The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

The valley of San José, as it is called, is four thousand five hundred feet above the sea; and consequently, though within the tropics, and only ten degrees north of the line, the climate is good, and the heat, I believe, never excessive. I was there in April, and at that time, except for a few hours in the middle of the day, and that only on some days, there was nothing like tropical heat. Within ten days of my leaving San José I heard natives at Panamá complaining of the heat as being altogether unendurable. But up there, on that high plateau, the sun had no strength that was inconvenient even to an Englishman.

Indeed, no climate can, I imagine, be more favourable to fertility and to man's comfort at the same time than that of the interior of Costa Rica. The sugar-cane comes to maturity much quicker than in Demerara or Cuba. There it should be cut in about thirteen or fourteen months from the time it is planted; in Nicaragua and Costa Rica it comes to perfection in nine or ten. The ground without manure will afford two crops of corn in a year. Coffee grows in great perfection, and gives a very heavy crop. The soil is all volcanic, or, I should perhaps more properly say, has been the produce of volcanoes, and is indescribably fertile. And all this has been given without that intensity of heat which in those southern regions generally accompanies tropical fertility, and which makes hard work fatal to a white man; while it creates lethargy and idleness, and neutralizes gifts which would otherwise be regarded as the fairest which God has bestowed on his creatures. In speaking thus, I refer to the central parts of Costa Rica only, to those which lie some thousand feet above the level of the sea. Along the sea-shores, both of the Atlantic and Pacific, the heat is as great, and the climate as unwholesome as in New Granada or the West Indies. It would be difficult to find a place worse circumstanced in this respect than Punta-arenas.

But though the valley or plateau of San José, and the interior of the country generally is thus favourably situated, I cannot say that the nation is prosperous. It seems to be God's will that highly-fertile countries should not really prosper. Man's energy is brought to its highest point by the presence of obstacles to be overcome, by the existence of difficulties which are all but insuperable. And therefore a Scotch farm will give a greater value in produce than an equal amount of land in Costa Rica. When nature does so much, man will do next to nothing!

Those who seem to do best in this country, both in trade and agriculture, are Germans. Most of those who are carrying on business on a large scale are foreigners,—that is, not Spanish by descent. There are English here, and Americans, and French, but I think the Germans are the most wedded to the country. The finest coffee properties are in the hands of foreigners, as also are the plantations of canes, and saw-mills for the preparation of timber. But they have a very uphill task. Labour is extremely scarce, and very dear. The people are not idle as the negroes are, and they love to earn and put by money; but they are very few in number; they have land of their own, and are materially well off. In the neighbourhood of San José, a man's labour is worth a dollar a day, and even at that price it is not always to be had.

It seems to be the fact that in all countries in which slavery has existed and has been abolished, this subject of labour offers the great difficulty in the way of improvement. Labour becomes unpopular, and is regarded as being in some sort degrading. Men will not reconcile it with their idea of freedom. They wish to work on their own land, if they work at all; and to be their own masters; to grow their own crops, be they ever so small; and to sit beneath their own vine, be the shade ever so limited. There are those who will delight to think that such has been the effect of emancipation; who will argue,—and they have strong arguments on their side,—that God's will with reference to his creatures is best carried out by such an order of things. I can only say that the material result has not hitherto been good. As far as we at present see, the struggle has produced idleness and sensuality, rather than prosperity and civilization.

It is hardly fair to preach this doctrine, especially with regard to Costa Rica, for the people are not idle. That, at least, is not specially their character. They are a humdrum, contented, quiet, orderly race of men; fond of money, but by no means fond of risking it; living well as regards sufficiency of food and raiment, but still living very close; anxious to effect small savings, and politically contented if the security of those savings can be insured to them. They seem to be little desirous, even among the upper classes, or what we would call the tradespeople, of education, either religious or profane; they have no enthusiasm, no ardent desires, no aspirations. If only they could be allowed to sell their dulce to the maker of aguardiente,—if they might be permitted to get their little profit out of the manufacture of gin! That, at present, is the one grievance that affects them, but even that they bear easily.

It will perhaps be considered my duty to express an opinion whether or no they are an honest people. In one respect, certainly. They steal nothing; at any rate, make no great thefts. No one is attacked on the roads; no life is in danger from violence; houses are not broken open. Nay, a traveller's purse left upon a table is, I believe, safe; nor will his open portmanteau be rifled. But when you come to deal with them, the matter is different. Then their conscience becomes elastic; and as the trial is a fair one between man and man, they will do their best to cheat you. If they lie to you, cannot you lie to them? And is it not reasonable to suppose that you do do so? If they, by the aid of law, can get to the windy side of you, is not that merely their success in opposition to your attempt—for of course you do attempt—to get to the windy side of them? And then bribes are in great vogue. Justice is generally to be bought; and when that is in the market, trade in other respects is not generally conducted in the most honest manner.

Thus, on the whole, I cannot take upon myself to say that they are altogether an honest people. But they have that kind of honesty which is most essential to the man who travels in a wild country. They do not knock out the traveller's brains, or cut his throat for the sake of what he has in his pocket.

Generally speaking, the inhabitants of Costa Rica are of course Spanish by descent, but here, as in all these countries, the blood is very much mixed: pure Spanish blood is now, I take it, quite an exception. This is seen more in the physiognomy than in the colour, and is specially to be noticed in the hair. There is a mixture of three races, the Spanish, the native Indian, and the Negro; but the traces of the latter are comparatively light and few. Negroes, men and women, absolutely black, and of African birth or descent, are very rare; and though traces of the thick lip and the woolly hair are to be seen—to be seen in the streets and market-places—they do not by any means form a staple of the existing race.

The mixture is of Spanish and of Indian blood, in which the Spanish no doubt much preponderates. The general colour is that of a white man, but of one who is very swarthy. Occasionally this becomes so marked that the observer at once pronounces the man or woman to be coloured. But it is the colouring of the Indian, and not of the negro; the hue is rich, and to a certain extent bright, and the lines of the face are not flattened and blunted. The hair also is altogether human, and in no wise sheepish.