V
By chance, on my first evening in Guatemala City, I was held up by a highwayman.
I was rambling about unaccustomed streets, when a polite little brown gentleman stepped out of a doorway, poked a revolver into my ribs, and said courteously:
“Pardon, señor. Please to raise both the hands above the head, and to tell me in which pocket I shall find your watch and your money.”
My watch was one of those cheap things which the traveler always carries for such an emergency. My money formed a large wad, but it was all in Guatemalan currency, and I had my doubts as to whether my assailant would accept it. Back in Tapachula the Guatemalan Consul, having viséd my passport, had refused the moth-eaten bills of his own country, demanding American greenbacks, but finally compromising upon Mexican gold. The highwayman, however, was too polite to refuse.
“I thank you greatly, señor,” he said. “Again I beg your pardon, and bid you adios.”
Covering me with the revolver, he backed around a corner. When I looked to see where he had gone, he was running furiously down the dark street. He had taken a hundred and fourteen Guatemalan dollars, or about ninety cents in American coinage.
VI
In any Central-American republic, one notices a “homey” quality lacking in the larger territory of Mexico.
In these smaller nations, every one of any prominence knows every one else. The capital is something of a Latinized Main Street. This is more true of the little countries to the south, but Guatemala is not completely an exception. Its provincialism manifests itself particularly in the newspaper, which savors always of the local country weekly, although a flowery verbosity gives it a unique distinction.