SCENE AT EL RANCHO.
This unfilled gap in the steel highway between the two great oceans was a blessing and delight, for a more interesting region would be hard to find. Across the great Montagua Valley to the north were the beautiful Sierras de las Minas, whose slopes are kept always bright and verdant by perpetual, though ever-changing, clouds and mists. Even though they are not snow-capped and rugged like the Alps, these mountains of Guatemala have a weirdness and fascination that it is hard to describe. Everywhere the cacti-like trees reared their thorny, spreading arms. Though the grasses of the valley were sere and dry, for this was the dry season, they were not dead, for the first few days of summer rains transform them into a carpet of vivid green.
The view from El Rancho is magnificent. It is in a valley on the bank of a stream, while the range of mountains towers above it in the distance. On the slopes the green fields glistened in the sun. Although the sun was hot and dry in the village, over on the hills it was raining, and we could hear peals of thunder and see the bright flashes of lightning which accompanied the tropical outpour. A small stream that came from that direction soon became a raging torrent, thus showing the violence of the storm.
It seemed good to hear the clanging of the bell and the tooting of the whistle of an American locomotive early the next morning. By the noise it made one would think that it was the overland limited impatient to be off. When all was ready we started out and at no time did the train move faster than eight miles an hour. No one of the passengers, however, after looking at the track and rails, where there were scarcely two ties to each rail that would hold a spike in many places, urged the engineer to greater speed. The necessary water for the engine was supplied on several occasions by water carried from a stream to the tender by a bucket-brigade which passed the bucket from hand to hand along to its destination.
El Rancho is just within the border of the tierra caliente, and the graceful cocoanut palm is to be seen there as well as the tree cacti, which increase in size and number according to elevation. The presence of the cacti is a sure indication of a dry season which prevails for several months each year. The green cocoanut furnishes one of the most refreshing and delightful drinks of the tropics. The natives take the cocoanut, chop off the end with a machete, and drink the fluid that it contains directly from the shell. This native weapon shaped somewhat like an old-fashioned corn cutter is a very useful instrument with these people. It answers for a shovel, knife, axe, pump-handle, fishing rod, and weapon of defence as well as offence.
Gualan, fifty-five miles from the starting point, marked the end of the first day’s journey. It is a small town made up of a few adobe buildings and many thatch cottages of natives. It is a picturesque place on the high banks above the Montagua River, which at this point is a very swift stream. A picturesque ferryman attracted my attention and I waited almost an hour to get a good picture of him and his dugout canoe. When he was in position the sun would not shine and when the sun was visible the boatman was missing from the picture, and it was necessary to use the very quickest exposure because of the swiftness of the stream.
A loud-voiced American with a big revolver in his holster, looking like a cheap imitation of the Western desperado, had attracted my attention on the train, and he proved to be the landlord of the half-caste hotel in this town. As it was the only stopping-place in Gualan there was no choice for the traveller. As the evening hours wore away and his stock of liquors was reduced by his own patronage of the bar, the landlord became more noisy and quarrelsome until one man took offence and said a few sharp words which stopped his braggadocia manner. It looked for a while as though the quarrel would end in a shooting, and would have done so, if the landlord had not calmed down and retracted some of his statements.
Many of the Americans scattered down through the tropical countries are not very representative characters. Alienated from all home influences, they set up an alliance with some native woman and abandon themselves to the cheer of the cantina, or saloon. Many of these men perhaps would only drink moderately at home, if at all, but in these tropical climes they let down every bar to vice and pander to their baser natures. I will never forget one American railroad man whom I met in Guatemala City one morning. He had just begun his drinking and was very communicative. We were at the station and he looked around and said: “They try to keep a fellow in a perpetual state of intoxication down here. See! there is a cantina, and there is another, and another. You go to the Plaza and it is cantina everywhere. I have been trying for two years to save enough money to get back to the States, but they won’t let me. Last month, I earned $800 (about $60 in gold) and I have only got a few dollars left.” Later in the day I saw him at the bull-ring throwing paper dollars at a crowd of boys who followed him about until the police drove them away. Soon he will join the ever-increasing band of American tramps that one finds there. Beggars are numerous in the country, but they are not all natives, nor Indians, and the American can be found among them fully as abject and degraded as any others of that class.
