Puerto Barrios.
Arriving at Puerto Barrios late in the afternoon, we were kindly received by the contractors, and after an exceedingly good supper allotted comfortable beds in the large storehouse. We had heard of the cruelty practised towards the workmen on the railroad, and wished to know the truth. I of course understood the circumstances under which men were induced to go there to work, and knew that agents in New Orleans and elsewhere might and did make unauthorized promises to the shiftless adventurers who sought to better their fortunes in a new land. Men from the North cannot do hard manual work in this climate unless they are very careful in regard to diet, clothing, and general sanitary conditions. If they get wet, and sleep in their wet clothes, they will have a malarial fever in a newly cleared country. If they eat improper food, or proper food at improper times, their bowels will certainly protest. Now, I was convinced that the contractors did not take these precautions with their men, that in consequence of this negligence a large amount of sickness resulted, and that complaints printed in the newspapers of the United States from the sick men were justified. I have seen the men who left the railroad and took service on plantations, and have talked with them, although I have never mentioned the subject to the several contractors and overseers I met; my opinion is therefore formed from what these unfortunate men told me.
In the morning we were provided with the only hand-car the road owns, and began our explorations. I will not mention the builders of that car, for it was a worthless article, and had it belonged to me I should have run it off the track and down a steep place into the sea. The road, of thirty-six inch gauge, was graded (in March, 1885) some six miles, and rails were laid four miles; but the thirty-ton locomotive, which had to do the work one of half the size could do, could run only over three miles, the track was so uneven. Men were cutting sleepers in the adjoining forest, and we saw many of mahogany. The grade is also being pushed from Tenedores, on the Motagua River, to meet this end. No great engineering is here visible, and the main difficulty seems to have been in getting suitable foundations for the bridges over the numerous small creeks. Along the track we saw two large snakes of the boa family which had been killed by the workmen. Some five miles from Puerto Barrios we came to the hot sulphur-spring. It is a pool, fifteen feet in diameter, close by the track, and pours out a considerable volume of clear, hot water, pleasant to drink when cooled, but while in the pool too hot to put one’s finger in. Bubbles, probably of hydrosulphuric acid, escaped freely; but vegetation extended to the very borders of the pool, and all around the forest was dense. A cool brook ran near at hand and gave a fine bathing-place as the hot water mingled with it. We were assured that the men who drank the sulphurous hot water never had fever.
Sulphur Spring.
From Tenedores the surveyed line of railroad extends up the valley of the Motagua to Gualan, thence up the ascent to the high plateau on which stands Chiquimula, and thence to Guatemala City, where it will connect with the road now in operation from that city to San José, on the Pacific, five thousand feet below.
Before leaving the Atlantic coast we must again mention the numerous steamship lines from Livingston to New Orleans, New York, Belize, Puerto Cortez, Jamaica, and England. Communication may thus be had with the best markets for all tropical products. The lowlands are amply able to supply New Orleans, New York, and Boston with bananas, plantains, pine-apples, and coconuts, the latter growing most abundantly at Cabo de Tres Puntas on Manabique. The climate is healthful and not too hot, averaging for the year about 80°; and as there is no marked change of season, a perpetual June seems to exist. Capital alone is wanted to develop this Atlantic coast into the great fruit-producing orchard of the United States. Sugar-cane grows rapidly; and so strong is the soil that rattoon crops have been cut for twenty years without replanting, and no diminution of the saccharine yield has been noticed. Sugar can certainly be raised much cheaper here than in Cuba or in the Hawaiian Islands.[8] One day carries the crop to Belize, four days to New Orleans, and eight to Boston or New York. Yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, the Northern farmer wears out his life in the consumptive fields of New England, where his crops grow only four months of the year, instead of settling here, where he can plant any day of the year (except saints’ days, unless he employ coolies), and reap a rich harvest in due season. He sometimes goes to Florida, which is neither tropical nor temperate, which is nothing but a raised coral reef with a veneering of soil, and where frosts cut off his crops every few years. We often hear of the extreme unhealthfulness of the tropics; but is it generally known that more persons die of consumption in Massachusetts than of the most dreaded tropical diseases in Central America? The last time an official census was taken, Livingston had a population of a thousand, in round numbers, and the deaths of the year numbered seven,—one a centenarian, and two youths who fell from coconut-trees and broke their necks; while in Boston the rate for July, 1885, was 28.1 per thousand.
The objection to being among a strange people and under a foreign government and strange laws may best be met by following me through the country, where my object was to answer these very objections for myself; and if my readers will patiently follow me, I will tell what I saw, and they may form their own opinions.
Paddle and Machete.