Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities

by George Payson

Having bought a few oranges they had thrown into their boat, we left them to make the best of their way back to the shore; and once more filling our sails, we rounded the intervening headland, and just at dark run our schooner up within a few yards of the beach at San Carlos. A large open shed, or rather roof of palm-leaf, supported by tall naked posts, seemed to have waded rather timidly out into the lake. While we regarded with dismay the waves rolling with considerable violence up into this building, and wondered how we were to get to land, a party of natives darted out into the surf, and for the moderate sum of one real offered to carry us ashore on their shoulders. One of the riders, heavier or not so well mounted as the rest, was precipitated headlong into the lake, to our unmingled delight and approbation; but the unlucky native, who had been the cause and partner of his mishap, no sooner regained his feet than he fled up into the town without once stopping to look behind him.

We all followed at our leisure, in anxious search for supper and lodging. It was long before we succeeded in finding either, and then they were not at all to our satisfaction; but as we had a suspicion, in spite of the darkness, that San Carlos was anything but a city of palaces, we resolved to make the best of what we had lest we might go farther and fare worse.

We slept on the floor—that is, on the bare ground—in the kitchen or living room of the family; while in an adjoining apartment, separated from ours only by a slight partition of bamboo hardly as high as our heads, a woman lay dying of the yellow fever. In the morning we had an opportunity of surveying the town to better advantage. It consists of a small collection of hovels, with two decent houses, clustered irregularly together at the base and on the side of a low steep hill. The damp and unwholesome vegetation—the water oozing out of the ground at every step—the filthy streets and doorways—are not calculated to give the stranger a very favourable impression of the beauty or salubrity of San Carlos; and I am persuaded that the longer he remained, the more eager he would be to depart. On the hill above the town stands the important fortress of San Carlos, as I have since seen it denominated by some of our sage political writers at home. This important fortress consists of an almost obliterated rampart, defended by a single rusty cannon, which would be far more dangerous to its friends than its enemies.

However, in a military point of view, this place may, for aught I know, be of the utmost importance; but to the travelling tourist, whether he goes in search of the picturesque, or only seeks to gratify his curiosity or appetite, it is of all the most uninviting. It is, in fact, a cross between barbarism and civilization, and the worst features of both the parents are plainly discernible in this mongrel offspring.

We were naturally desirous to leave a place of which we had formed so ill an opinion as soon as possible, but we were not allowed to govern our own movements. We were left to the mercy of a race of men to whom procrastination is a virtue, and haste a crime, if not a folly. Having cooked and eaten their breakfast—a mess of beef and plantains boiled together in a huge iron kettle—they were now busy—not busy either, but employed, though even that is too strong a word—in preparing the boats that were to carry us down the river. These were rude canoes or dugouts, very long and narrow, and capable in smooth water of carrying ten men apiece with tolerable comfort and security. As we had one more than that number of passengers in the canoe that fell to our lot, and five native boatmen besides, we contemplated with no little uneasiness the prospect of a voyage of a hundred and fifty miles down a rapid river.

About ten o'clock all was in readiness, and we proceeded with the utmost caution and calculation to stow ourselves in the canoe. Four of the Indians, who were to act as rowers, sat in the head of the boat. Next to them was an equal number of our fellow-passengers, with whom we had no further acquaintance; the patron or pilot sat in the stern with an American who was residing in the country, and our own party occupied the middle. It was necessary to sit perfectly still, as the slightest motion caused the boat to roll, bringing the oars on one side down into the water, and calling forth an impatient exclamation from all the boatmen at once of "para bota," "trim boat." When this state of things was no longer tolerable, we all moved in concert the arm or leg that gave us the most uneasiness, and again settling into our places sat like breathing statues for another hour.

We moved slowly up the lake a short distance, and then rounding a narrow point of land found ourselves in the San Juan. Our boatmen rowed a few hundred yards till the canoe fairly felt the force of the rapid current, and then, raising their oars from the water, and fixing them in that position by fastening the ends to the opposite side, they produced a stock of plantains that was perfectly alarming, and began to eat as if they had not tasted anything for a week. As it was only two or three hours since they had devoured a hearty breakfast, and no one could see their naked bellies without thinking of Prince Hal's question, "How long is it, Jack, since thou hast seen thine own knees?" we naturally felt some impatience at this delay, but our remonstrances might as well have been addressed to the trees on the bank.

Having eaten enough for a dozen men, and being at length obliged to stop from sheer repletion, instead of returning to their duty, as we had fondly imagined, they simply varied their performances in a manner highly suggestive of the renowned Sancho Panza, from whom they were perhaps lineally descended. After an hour spent in these alternations they resumed their oars; our canoe, which had been drifting broadside to the current, was once more headed down the stream, and we glided along under these combined influences at a speed varying from five to eight miles an hour. Having by this time arranged ourselves in as comfortable a position as was attainable under the circumstances, we were at leisure to take note of what was passing. On either side a tangled and matted forest crowded close down to the river's brim. Vines of the utmost vigour and luxuriance hung in graceful folds from the tallest trees, or presented an almost solid wall of verdure as even as if it had been trained over an artificial trellise. The monotony of the banks was interrupted only by shady coves or inlets, just wide enough to admit a canoe, and, by their mysterious windings, offering a strange temptation to the curious imagination.

We met also one or two parties of natives slowly toiling up the stream, keeping close to the shore to avoid the current that swept us prosperously onward, and now and then resting from their labour by mooring their canoe to the overhanging branches. With these our boatmen never failed to exchange greetings and inquiries, somewhat in the fashion of two ships speaking each other at sea; and the novelty of their accent and intonation was nowhere else so striking.

Let the reader pronounce the word banana, placing very little stress on the first and last syllables, and commencing the second with a sudden expiration—then dying gradually away through all the notes of the gamut, from the highest to the lowest, and he will obtain a very correct idea of a Spanish hail or halloo. When three or four on each side were thus joining their voices in anything but concert, the effect, if not harmonious, was in the highest degree amusing.