OX-CART AND NATIVE DRIVER.
“ten human beings, twelve chickens, three pigs, and insects innumerable passed the night in a room not more than twenty feet square.” I can well believe in the literal truth of this statement from the sights that I saw all over the country.
The most interesting feature of the journey was the constant stream of men and women on the road, most of them headed for Guatemala City. The visitor to this country who confines his journeying to the iron horse misses these unique experiences and can not get so good an insight into the country and its people as he who is willing to endure a little hardship.
After about a seven hours’ continuous journey we reached a place called Agua Caliente (the warm water) where we were to obtain our dinner. This was an event anxiously awaited by me, for I was saddle-weary and nearly exhausted, not being accustomed to the saddle, and especially to mountain roads. Imagine my disappointment when the “posada” consisted of a poor cottage where a half dozen naked children were running around, none of whom would satisfy the modern conception of cleanliness. The only articles of furniture were some benches and a poor excuse for a table.
Even tables are dispensed with in some of these houses and meals are eaten off the shelves. The fewer the articles of furniture, however, the fewer lurking places are provided for cockroaches, scorpions or centipedes. The kitchen outfit consisted of a sort of stove made of plaster and sticks, a pot or two, a tin pan, a few earthen jugs, and a good metate on which to beat the tortillas into shape.
After some parleying the good housewife prepared for us tortillas, frijoles negros (black beans), some soft boiled eggs, and coffee. These people make a coffee essence by grinding and roasting, or burning, the coffee berries, which are then pulverized and boiled for hours. This essence is placed in bottles which are set on the table along with a jug of hot water so that you can dilute it to suit yourself. Although it tastes rather bitter at first, it has the merit of being a great stimulant, as I can testify from personal experience, and I grew to rather like it. The tortillas are made of corn which has first been soaked in lime water until pasty, and is then rolled, patted and tossed, and made into cakes in appearance about like pancakes. They require more labour in preparation than almost any other kind of food. Black beans are one of the staple foods of the country and will be found not only in the humble cottage of the peon at each meal, but on the table of the rich man at least twice a day.
I wanted a drink of water and so requested of the man of the house as soon as we arrived. “In a moment,” he said. In fifteen or twenty minutes I asked again for the water. The answer was a “momentita,” a little moment. I spoke of it several times, but after an hour and half’s rest we left and the “momentita” had not yet elapsed. It is simply an instance of the character of the people.
Journeying across country by mule, and over a rough road, is not a very sociable way to travel. My mule was the slowest gaited one and persisted in lagging behind about a quarter of a mile until I became too weary to spur him to greater effort. There was scarcely a mile of level road, but it was first up hill and then down, and the latter was hardest on the rider. The path in places was very narrow so that two mules could scarcely pass. On one side would be a sheer declivity of several hundred feet at the bottom of which a roaring mountain stream ran with deafening noise. On the other side was a wall of rock. The mule persisted in walking almost on the very edge much to my discomfort. I let him have his own way, however, according to advice, and had no reason to regret it. A surer footed animal never existed than the little tan mule allotted to me, for on dangerous paths he never made a misstep. Some of the descents were so steep that he was obliged to zigzag across the path to prevent slipping and possible fatality.
As we reached higher altitudes the views became more and more magnificent. We passed through groves of oaks and pines and encountered relatives of the thistle and sunflower that, in this land of botanical exuberance, have attained to the dignity of shrubs and trees. Olive-green mistletoe, in masses several feet in diameter, hung from high branches and there were birds so gay of plumage that they seemed like fragments of a disintegrated rainbow as they floated by us.