The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

This also was kept by a German, who after a little hesitation confessed that he had come to the country as a filibuster. "You have fallen on your legs pretty well," said I; for he had a comfortable house, and gave us a decent dinner. "Yes," said he, rather dubiously; "but when I came to Costa Rica I intended to do better than this." He might, however, remember that not one in five hundred of them had done so well.

And then another guide had to be found, for it was clear that the one I had brought with me was useless. And I had a visit to make; for my friend lived with a widow lady, who would be grieved, he said, if I passed through without seeing her. So I did call on her. I saw her again on my return through Cartago, as I shall specify.

With all these delays it was dark when we started. Our plan was to ride up to an upland pasture farm at which visitors to the mountain generally stop, to sleep there for a few hours, and then to start between three and four so as to reach the top of the mountain by sunrise. Now I perfectly well remember what I said with reference to sunrises from mountain-tops on the occasion of that disastrous visit to the Blue Mountain Peak in Jamaica; how I then swore that I would never do another mountain sunrise, having always failed lamentably in such attempts. I remember, and did remember this; and as far as the sunrise was concerned would certainly have had nothing to do with the Irazu at five o'clock, a.m.

But the volcano and the crater made the matter very different. They were my attractions; and as the mild voice suggested an early hour, it would not have become me to have hesitated. "Start at four?" "Certainly," I said. "The beds at the potrero"—such was the name they gave the place at which we stopped—"will not be soft enough to keep us sleeping." "No," said the mild voice, "they are not soft." And so we proceeded.

Our road was very rough, and very steep; and the night was very dark. It was rough at first, and then it became slippery, which was worse. I had no idea that earth could be so slippery. My mule, which was a very fine one, fell under me repeatedly, being altogether unable to keep her footing. On these occasions she usually scrambled up, with me still on her back. Once, however, near the beginning of my difficulties, I thought to relieve her; and to do so I got off her. I soon found my mistake. I immediately slipped down on my hands and knees, and found it impossible to stand on my feet. I did not sink into the mud, but slipped off it—down, down, down, as if I were going back to Cartago, all alone in the dark. It was with difficulty that I again mounted my beast; but when there, there I remained let her fall as she would. At eleven o'clock we reached the potrero.

The house here was little more than a rancho or hut; one of those log farm buildings which settlers make when they first clear the timber from a part of their selected lots, intending to replace them in a year or two by such tidy little houses; but so rarely fulfilling their intentions. All through Costa Rica such ranchos are common. On the coffee plantations and in the more highly-cultivated part of the country, round the towns for instance, and along the road to Punta-arenas, the farmers have a better class of residence. They inhabit long, low-built houses, with tiled roofs and a ground floor only, not at all unlike farmers' houses in Ireland, only that there they are thatched or slated. Away from such patches of cultivation, one seldom finds any house better than a log-built rancho.

But the rancho had a door, and that door was fastened; so we knocked and hallooed—"Dito," cried the guide; such being, I presume, the familiar sobriquet of his friend within. "Dito," sang out my mild friend with all his small energy of voice. "Dito," shouted I; and I think that my voice was the one which wakened the sleepers within.

We were soon admitted into the hut, and found that we were by no means the first comers. As soon as a candle was lighted we saw that there were four bedsteads in the room, and that two of them were occupied. There were, however, two left for my friend and myself. And it appeared also that the occupiers were friends of my friend. They were German savants, one by profession an architect and the other a doctor, who had come up into the woods looking for birds, beasts, and botanical treasures, and had already been there some three or four days. They were amply supplied with provisions, and immediately offered us supper. The architect sat up in bed to welcome us, and the doctor got up to clear the two spare beds of his trappings.

There is a luck in these things. I remember once clambering to the top of Scafell-Pike, in Cumberland—if it chance to be in Westmoreland I beg the county's pardon. I expected nothing more than men generally look for on the tops of mountains; but to my great surprise I found a tent. I ventured to look in, and there I saw two officers of the Engineers, friends of my own, sharpening their knives preparatory to the dissection of a roast goose. And beside the goose stood a bottle of brandy. Now I always looked on that as a direct dispensation of Providence. Walking down the mountain that same evening to Whitehaven, I stopped at a small public-house on the side of Enerdale, and called for some whisky and water. The article produced was not good, and so I said, appealing to an elderly gentleman in black, who sat by the hobside, very contemplative. "Ah," said he; "you can't get good drink in these parts, sir; I know that so well that I generally bring a bottle of my own." I immediately opened a warm conversation with that gentleman. He was a clergyman of a neighbouring parish; and in a few minutes a magnum of port had made its appearance out of a neighbouring cupboard. That I thought was another dispensation of Providence. It was odd that they should have come together; but the facts are as I state them.

I did venture on a glass of brandy and water and a slight morsel of bread and meat, and then I prepared to throw myself on the bed immediately opposite to the doctor's. As I did so I saw something move inside the doctor's bed. "My wife is there," said the doctor, seeing the direction of my eyes. "Oh!" said I; and I at once became very moderate in the slight change which I made in my toilet.