Next came two older boys. Then two full-grown men, one barefoot, one in shoes and silk shirt. The barefoot one, a wild-looking Indian with dark face and long hair, had evidently learned his strategy by watching game-cocks. He kept edging sidewise as though he did not see the other fellow. He would start his swing by winding up like a baseball pitcher. The other could always see it coming and leap aside, but it was an unwieldy swing, and the other invariably jumped into it, until his silk shirt was crimson. The spectators were delighted. They could not appreciate science, but they recognized blood when they saw it, and screamed their approval. The Indian won.
Then came the semi-finals and the finals. Here the participants were trained to some extent, but they were handicapped by Latin vanity. They were constantly posing before the crowd. Between the rounds, instead of resting, they would turn to their admirers to make a speech. “He got me by accident last time, but I’ll show you something when the bell rings.” If one were knocked to the floor, instead of taking his count of nine even when he sadly needed it, he would leap immediately to his feet, determined to redeem himself in the eyes of his followers. Or one of them, having backed the other against the ropes and pummeled him to a pulp, would forgo his advantage to listen to the applause.
But these men were fighters. The old phrase, “the fistless Latin,” is rapidly becoming obsolete. These scrappers never stalled or clinched to save themselves or to gain time. They fought harder than any American pugilist. And they had infinite courage. In the final bout one youth was greatly outweighed; his opponent cut his eye in the very first round so that he was almost blinded; even the Nicaraguan spectators, much as they loved gore, suggested that the battle should stop, but the little fellow insisted on continuing; he was beaten into a bloody mess, knocked down again and again, pounded until it became a torture, but he never wavered; the moment he regained his feet he rushed forward courageously for additional punishment with a fortitude that no Anglo-Saxon could surpass.
In many phases of life these people acquit themselves as poor sportsmen, especially in their politics, but they are learning. Sportsmanship, after all, is not a hereditary virtue, but one acquired through experience. What American can not recall the many squabbles that marked his earliest boyhood ventures into athletics? It is only by training that one learns to abide by the decision of an umpire. I was rather amazed to notice that not one of the Nicaraguan boxers contested the decision of the referee.
XI
The one American resident that the Managua newspapers do not occasionally attack is the Marine.
Some years ago one periodical published an editorial accusing the Legation Guard of general misconduct, whereupon the soldiers promptly wrecked its plant. No such accusations have been repeated.
There are about a hundred and fifty marines in Managua. They were the cleanest-cut body of young men that I had ever seen anywhere. There was no drunkenness among them, no rough-house, no swaggering or bullying attitude toward the natives, no tendency to pick a fight with the local police.
“The only difficulty we ever have,” said the American minister, John E. Ramer, “is that now and then one of them falls in love with a Nicaraguan señorita. The lad might be able to support her in her accustomed luxury here, but he couldn’t do it at home. Consequently, for the best interests of both parties, the officers—if they see it coming—try to cheat Cupid by transferring the man to another post.”
The barracks are situated on the outskirts of town. The men are well quartered—with drill-grounds, club, baseball diamond, moving picture theater, and tennis courts—and so completely comfortable that a Nicaraguan president, paying a visit to the camp, once threw up his hands in astonishment with the exclamation: