PICTURESQUE JUNGLE TOWNS
"Last Wednesday morning, I got up, and—would you believe it?—there was nothing in the house. There was no yucca [counting off on his fingers], no plantanas, no huevos, no carne, no mais, no azucar, no arroz—absolutamente nada. Yes, it was last Wednesday—no, no, señor, I am a liar—it was last Tuesday morning. And, señor, my children were hungry, and I remembered that there was nothing—" and so on the story goes to its climax in the claim that a certain party, not present, owes the complainer fifty cents for real or imaginary value bestowed, and will the owner please collect the fifty cents for the starving children?
And if this tale is unsatisfactory, comes immediately a fresh version to the effect that it is another man who owes a dollar because he tramped across some young corn and spoiled the crop.
It is this fertility of imagination that makes up for any sort of accurate information. To the American the amazing thing about these people is that they know so little about their own very interesting country. The American must know in order to boom his town, but the tropic native has no idea of booming his town. There is no fun in booming, there is nothing to boom, and a boomed town would be always stirring about or starting something, and would be a nuisance anyway.
I stood in a village, quaint and curious, and wondered how old it might be. The bells hanging to a cross beam in front of the old church bore figures on their rims—1722, they said; and they looked it, every inch—or year.
Came the young curate of the parish, a good-looking and intelligent native, who talked a little with us pleasantly, and lured us into the old church, where he immediately improved the occasion by getting the collection basket and holding it under our noses. "It is a special saint's day," he explained.
"How many people live here?"
He could not tell.
"How old is the church?" we wanted to know, thinking to get a morsel of information for our crumb of contribution.
