[HUNTING A PASS]
A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE.
[Continued.]
CHAPTER II.
On the 18th of April, having collected such information bearing on our purposes as it was possible to obtain, we left La Union, and fairly commenced the business of "Hunting a Pass." To reach the valley of the Goascoran, on the extent and character of which so much depended, it was necessary to go round the head of the Bay of La Union. For several miles our route coincided with that of the camino real to San Miguel, and we rode along it gayly, in high and hopeful spirits. The morning was clear and bright, the air cool and exhilarating, and the very sense of existence was itself a luxury. At the end of four miles we struck off from the high road, at right angles, into a narrow path, which conducted us over low grounds, three miles farther, to the Rio Sirama, a small stream, scarcely twenty feet across, the name of which is often erroneously changed in the maps for that of Goascoran or Rio San Miguel. Beyond this stream the path runs over low hills, which, however, subside into plains near the bay, where the low grounds are covered with water at high tide. The natives avail themselves of this circumstance, as did the Indians before them, for the manufacture of salt. They inclose considerable areas with little dikes of mud, leaving openings for the entrance of the water, which are closed as the tide falls. The water thus retained is rapidly evaporated under a tropical sun, leaving the mud crusted over with salt. This is then scraped up, dissolved in water, and strained to separate the impurities, and the saturated brine reduced in earthen pots, set in long ranges of stone and clay. The pots are constantly replenished, until they are filled with a solid mass of salt; they are then removed bodily, packed in dry plantain-leaves, and sent to market on the backs of mules. Sometimes the pots are broken off, to lighten the load, and great piles of their fragments--miniature Monti testacci--are seen around the Salinas, as these works are called, where they will remain long after this rude system of salt-manufacture shall be supplanted by a better, as a puzzle for fledgling antiquaries.
Six miles beyond the Rio Sirama we came to another stream, called the Siramita or Little Sirama, for the reason, probably, as H. suggested, that it is four times as large as the Sirama. It flows through a bed twenty feet deep and upwards of two hundred feet wide, paved with water-worn stones, ragged with frayed fragments of trees, and affording abundant evidence that during the season of rains it is a rough and powerful torrent. Between this stream and the Goascoran there is a maze of barren hills, relieved by occasional level reaches, covered with acacias and deciduous trees. Through these the road winds in easy gradients, and there are numerous passes perfectly feasible for a railway, in case it should ever be deemed advisable to carry one around the head of the bay to La Union.
The traveller emerges suddenly from among these hills into the valley of the Goascoran, and finds the river a broad and gentle stream flowing at his feet. At the time of our passage, the water at the ford was nowhere more than two feet deep, with gravelly bottom and high and firm banks, without traces of overflow. We had now passed the threshold of the unknown region on which we were venturing, and although we had a moral conviction that the valley before us afforded the requisite facilities for the enterprise which we had in hand, yet it was not without a deep feeling of satisfaction, almost of exultation, that, on riding to the summit of a bare knoll close by, we traced the course of the river, in a graceful curve, along the foot of the green hills on our left, and saw that it soon resumed its general direction north and south, on the precise line most favorable for our purposes. In the distance, rising alone in the very centre of the valley, we discerned the castellated Rock of Goascoran, behind which, we were told, nestled the village of Goascoran, where we intended passing the night. We had taken its bearings from the top of Conchagua, and were glad to find that the intervening country was level and open, chiefly savanna, or covered with scattered trees. There was no need of instrumentation here, and so, ordering Dolores to bring up the baggage as rapidly as possible, we struck across the plain in a right line, in total disregard of roads or pathways, for the Rock of Goascoran. A smart gallop of two hours brought us to its foot, and in a few minutes after we entered the village, and rode straight to the Cabildo, or House of the Municipality, tied our mules to the columns of the corridor, pushed open the door, and made ourselves at home.
And here I may mention that the Cabildo, throughout Honduras, is the stranger's refuge. Its door is never locked, and every traveller, high or low, rich or poor, has a right to enter it unquestioned, and "make it his hotel" for the time being. Its accommodations, it is true, are seldom extensive and never sumptuous. They rarely consist of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two or three long benches placed against the wall, with a tinaja or jar for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance for cooking under the back corridor. In all the more important villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the Cabildo is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison. Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who exhibits his ribs to prove that he is "muy flaco," (very thin,) and solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the Santos, "algo para comer" (something to eat).
In most of the cabildos there is suspended a rude drum, made by drawing a raw hide over the end of a section of a hollow tree, which is primarily used to call together the municipal wisdom of the place, whenever occasion requires, and secondarily by the traveller, who beats on it as a signal to the alguazils, whose duty it is to repair at once to the Cabildo and supply the stranger with what he requires, if obtainable in the town, at the rates there current. Not an unwise, nor yet an unnecessary regulation this, in a country where nobody thinks of producing more than is just necessary for his wants, and, having no need of money, one does not care to sell, lest his scanty store should run short, and he be compelled to go to work or purchase from his neighbors.
The people of Goascoran stared at us as we rode through their streets, but none came near us until after we had vigorously pounded the magical drum, when the alguazils made their appearance, followed by all the urchins of the place, and by a crowd of lean and hungry curs,--the latter evidently in watery- mouthed anticipation of obtaining from the strangers, what they seldom got at home, a stray crust or a marrow-bone. We informed our alguazils that we had mules coming, and wanted sacate for them. To which they responded,--