“I went home last year,” said one of the Old-Timers. “I’d been here for ten years, but no one in my own town seemed to make much of a fuss over me. They just shook hands and remarked, ‘Let’s see; you’ve been away, haven’t you?’ But when I came back and stepped off the train in Managua, every porter and coachman on the platform recognized me. The bootblacks grinned all over their dirty brown faces. And my neighbors all came hurrying to my house to hug me, and slap me on the back, and make those funny gurgling noises. That was my real homecoming.”
CHAPTER XVI
A LONG, LONG WAY TO COSTA RICA
I
I set out overland—through the Nicaraguan Canal—for Costa Rica.
From Managua the railway carried me to Granada, on the shores of the largest lake between Michigan and Titicaca. At the end of a long wharf the weekly steamer was balancing itself upon its prow and waving its stern in the air, lashed by a gale that piled the combers one upon another until the pond resembled a young ocean.
It was a squatty vessel, condemned back in the days of Zelaya, but still running. It contained several bullet holes from the revolution that overthrew the dictator. When attacked, it had been so crowded with government troops that most of them could not fire upon the enemy, wherefore they had relieved their emotions by shooting upward through the decks.
Embarking passengers were looking forward to seasickness. The Latin-Americans always enjoy this malady, even when the sea is calm. Upon going aboard a ship, the womenfolk especially prepare for it by hanging upon the cabin wall a picture of “Our Lady of Voyagings,” reciting the rosary, sniffing the smelling salts, lying down upon the berth, turning green, and suffering miserably long before the ship leaves port. Such behavior seems to be regarded as essential to the gentle feminine character, and I sometimes suspect that any lady who failed to show the proper symptoms during a voyage would be regarded as just a trifle masculine.
On this trip they all had excellent excuse. The boat rocked and pitched frantically at its moorings. When we finally steamed off, our course lay broadside to the waves, and the vessel dipped one gunwale after the other, soaking the steerage passengers on the lower deck, and sprinkling those above. They huddled together in a dejected, uncomfortable mass of humanity, groaning “Ay! Ay! Ay!” and obtaining therefrom about as much relief as Anglo-Saxons find in “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Lake Nicaragua is a hundred miles long by forty wide. Since it was a twenty-four hour journey, much agony was enjoyed by all.