tree with a number of seedlings growing up round it, as one may see in the case of a sycamore or horse-chestnut at home. This characteristic applies even to the small grove round the ruins at Copan; and although I had learnt to identify a few of the most noticeable trees, I could only find a few examples of each amongst the many trees around us, and to my untrained eye all the remainder appeared to differ from one another. The monarchs of the grove were two giant Ceibas, to whose beauty and grandeur I can do no justice with words. A tent might be pitched between the buttresses from which the mighty shaft of such a giant springs, and a regiment might camp beneath its branches. As the month of April is the middle of the dry season many of the trees were changing their leaves, and the process was most interesting to watch, and often very rapid in accomplishment. Some of the trees which were fully clothed, and showed no sign of change when we arrived, dropped all their leaves, stood for a few days bare, and then completely reclothed themselves during the few weeks we remained at the ruins. Others went through the process in distinct sections, and it gave a very odd appearance to a tree when some of its branches were covered with old foliage, some branches quite bare, and others bright with the fresh green or pink of newly unfolded leaves.
In one respect we were fortunate during our stay—there were no mosquitos; but garrapatas (ticks), coloradillos (minute harvest-bugs), fleas, and ants tried their best to spoil our tempers. The fleas in the house could be subdued by a plentiful supply of fresh pine-needles spread over the floor; garrapatas and coloradillos nothing can subdue. Personally, as a housekeeper, if I must award the palm for capacity to irritate, it shall go to the ants: they invaded every nook and corner, disputed the possession of every eatable thing, and bit or stung me violently whenever they got the chance. One night they besieged me in the tent, and attacked me so savagely that I was forced to cry for help. A “marching army,” as it is called, was making its way through the wood, and as our home lay in its path the soldiers had, in true military fashion, “occupied” it. My husband was at work developing photographs in the little dark room at the end of the house; he brushed the first few intruders away, but finally had to beat a retreat before the thousands which poured in on him, when he heard my cries and came to my assistance. Fortunately only a few stragglers and camp-followers troubled us in the tent, and as they had entered only by the guy-ropes which were made fast to the house-posts, we were able to close the path by dropping a little kerosene-oil on the cords. The main body of the army marched over and under and through the house. The dry thatch of the roof crackled and rustled as if on fire under the feet of this mighty host of minute crawling creatures, and its approach spread consternation through the rest of the insect world, and everything fled before the invaders. Our candles burnt without a flicker in the still night air, so that standing clear of the flank of the army we were able to watch its doings without any discomfort. I saw big beetles and cockroaches so bewildered with fright that they knew not which way to turn, and, as though paralysed, made no attempt to fly, but retreated backwards to the ends of the leaves of the thatch, their eyes glaring and their antennæ stiff with horror at the fate which must overtake them. In half an hour the army had passed on and disappeared, leaving nothing eatable in the house, not even the films of the two newly developed photographs which had been left in the rack to dry. The natives, I am told, hail with joy the passage through their houses of a marching army, as it means a clean sweep of all centipedes, cockroaches, spiders, and scorpions.
Poisonous snakes are said to abound at Copan, but we were little troubled by them, as during the dry season they hide themselves away under stones and fallen trees. I saw one “tamagás” turned out of its cosy nest, which was lined with bits of dry moulding paper left by the Americans who were at work here last year. I also witnessed the death of a rattlesnake which had crossed the path just in front of me.
We saw no wild animals. Gorgonio, indeed, always insisted that there were “tigres en el monte”; and perhaps there were, but I was not likely to meet them, for my expeditions into the “monte” (more out of fear of ticks than of tigers) were limited to the paths which had been cut to the different monuments, and, so far as I know, our camp was never invaded by any animals more formidable than our own mules, who wandered as they liked over the whole enclosure, and of a night often browsed round the tent and woke us by kicking against the tent-ropes.
COPAN, PLAN OF THE PRINCIPAL RUINED STRUCTURES.
