CHAPTER XVII. COPAN TO QUIRIGUA.
Towards the middle of March the heat at noonday became excessive and the weather looked threatening. It was early for rain, but ominous thunderclouds had hovered about for several days, and finally, after an oppressively hot morning and afternoon, the storm burst.
We had just finished our dinner when the rain began to fall. With all speed the men dug a trench round the tent, and drove the tent-pegs deeper into the ground, whilst we hastened to cover our possessions in the house, the roof of which leaked like a cullender, with waterproof sheets and every available macintosh and umbrella. When this was done we took refuge in the tent. It was none too soon, for the floodgates of heaven were opened on us, and the rain came down in a perfect deluge. I had grave doubts whether such a frail shelter as a canvas tent would protect us from the downpour, or resist each wild gust of wind as it swept howling and wailing through the trees, threatening destruction to everything in its path. However, the tent held out splendidly, and after an hour of wild rush and fury, with vivid flashes and mighty crashes of thunder, the tempest passed, and left us in the serenity of a still and moonlit night.
We had made our arrangements to leave for Quirigua about the 21st March, forgetting that that day fell in Holy week, when no Indian will work, so Easter Sunday found us still at Copan awaiting the pleasure of our cargadores. The day broke clear and lovely, but excessively hot, and before night a second thunder-storm, of much greater violence than the first, overtook us in the midst of our preparations for departure. This time it was no ordinary passing thunder-shower, but a complete break up of the weather; and later on we learned that during this week a fierce “Norther” had raged in the Gulf of Mexico, and that cutting frosts and heavy snow-storms had destroyed the crops all along the coasts of Texas and Mexico. The sudden fall in the temperature was so severe that we were glad to put on our warmest garments, and the thinly-clad Copaneros fell ill with chills and fevers.
On Tuesday we bade good-bye to the ruins, and started on our journey to Quirigua in a downpour of rain. It was a melancholy leave-taking, but I was less reluctant to go than I should have been had the weather shown the brilliant laughing mood which had so long entranced me. The village and its inhabitants were in a pitiable condition of wet and mud, and as we rode past the houses, shivering figures with pinched faces came to the doors to bid us farewell, and on all sides we heard complaints and groans at such unusual weather. It was indeed cold and thoroughly uncomfortable, and Gorgonio alone of all the party kept up his spirits, and assured me that the rain was “mucho mayor que el sol”! My taste favours sunshine and dry clothes, but perhaps, after all, we were lucky in accomplishing the five days’ journey under a cloudy sky instead of the grilling rays of a March sun. We were able to travel only five leagues during the first day, for the greater part of that distance retracing our steps on the Zacapa road, and at night pitching our tent in a great pine wood. The rain fell heavily all night long, and the next morning we made slow progress up and down hills by an execrable track that seemed even to tax the patience of the mules. By noon we arrived at a dirty ill-kept rancho, deserted by the responsible members of the family, and left in charge of three small children, who had locked themselves into the house and were not to be tempted out. We found a seat on a big log in the farm-yard, where the animals looked neglected and half-starved, and we ate our breakfast in the company of a “chumpipe,” better known as a turkey and her brood, the friendliest little family imaginable, which clamoured for our food, and ate indiscriminately ginger-bread nuts and oil from the sardine-box, and drank all the coffee we could spare them. The rain now fell only in occasional showers, and during the afternoon the track improved, although it was still too rough to be pleasant, and we were not sorry to find at the end of the day’s journey a well-built house at the rancho of La Ceniza. Our hostess told us, with no little pride, that we could have a room to ourselves; it proved, however, to be a passage-room, but the members of the family passed so stealthily through it on their way to bed, and were so thoughtful not to disturb us in the morning, when they again passed through before we were up, that we were hardly conscious of their presence.
At the time of our arrival the whole household was in a state of excitement over a shooting affray which had taken place just outside the enclosure, and which accounted for the unusual appearance of a man we had met on the road, whose torn and blood-stained garments had attracted our attention. The victim of the affray lay in the room next to us, groaning from the pain of a bullet-wound, and we learnt through Gorgonio that the unfortunate sufferer was ordered to appear before a neighbouring judge that same night. This seemed to be such an inhuman act that we ventured to remonstrate, and to suggest that if the case were so urgent the magistrate might come to the suffering man’s bedside; but although there was a general murmur of approval, no one ventured to disobey the order which had been received, and the groaning creature was dragged from his bed and forced to walk off to the judge.
The next day we followed a rough path winding up the face of a bare hill, and from the summit gained a view over a fertile valley in front of us, and a distant glint of the white houses of the village where we were to halt for breakfast. The morning had been pleasant, with fitful gleams of sunshine and soft cloud-shadows sweeping over the landscape. A pleasant path through a wood lay before us to the village, but before we could enjoy its sylvan charms a drenching shower overtook us, and sent us in a thoroughly bedraggled condition to the shelter of the nearest house. Later in the afternoon we rode on through a park-like country with fine trees to the village of Iguana, where a glance at the “posada” showed it to be unendurable even for one night, and, preferring damp to dirt, we pitched our tent on the grass by the roadside. A ride of three leagues through The rain brought us by noon the next day to the village of Barbasco, which straggles along the bank of the Rio Motagua. The water’s edge was fringed with washerwomen, who plied their trade with great energy and small regard for the fabrics they were hammering and beating out with sticks and stones. We were ferried across the river with our luggage in a huge dug-out canoe, as the river was too deep to ford, and the mules were driven into the water to swim after us.
The weather showing signs of improvement, we determined to push on to the rancho of Quirigua, where we were sure of comfortable quarters and hoped to find our letters awaiting us. At the little village of Palmilla we came upon the first signs of the railway in course of construction from Puerto Barrios, on the Atlantic seaboard, to the capital, destined no doubt soon to absorb all the traffic of the old and much-used track connecting the capital with the ancient port of Yzabal on the Golfo Dulce, along which we were travelling. As the track wound upwards over the pine-clad hillside, we caught beautiful views across the valley to the Sierra de las Minas, whose lofty sides are richly clothed with extensive forests, which have as yet escaped the machetes of the natives and the axes of the foreign coffee-planter. These forests are still the home of the howling monkeys (Mycetes villosus)—“Monos,” as they are here called; and the sound of their melancholy cries reached us across the valley like the rhythmic roar of surf beating on a distant shore.