Having accepted his discharge as final, the servant picked up an ax, and seated himself cross-legged on the ground before the hotel, hoping apparently that the Chinamen might venture outside into the gathering dusk. They continued, however, to revile him from the security of their two heavy doors, until the audience tired and drifted away, whereupon the quarrel seemed to die from lack of interest, and the Honduranean himself, having tossed the ax away with a gesture of disgust, wandered off down the street.
Supper was finally served on such tableware as remained unbroken. The village prostitute, aged sixteen, then took the center of the stage, and recited for our benefit the story of her life. While unfortunates in most lands prefer not to air their sorrows publicly, those of Latin America find a certain dramatic pleasure in so doing. For the next two hours the assembled guests heard the tale of her marriage to the handsome Sebastiano, of Sebastiano’s sudden death in an earthquake, and of the long succession of gentlemen who had consoled her for Sebastiano’s demise. Then some one bought her a drink, and she vanished into the night.
Later, the Honduranean returned, this time with a shot-gun. Thereupon the Chinamen bolted their doors, and everybody retired to bed.
V
I was awakened at 4 a.m. by a great pounding upon my door.
Bill, a husky American truck-driver, was going up to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and desired company. The business-like Chinese were already on the job with breakfast. We ate it in grouchy early-morning silence, and drove off toward the mountains through an inky-black fog.
“I know every inch of the way,” consoled Bill. “There’ll be no trouble unless somebody takes a shot at us, or blows up a bridge. They haven’t started yet, but they’re likely to, any minute. Somebody cut the telegraph wires last night.”
From time to time, as we raced through the darkness, stern voices called upon us to halt. From the road ahead a group of hard-faced natives would emerge into the glare of our searchlights, covering us with rifles. They were the federal soldiers, barefoot and tattered, with nothing to distinguish them from revolutionists. They examined my passport, ransacked the cargo in search of arms or ammunition, and finally permitted us to continue.
Eventually the sun made its appearance, revealing the most broken of landscapes. The name “Honduras” means depths, and the land is well named. A forty-five degree slope was considered fairly level here. On such grades, the peasants had built their patches of cornfield. Even these patches were infrequent, for the whole tumbled country seemed to go straight up or down. The road itself scaled precipitous heights, and twisted around narrow cliffs, where the least mistake of a chauffeur might send a car tumbling over and over into infinity. It was all ruggedly beautiful, particularly as we climbed into the coolness of six thousand feet above the sea, where the hills were covered with pines, but it was a cruel country—such a country as discourages agriculture and effectually prevents the transportation that might open up its vast store of mineral wealth—a country suited only for warfare and revolution. And from the time of the conquest revolution has been its principal product.
Bill, however, who had lived here for something over a decade, loved both the country and its people.