Guatemala

by William Tufts Brigham

As we rode out of the town in the morning we passed men repairing the aqueduct,—which reminds me that the water in Esquipulas is very bad. We climbed an unbroken hill eighteen hundred feet to an altitude of forty-six hundred, glancing back for a last look at the great white temple, monarch of the plain. As we crossed the divide, we had a fine view of Quezaltepeque, with Monte Rico and Suchitan looking in the distance much more volcanic than when we passed them on the road. Hard as the ascent was, the descent was even worse; twenty-one hundred feet of exceedingly bad road delayed us greatly, and it was long after noon when we arrived at Quezaltepeque. There was not much to see here. In the dirty church I noticed a picture of the “Virgen de Lourdes,” and a contribution-box for offerings to that modern shrine; and Frank found a very curious incense-burner, which certainly did not give evidence that the second commandment had been broken. As we stayed only an hour for our almuerzo and comida combined, we did not see much besides the Plaza and the main street; we followed the latter out of the town, fording a stream of some size, with gravelly bed and bordered with fruit-trees.

Incense-burner.

We were now in the picturesque valley of the Hondo,—a winding, clear, and generally rapid stream; our path sometimes crossed it, and again was high above it on the cliffs. We passed through San Jacinto about dusk and camped a few miles beyond, having to go a long way after dark, as both sides of the road were fenced, a most unusual thing. We at last stopped at a very unsuitable place, kindled a fire which guided Santiago to our camp, and then decided to have our mozo and his family with us for an early start in the morning. Frank took his revolver and went back nearly two miles, where he found the Indio sound asleep in a house. Father, mother, and child were quickly routed out, and when they came up we comforted them with some hot coffee. Towards morning it rained, but not through our blankets; and before the morning mist had risen quite above the hills around us, I had my camera at work. The daylight showed what a queer bedchamber we had chosen. Acacia-brambles were thick enough, and there was no level ground; while behind us was a high limestone cliff closely resembling a columnar basaltic formation, and just across the road a precipitous descent to the river. We sent the mozos on at six o’clock, and followed soon after. At Santa Elena we saw many fan-palms, cultivated as material for hats. At Vado Hondo we could resist the tempting river no longer, but had a delightful swim in the clear, cool water. All the valley was beautiful, and generally cultivated,—here with sugar, there with corn, and we saw several small sugar-mills.

As we approached the lower valley the sun broke through the clouds and was very hot; but when we came to the wide gravel bed of the sometimes broad river above which Chiquimula stands, the heat was most unbearable. On a plateau to the right stood the ruins of an immense church, while far away to the left stretched a fertile valley. We rode up hill into the town at eleven o’clock, and, as usual, found no posada. We did, however, find good food and a very comfortable room at the large mercantile house of Señora Anacleta Nufio de Monasterio (this was the mark on her china). The house was large, and in the patio were orange-trees and a fountain of good water. The important matter of lodgings settled, we went to church, finding it out of repair and dingy. To put ourselves in thorough moral order, I decided to offer here at this ecclesiastical centre two tallow candles,—a penance we wished to perform at Quezaltepeque, but could find no candles for sale near at hand. I placed the candles, lighted, in silver candlesticks, which were empty on the grand altar, and sat down on the doorstep to see what would happen. Soon an attendant came and asked if I had offered the candles; and on being assured that I had, exclaimed “Buen!” in a very satisfied tone; nevertheless he took the poor candles from their place of honor and put them before an empty saint-case. Well, the saints above were perhaps as well satisfied; but Frank here below was rather indignant, and declared he would never offer a candle again. But what else could we expect for making light of the candles?

We called on the Jefe, Don Ezequel Palma, a military man past middle age, who was very polite and who sent his private secretary, Dr. Domingo Estrada, to show us the lions of Chiquimula. We rode first to the ruins of the ancient town where we had seen the remains of the church in the morning. The same earthquake that in 1773 destroyed Antigua shattered this town and caused the removal of the inhabitants some distance to the westward. The old site was a better one; but the people moved away to save the trouble of clearing up the ruins. The church was two hundred and fifty feet long, and seventy-five wide. The immense walls, ten feet thick, were still standing; but the vaulted roof blocked the interior with its fragments. The ruins of this once holy place were now used as a cemetery, the rank in this world of the occupier determining the distance of each grave from the altar-end; while outside were the neglected ashes of the commoners. The brambles and thorny plants made the locality unpleasant for living beings, and we got our horses away as soon as possible.

We passed the new hospital, which Dr. Estrada showed us with pride; it will be, if ever completed, the best in Guatemala. A visit to a sugar-estate in the valley showed us fields of red cane, small, but very sweet. There were two small mills, both made in Buffalo, N. Y.,—one turned by wind, the other by oxen; and the product is about nine hundred pounds of brown sugar a day.

At five the next morning we were serenaded by the military band of the town,—an honor we had received several times before; and the music was very good. We left the ancient town of Chiquimula at eight o’clock, although our hostess, Señora Anacleta, wished us to stay and join an expedition of her friends to Copan to examine “las ruinas,”—an excursion we longed to make, but could not then.

The road to Zacapa was good, and we saw many gigantic cylindrical cacti. These curious trees looked pulpy and fragile; but Frank tried a branch with his raw-hide lasso, and the horse could not pull it off! We shall never again lasso a prickly cactus. On trees by the road (chiefly euphorbiaceous trees) were large nests, eighteen to twenty inches long, of some mud-wasp. As we approached Zacapa we crossed the Hondo by a ford where the water was not two feet deep; but the path was very long and winding, and the current rapid. As usual, there was no posada; but a call on the Jefe, Don Brígido Castañeda, resulted in a page being sent to conduct us to the decent house of a widow, where we found lodging and comida. Our first search was for a blacksmith, our animals needing re-shoeing. There were three herreras in the town; but one was sick, another had no charcoal, while the third had no nails,—and there was no lending among these sons of Thor. So Frank had to do the work himself with hammer and axe; and his general handiness again stood us in stead. There was little enough to attract us in this town, and early the next morning (Sunday) we sent the mozos ahead and followed before the weekly drill of the militia was finished. In Zacapa the Government has a large tobacco-factory; and the “Zacapa puros” are much liked by smokers.

All the way out of town the fields were dry, although we passed several small streams, and beyond San Pablo a grove of fan-palms watered by a fine brook. No fruit was anywhere to be seen, not even on the great cacti. The Motagua River we had looked for at every turn, and at last we came upon a stream so rapid that it does not even water its dry banks. A swim was out of the question, but our bath was very refreshing.