After the mules had had a rest we covered the remaining six miles to Sucre, passing on the way a number of large fincas. One of them seemed to bear a distant resemblance to a pleasure park. Statues of men and animals, summer houses, pagodas, and a small intramural railway whose imitation locomotive was a small automobile in disguise, lent the place a festive air which was increased by one or two minarets and other fantastic towers. We learned afterwards that this was La Glorieta, the seat of the Prince and Princess of Glorieta. The story, as told us by a pleasant old lady in Sucre, is as follows:—
It seems that the head of the richest family in Bolivia, who is also the leading banker of Sucre, wearying of republican simplicity, decided to make a large donation to the Pope. Soon afterwards his great generosity was rewarded with the title of “Prince of Glorieta.” Unfortunately, our presence in this part of the world was not properly made known to this Bolivian royal house and I am unable to give an adequate description of the beauties of Glorieta. They have, however, been published by the owners in a pamphlet, and from all that I could hear, Glorieta has a distant resemblance to Coney Island.
After passing Glorieta, we crossed a small cañon, climbed the sides of a deep gorge, and suddenly found ourselves at the city gates.
Sucre has a population of twenty thousand souls, including fifty negroes, and two or three hundred foreigners, a large number of whom are Spaniards engaged in mercantile business. There are two or three hotels here, and we were in some doubt as to which might offer the best welcome. After a vain effort to locate the Prefect and get his advice, we decided to go to the Hotel Colon where we found large comfortable rooms on the second floor, facing the plaza. The proprietor was most polite and attentive. The only fault that we had to find with him was his continual spitting. The fact that there were no cuspidors and that he was ruining his own carpet did not deter him in the least. Perhaps he had rented the furnishings.
It is superfluous to speak of the filth of the kitchen
through which we had to pass to reach the back yard. It differed from others only in the large number of guinea-pigs that swarmed everywhere. They helped to make the bill-of-fare more interesting.