Although many men may not be killed in these revolutions, as very many times they are only local, nevertheless they keep the country in a continual ferment, for the vanquished never quite forgive the victors. The most formidable disturbance in recent years was a war between Nicaragua and Honduras in the winter of 1906–07. This war resulted in a victory for Nicaragua, partly because of the revolutionary party in Honduras grasping advantage of the conditions and taking arms against the government. As a result Manuel Bonilla, who had been president for several years, was driven from office and General Miguel Davila became his successor. This war-revolution lasted for several months and as a result the business was demoralized to a great extent for the whole country was involved. United States marines were landed at Truxillo and Puerto Cortez to preserve order. Since that time there have been no serious disturbances. The agreement recently entered into between the five republics promises to do away with the interferences from other more powerful states in the internal affairs of Honduras, and the extension of railroads and telegraphs, and the investment of foreign capital promise much better conditions for the future.
Most presidents have begun their career as revolutionists, or, I suppose, they would rather be termed reformers. A man is spoken of as a “good revolutionist” as we would speak of a “good lawyer” or a “good doctor,” meaning that he is successful in that line of work. The fate suffered by many unsuccessful revolutionists would not be a bad one for some of our own corrupt and selfish politicians. The history of Honduras down to 1840 is so closely identified with Guatemala that it does not need special mention. With the election of Francisco Ferrera as president in that year it began a separate existence. There was much agitation among the various towns because of the heavy burdens imposed on them, and in 1847, during the Mexican war, one president practically declared war against the United States, which challenge was ignored. On several occasions Great Britain sent warships to the coast of Honduras to enforce her demands which were not always just. During a part of the time that Carrera was ruling Guatemala, President Guardiola was in charge of the affairs in Honduras. He was a man of the same stripe, part negro, and is said to have been “possessed of all the vices and guilty of about all the crimes known to man. At the very mention of his approach, the inhabitants would flee to the woods.” One writer calls him “the tiger of Central America.” He was finally assassinated. Internal trouble and disputes with her neighbours kept Honduras in turmoil down to 1880, when President Soto was inducted into office. During his term of three years, and that of his successor, General Louis Bogran, progress began, agriculture was stimulated and trade increased.
Honduras is a country about the size of Ohio and contains forty-six thousand four hundred square miles of territory, although the estimates vary greatly for no accurate surveys have ever been made. For governmental purposes it is divided into sixteen departments, each of which has a civil head. Its governmental divisions and its legislative and judicial systems are very much like those of Guatemala. The president is assisted by a cabinet and circle of advisers.
On the Atlantic coast are five large and a number of smaller islands, known as the Bay Islands. One of these, Roatan, has been described as a lazy man’s paradise. It is forty miles long and about three miles in width, with a population of three or four thousand. It is a beautiful and prolific island where the people are lazy because work is not necessary. Even the cocoanuts will drop to the ground to save the inhabitants the necessity of climbing after them, and all he has to do is to strike them on a sharpened stake driven into the ground in order to prepare them for eating. Native yams will grow to a weight of forty or fifty pounds, and a piece of cane stuck into the ground will renew itself almost perennially. Roses and flowers grow wild. The climate ranges from 66 degrees to 88 degrees, and the air is not even disturbed by revolutions. The only jail is a little one-room hut in which a drunk occasionally sleeps off a stupor.
Cassava bread, one of the staple articles of food, is made from the tuberous roots of the manioc which often weigh as much as twenty pounds. The roots are grated into a coarse meal which is then washed carefully to remove the grains of starch. The mass is next placed in a primitive press and the poisonous juice pressed out. The squeezed mass is then made into flat loaves which are dried and then baked. It is said to make a nutritious and quite palatable food. This bread forms one of the principal articles of food of these natives.
The half-million inhabitants include a considerably smaller percentage of Spanish descendants and a much larger number of negroes than Guatemala. The “Zambos,” a mixture of Indian and negro, used to be quite numerous along the Mosquito coast, but many of them have migrated to Nicaragua. They were formerly ruled by a hereditary king. The Caribs, who were originally inhabitants of St. Vincent, have taken their place in the Gulf settlements. They are the best sailors along the coast and can be seen at any time out on the sea in their dories. These dories are hewed out of solid logs, equipped with sails, and vary in length from thirty to sixty feet, and are from three to eight feet across the beam. Their houses are always the same, with a high, peaked and thatched roof, sometimes twenty-five to thirty feet in height. No nails are used in the construction. They sometimes look almost like huge stacks of hay from a distance.
The Caribs are said to have lived on the island of St. Vincent, where, at the conclusion of the war between England and France, they were found to be in such sympathy with the French that they were deported to the island of Roatan. From there they drifted to the mainland and established a number of settlements all along the coast. One writer describes them as follows:—“They are peaceable, friendly, ingenious and industrious. They are noted for their fondness of dress, wearing red bands around their waists to imitate sashes, straw hats turned up, clean white shirts and frocks, long and tight trousers. The Carib women are fond of ornamenting their persons with coloured beads strung in various forms. They are scrupulously clean and have a great aptitude for acquiring languages, many of them being able to talk in Carib, Spanish and English. Polygamy is general among them, some of them having as many as three or four wives; but the husband is compelled to have a separate house and plantation for each. It is the custom when a woman cannot do all the work for her to hire her husband. Men accompany them on their trading expeditions, but never by any chance carry the burdens, thinking it far beneath them.”
The average native or half-breed on the higher lands lives from year to year in his thatched hut. He may look after a few cows and make cheese from their milk. He plants a small patch of maize each year and grows a few bananas and plantains for food. He is content to live on the plainest food and in the simplest way in order to live an indolent life. Thus he exists during his allotted years until he drops into his grave and in a year or two there is not even a sign to show where he was laid. Occasionally graves of the early inhabitants are found, but the burial-places of later generations are practically unmarked and no attempt is made to preserve their location as there are no tombstones and after a few months there is nothing to show its location.
A TYPICAL BEGGAR.