Our arrival at the ruins caused quite a flutter of excitement amongst the Copaneros, who seemed glad to vary the monotony of their lives by a stroll through the woods, to chat with Gorgonio and Carlos, and take a peep at our occupations. So it happened that hardly a day passed without bringing us visitors. Even the more distant villages sent contingents of sightseers; but these were more formal occasions, and our visitors, headed by the Alcalde of their village, entered the house in somewhat stately fashion, and seating themselves on the floor—chairs being scarce—would make polite speeches and ask what progress Don Alfredo was making with his work. These conversations would promise to be of interest, as our visitors always professed to know much about the monuments, and to appreciate the reason why foreigners took so much interest in them, until some stray remark showed that our minds were travelling on totally different planes of thought—theirs, I fear, being weighed down with an unmovable belief in buried treasure. Then the conversation would flag, and the pauses become longer, until we produced a brandy-bottle, when they all stood up and solemnly drank our health, and, that ceremony over, took leave of us with the same formal politeness and filed out of the door. But the greater number of our visitors were, I am sorry to say, ill and suffering persons who came seeking “remedios” for their complaints. We did what we could to help them, although most of their troubles were far beyond the reach of our simple remedies, but the belief in our skill was flattering and often really pathetic. They were genuinely grateful for the smallest relief we could afford them, and would always return to thank us, bringing gifts of chickens, eggs, or cigars. One poor woman told me that for nine years she had eagerly scanned the faces of visitors to the ruins, hoping that Don Alfredo might again be amongst them, for he had given her the only medicine which had ever done her any good. It seems that he had dosed her with calomel, which gave her temporary relief, and now, alas! we had not a grain of calomel with us. However, no remedy would have availed in her case—her malady had clearly passed beyond all hope of cure. As she was very poor, I engaged her nominally to do odd day’s work in the kitchen, but really to give her the benefit of our surplus food. She was curiously ignorant, even of such a simple matter as how to clean a saucepan; but her’s was such an uncomplaining gentle nature that I grew quite fond of her, and in return she showed me every little attention in her power, and never came without a few fresh eggs or a bundle of cigarettes or some other little present which she thought would give me pleasure.
I had one patient, a Coban Indian, who had come with Mr. Dieseldorff, who rewarded my efforts on his behalf not only by getting well of a bad wound in his foot, the result of a blow from a pickaxe, but also by resisting the temptation to apply a chili-pepper to the wound, which he assured me was a splendid remedy, as you could feel its effects at once. At first he was exceedingly cynical about my treatment, and regarded the carbolic acid lotion disdainfully, but to his credit be it said that as soon as he realized that his foot was really healing, although he did not feel the remedy, he became overwhelmingly grateful. Ever afterwards I was his “nanita,” or little mother, and he expressed his willingness to leave his wife and family and follow me to the end of the world.
Some men in the village relieved the monotony of their lives and added to our list of patients by quarrelling over a local beauty, and a messenger was sent in hot haste to the ruins to implore my husband to come and extract a bullet from the body of a man, as otherwise they despaired of saving his life. He found the house closely packed with the friends and relations of the wounded man, who crowded round his rough bed and sprawled over it, weeping and wailing and passing a bottle of aguardiente from hand to hand and giving frequent doses of the fiery spirit to the sufferer himself to keep up his courage. It was no easy work to turn all the relations out of the house and get rid of the rum-bottle; but at last it was accomplished, and then an examination showed that the bullet had passed round the ribs and lodged below the shoulder-blade, so that there was no immediate danger. My husband was able to raise the hopes of his patient, who had been driven to the depths of despair by the wailings and leave-takings of his friends, and left him for the night in charge of the Alcalde with assurances of a very speedy recovery, qualified by dire prophecies of his certain death if further recourse were had to the rum-bottle. Within a week, with the help of proper food and such care as we could ensure him, the fever and swelling had been reduced so that the position of the bullet could be easily detected, and the man was so comparatively well that he could be mounted on a quiet mule and sent off in charge of a friend to the doctor at Chiquimula, who successfully extracted the bullet. I was most thankful when the man was safely on his way, as I credited my husband with a secret desire to do a little amateur surgery.
I found the women of Copan really interesting; they are above the average in good looks, and, in spite of their want of cleanliness and their slovenly dress, their soft cooing voices and caressing manners make them personally attractive. The men look rather more tidy than the women, which is not to be wondered at, as they seem to spend most of the day lounging in hammocks, whilst the women do all the work of the village, fetch the water, and wash the clothes. The washing of clothes, indeed, goes on interminably, yet, except on a feast day, one never sees anyone in a clean garment; this is, perhaps, hardly to be wondered at when one considers the nature of their surroundings, for it must be difficult to keep one’s clothes clean for five minutes amid the dust and dirt of a native house. The Copaneros, like all Central-American half-castes, have a singular dread of bathing, although they look longingly at the cool stream running past their home; and, as general medical adviser, I was continually being asked, “Would bathing do me any harm?”