The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

There are wild hogs also in these woods, and ounces. The ounce here is, I believe, properly styled the puma, though the people always call them lions. They grow to about the size of a Newfoundland dog. The wild cat also is common here, the people styling them tigers. The xagua is, I take it, their proper name. None of these animals will, I believe, attack a man unless provoked or pressed in pursuit; and not even then if a way of escape be open to him.

We again breakfasted at a forest clearing, paying a dollar each for tough old hens, and in the evening we came to a cacao plantation in the middle of the forest which had been laid out and settled by an American of the United States residing in Central America. This place is not far from the Serapiqui river, and is called Padregal. It was here that the young lieutenant had read the funeral service over the body of that unfortunate lady.

I went with him to visit the grave. It was a spot in the middle of a grass enclosure, fenced off rudely so as to guard it from beasts of prey. The funeral had taken place after dusk. It had been attended by some twelve or fourteen Costa Rican soldiers who are kept in a fort a little below, on the banks of the Serapiqui. Each of these men had held a torch. The husband was there, and another Englishman who was travelling with him; as was also, I believe, the proprietor of the place. So attended, the body of the Englishwoman was committed to its strange grave in a strange country.

Here we picked up another man, an American, who also had been looking for gold, and perhaps doing a turn as a filibuster. Him too the world had used badly, and he was about to return with all his golden dreams unaccomplished.

We had one more stage down to the spot at which we were to embark in the canoe—the spot at which the lady had been drowned—and this one we accomplished early in the morning. This place is called the Muelle, and here there is a fort with a commandant and a small company of soldiers. The business of the commandant is to let no one up or down the river without a passport; and as a passport cannot be procured anywhere nearer than San José, here may arise a great difficulty to travellers. We were duly provided, but our recently-picked-up American friend was not; and he was simply told that he would not be allowed to get into a boat on the river.

"I never seed such a d——d country in my life," said the American. "They would not let me leave San José till I paid every shilling I owed; and now that I have paid, I ain't no better off. I wish I hadn't paid a d——d cent."

I advised him to try what some further operation in the way of payment would do, and with this view he retired with the commandant. In a minute or two they both returned, and the commandant said he would look at his instructions again. He did so, and declared that he now found it was compatible with his public duty to allow the American to pass. "But I shall not have a cent left to take me home," said the American to me. He was not a smart man, though he talked smart. For when the moment of departure came all the places in the boat were taken, and we left him standing on the shore. "Well, I'm darned!" he said; and we neither heard nor saw more of him.

That passage down the Serapiqui was not without interest, though it was somewhat monotonous. Here, for the first time in my life, I found my bulk and size to be of advantage to me. In the after part of the canoe sat the master boatman, the captain of the expedition, steering with a paddle. Then came the mails and our luggage, and next to them I sat, having a seat to myself, being too weighty to share a bench with a neighbour. I therefore could lean back among the luggage; and with a cigar in my mouth, with a little wooden bicher of weak brandy and water beside me, I found that the position had its charms.

On the next thwart sat, cheek by jowl, the lieutenant and the distressed Britisher. Unfortunately they had nothing on which to lean, and I sincerely pitied my friend, who, I fear, did not enjoy his position. But what could I do? Any change in our arrangements would have upset the canoe. And then close in the bow of the boat sat the two natives paddling; and they did paddle without cessation all that day, and all the next till we reached Greytown.

The Serapiqui is a fine river; very rapid, but not so much so as to make it dangerous, if care be taken to avoid the snags. There is not a house or hut on either side of it; but the forest comes down to the very brink. Up in the huge trees the monkeys hung jabbering, shaking their ugly heads at the boat as it went down, or screaming in anger at this invasion of their territories. The macaws flew high over head, making their own music, and then there was the constant little splash of the paddle in the water. The boatmen spoke no word, but worked on always, pausing now and again for a moment to drink out of the hollow of their hands. And the sun became hotter and hotter as we neared the sea; and the musquitoes began to bite; and cigars were lit with greater frequency. 'Tis thus that one goes down the waters of the Serapiqui.