IN ITS INTERIOR DECORATION THE COSTA RICAN NATIONAL THEATER EQUALS ANY THEATER IN THE UNITED STATES
IX
To be fair to these countries, no story of revolution is altogether typical of any of them.
Life even in Mexico or Honduras is normally tranquil. Bloodshed and comic opera are not the rule, but the exception. If all of these republics have their turbulent moments, they quickly recover.
After the flight of Tinoco, Costa Rica settled quickly into its accustomed routine. Through the narrow Moorish streets the oxen plodded slowly behind the driver’s goad-pole, their noses to the ground, their massive shoulders swaying from side to side. In the coffee fields outside the capital the peons laughed and chatted as they filled their baskets with red berries. In the plaza the military band played on Sunday evenings, while youths and maidens strolled beneath the palm trees. And the same moon that smiled upon Mexico peeped over the low flat roofs, while the plaintive notes of the gendarme’s whistle echoed through the quiet city with its benediction of “All’s well.”
CHAPTER XVII
ADIOS!
I
A fruit steamer carried me back to New Orleans.
After several months of travel in Mexico and Central America—travel marked by many delays, by many postponements until mañana, by many controversies with petty officials, and by many struggles with the pompous formality of diminutive republics—one looked forward to landing again in an Anglo-Saxon country.
The steamer docked at eight in the evening. The immigration inspector had gone home. “How soon may we land?” the passengers inquired. “To-morrow,” was the answer. We spent the next several hours filling out an inventory of our personal baggage for the benefit of the customs’ service. Foreigners answered a lengthy questionnaire containing such queries as, “Are you an anarchist?”, “Are you a polygamist?”, and “Do you believe in the overthrow of the United States’ government by force?” The only officials that were on the job were the prohibition agents. They came aboard in search of liquor. So the captain took them to his cabin, and opened a bottle of Scotch.