Whatever the cause for delay, it ended at last, and with a great snorting and straining and blowing of steam the little old “Baldwin” began to drag its four wagones out of the station compound. First came a box-car, crowded inside and on top with gente del pueblo; then, behind the baggage and mail car, the densely-packed second-class; and finally the coach-de-luxe with a dozen passengers, most of whom would hasten to take their lawful place in the car ahead as soon as they could escape the eyes of their fellow-townsmen thronging the station platform. The Indian of Ecuador still commonly walks, a fact easily explained by a glance at the exorbitant rate-sheet. It was only by dint of much struggle that the railroad, reaching Quito four years before, had finally settled the point that even “prominent persons” shall pay fare; now it has taken the offensive, and collects cartage even on the bundles and fruit the passengers are accustomed to stack in the car about them. The engine panted asthmatically to surmount a two-foot rise, scores of Indians and cholos running alongside, screaming farewells to their outward-bound friends, some visibly weeping for the quiteño of the masses considers death itself little less dreadful than departure. Then at length the train swung round the sandbank cutting and, catching a down-grade, was off in earnest, and reluctantly I saw “Señor Lay-O-Ice” disappear from my South American adventures.
Almost everything that moves in Quito rides on the backs of Indians
An Indian family driving away dull care—and watching me take the picture of a dog down the street
The attack of roaditis had seized him the day before. With no task to hold him in Quito, he had been for a time content to spend his days at his favorite occupation of sitting on a plaza bench. He had even paid his rent well in advance, that he might have an anchor to windward. But it had proved a rope of sand when the road lure came upon him, and he had feverishly tossed together his indispensable junk and turned his face toward other climes. From Guayaquil, “unless Yellow Jack or Bubonic beat him to it,” he planned to push on to Cajamarca and Lima, chiefly by sea, then to strike overland to Cuzco. Beyond South America lay various nebulous projects,—a year around the Mediterranean, a journey through Spain, or perhaps a return to the Zone to earn another “stake” with which to journey to the Far East, there to adopt the yellow robe and settle down to the tranquil life of studious inactivity he loved so well.
Thus life moved on, even in Quito. “Chispa” of the bullring had taken the same train, feigning a first-class wealth until out of sight of his quiteño admirers. Peyrounel, the “andarín,” too, was gone, dog, gun, hair, medals, spurs and ledgers, to carry back to Bogotá the map that had piloted us southward. Only one lone gringo descended to the city in the folds of Pichincha, to renew the task that still forbade him to listen to the siren that beckoned him on over the encircling horizon.
To pass over in silence its uncleanliness would be to give a false picture of Quito. Only its altitude saves the city from sudden death. Its personal habits are indescribable; I do not use the adjective to avoid the labor of finding one less trite, but because no other could be more exact. If I described in detail one fourth its daily insults to the senses, no reputable publisher would print, and no self-respecting reader would read it. The city is surrounded by an iron ring of smells which the susceptible stranger, accustomed to the moderate decencies of life, can pass only in haste and trepidation. The condition of the best kitchen in Quito would arouse a vigorous protest from an American “hobo.” However foppish a quiteño family may be outwardly, anybody is considered fitted to the task of washing its dishes or waiting on its tables. Among all the tramps of the United States I have never seen one so filthy as the human creatures that hang around hotel dining-rooms, or, in the one or two higher-priced establishments, are at least to be found just behind the scenes, kicking about the earth floor the rolls which the waiter a moment later religiously lays before the guest with silver-plated pincers. Yet clients in frock-coats and outwardly immaculate garb are never known to raise a voice in protest. There is exactly one way to escape these conditions in Ecuador, and that is to keep out of the country. A modern Crœsus would be forced to endure the same, for though he brought his own servants and even his food-supplies with him, the Ecuadorian would find some means of reducing him to an equality of condition, if only by opening the supplies in customs and running his unwashed hands through them.
Among our table companions were lawyers, university professors, newspaper editors, commonly with several rings on their fingers; yet rare was the man whose finger-nails were not in deepest mourning, or whose manners were not befitting a trough. On the street the passing of the women was usually marked by an all but overwhelming scent of the cheap and pungent perfumes to which all the “decente” class, male or female, is addicted, and though their faces were daubed a rosy alabaster, it was rare to see one with clean hands, or without a distinct dead-line showing at the neck. The city is gashed by several deep gullies with trickling streams at their bottoms, which serve as general dumping-grounds. Not even the carrion-crow mounts to these heights, and the city is denied the doubtful services of this tropical scavenger. Though the world hears little of it, the death-rate from typhoid alone in the capital rivals that of “Yellow Jacket” in Guayaquil; and no precautions whatever are taken against it. When he has noted these customs and worse, the visitor will be startled into shrieks of sardonic laughter when he runs across a large two-story building bearing an elaborately painted shield announcing it the “Oficina de Sanidad.”
Yet the quiteño is extremely jealous of any offer of other races to do for him that which he gives no evidence of being able to do for himself. Once out of Colombia, we had hoped for relief from the perpetual growling at Americans, chiefly in fiery and ill-reasoned newspaper editorials. Barely had we crossed the frontier, however, than we found Ecuador raging with a new grievance. The Government had recently invited the doctor in charge of the sanitation of Panama to inspect Guayaquil and bring his recommendations to the capital. A strict censorship on cable messages keeps the outside world largely in ignorance of the real conditions in the “Pearl of the Pacific.” Inside the country, however, the real state of affairs is more nearly common knowledge. One could pick almost at random from the local newspapers such items as: