Читать книгу Spanish America (Vol. 1&2) - C. Reginald Enock - Страница 10
ОглавлениеTHE CATHEDRAL, GUATEMALA.
Vol I. To face p. 70.
Guatemala is a land rich in natural resources, with fruitful plains and valleys, and the peculiar volcanic constituents of the soil are specially favourable for the production of coffee, which has been the source of considerable wealth. There are vast plains and extensive lakes, and innumerable rivers and streams. Many valuable kinds of wood exist in the forests, and such products as cocoa, sugar-cane, tobacco, bananas, and oranges, with other less common kinds are plentiful. There are some small deposits of gold and other precious and commoner metals. The climate is excellent, except on the coast.
But this fruitfulness and bounty of Nature is not conducive necessarily to peace among the people of the land. Rather the restlessness of Nature, as evinced by earthquake unrest, is reflected in the politics and general economy of the Republic. The colonial civilization, which was marked by the destruction of the Indians and their more or less beneficent old civilization, and the enslavement of many tribes, with total extermination in some cases, was succeeded by a republic in which pretenders and dictators strove with each other, less to advance the interests of the country than to satisfy their own ambitions and fill their own pockets. There were, too, constant embroilments with the neighbouring States, and bloody local wars. Some of the presidents, however, did endeavour, side by side with their other activities, to promote education and commerce, and to improve the means of transport and communication—ever a vital matter in Spanish America, with its rugged soil and vast extent.
We find in Guatemala many remains of the ancient folk, in beautifully carved stelæ, in innumerable idols recovered from the soil, and in the native arts, which, evincing the dexterity and love of beauty of the aboriginal, have happily survived both the destructive force of the Hispanic domination and, so far, the equally destructive forces of modern commercialism, which ousts their industries with imported goods.
In Quetzaltenango, the ancient "Town of the Green Feather"—the Quetzal was the sacred bird of the Quiches—we shall specially remark the native aptitudes in their quaint and pleasing handicrafts. If these quiet and peaceful folk—for the natives themselves are peaceful enough—are from time to time disturbed by the subterranean roarings which precede earthquake shocks in the hills and the tidal waves upon the coast, they soon forget these manifestations of Nature, which, after all, are less destructive than those due to the political ambition and ruthless cruelties of mankind itself.
The characteristics, natural and human, which we have remarked in the northern part of Central America, as represented by the Republic of Guatemala, are found in varying degree in the sister States extending to the south. The general topography of the isthmian region which Central America embodies is that of a long backbone of mountainous highlands extending from Tehuantepec for eight hundred miles to the South American mainland. The physiography of the region, however, is associated with that of the Antilles rather than the northern and southern land masses, and its belts of volcanoes correspond to those of the West Indies.
In earlier geological times the region probably consisted of isolated stretches of land and mountains, and before man appeared upon the earth there may have been not one but several isthmian "canals" or apertures, with the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific intermixing therein. Alternately rising and sinking—as evidenced by the "drowned" Valley of the Chagres, on the site of the Panama Canal, the land took on its present form, in which, however, it may be that final stability is not yet reached. It is fervently to be hoped, however, that the particular belt traversed by the Panama Canal will remain immune from any earth movements, for that great work of human ingenuity, carried out at such enormous cost, might otherwise be rendered useless in a single instant.
Panama, however, forms the extreme south of Central America, and we must cast a glance at the sequence of States below Guatemala.
Honduras is a land of considerable area, but among the most backward portions of the region. The efforts of its Government to encourage economic and commercial development have not been very well sustained and successful, and there are only two towns in the Republic of any size, one of which is the ancient capital Tegucigalpa, picturesquely situated upon its river in an amphitheatre of the hills, for Honduras is essentially a land of mountains and depths, as its name signifies. The great grassy plain of Comayagua, however, which extends across the country, upon which great herds of cattle feed, redeems the land from too broken a condition. The city of Comayagua was in earlier times the capital, but it was ruined by the wars of the Central American Federation, when, after an endeavour to establish some form of political unification quarrels set in.
This little-known Republic has a long frontage upon the Atlantic side, but only a few miles on the Pacific, which, however, affords it an outlet of corresponding importance at the picturesque seaport of Amapala, on the beautiful Bay of Fonseca. Indeed, this condition, of straddling a continent, as it were, is one enjoyed by all the Central American States, with the exception of Salvador, which lies between the Pacific and the backbone of the highlands. Otherwise, Honduras is unfortunate in its means of communication: its railways are few and short; its roads are difficult of construction over the broken topography, and in the absence of national funds and private enterprise; and an attempt made of recent years to inaugurate services of motor-cars did not meet with success. However, a railway across from sea to sea should be of national value, and the wealth of the country, both agricultural and mineral, may become more intensively developed.
The name of Honduras is almost a byword for revolution, which occurs with marked regularity.
The colony or possession of British Honduras lies in a commanding position between its neighbours of Guatemala and Mexico on the west and north, facing, on the Atlantic Ocean—under its local name here of the Caribbean Sea—towards the important island of Jamaica, some 600 miles away.
Belize, as this foothold of the British Empire is otherwise termed, is about the size of Wales, and not unhealthy in comparison with the other British possessions of tropical America. It is well endowed with a wide variety of natural resources and potentialities, but it cannot be said that its economic progress is commensurate with its position. One of the neglected offspring of Britain, it is, like Demerara, an example of British national and governmental supineness. It might have been supposed that a people such as those of the United Kingdom, urgently requiring for their teeming millions of folk the things in foodstuffs and material that the Tropics produce—things of the grocer's shop and the store cupboard—would have demanded a more vigorous administration and development of this piece of national property, but it is doubtful if one in a hundred would know where or what British Honduras is.
We cannot here dwell at length upon its possibilities and attractions. Approaching the capital, Belize, from the sea, we pass the green islands that fringe the coast, and extending along the banks of the river we see the high roofs and wide verandas of the houses and remark the coco-palm's grateful shade. Often an invigorating breeze blows from the sea, the same gales that crisp the surf at Colon, which the traveller will inevitably note, and this and the high tides wash the fever-bearing mangrove swamps and marshes, rendering them less unhealthy than otherwise would be the case. The inhabitants are grateful for these tonic breezes from the east upon this coastal belt.
This belt gives place in the interior to savannas, pasture lands and forests of useful timber, which latter is cut for export; and beyond are the Cockscomb Mountains, the birthplace of numerous streams.
In this interior region of British Honduras there lie the remains of an ancient culture area, ruins of buildings such as we see in Yucatan, the adjacent part of Mexico, and in Guatemala on the west. They appear to show the existence of a larger population in pre-Colombian times—part of that undoubtedly clever and industrious ancient folk of Central America who have so entirely disappeared.
To the buccaneers of the Spanish Main the colony largely owes its origin, and to the logwood cutters. The coloured folk here are some of the most expert woodmen in the world, and we see the results of their labour in the rafts of timber—pine, cedar and dyewood—being piloted down the flood of the Belize River. These people are descendants of the buccaneers, people of European blood forming part of the population, the majority of which is composed of a mixture, the descendants of negro slaves, Indian and white settlers. There is, of course, a small purely white class, official, colonial and commercial, under colony government from Britain.
The natural products here most in evidence are the timbers, together with bananas and other characteristic fruits, and coconuts, rubber, coffee, cotton and fibre-producing plants; and gold and other minerals are found and worked in small degree.
It might perhaps be said that a description of British Honduras is out of place in a book such as the present, treating of Spanish America. But geographical considerations would not thus be denied. Further, this little outpost of the British Empire, if it should always remain such, cannot fail to influence, and to be influenced by, the Spanish American civilization around it. It might under better development accomplish much good in this respect, if the policy of drift were abandoned. A North American traveller who had journeyed across the Central American Republics and had been badgered unceasingly by revolutionary strife there, and by customs-house officers and others of the bureaucracy of those States, once exclaimed that the only peaceful moment of his journey was when he at length entered the confines of a portion of "that hated British monarchy"—British Honduras! This may have been an exaggeration, but held something of truth.
The little Republic of Salvador, as already remarked, lies upon the Pacific side of this interesting isthmian region of Central America, but, small in size, it is the most thickly populated and perhaps the most prosperous and advanced of all this group of States. Its capital, San Salvador, may be regarded as a fine example of Spanish American culture, and, with its buildings and institutions, would compare more than favourably with a European or North American town. The climate and general character of the uplands upon which it is situated, and the social atmosphere of the place, are pleasing.
But the Pacific littoral is of that low and monotonous character characteristic of the western slope of much of Central America, and as a consequence the ports are often difficult of access through shoal water and heavy surf. The interior is gained either from La Libertad or Acajutla, by railway to the capital, ascending to 2,000 feet above the sea.
The Republic shares with Honduras and Nicaragua the beautiful Bay of Fonseca, but this beauty is characteristically associated with natural terrors, for not far inland arises the dreaded San Miguel volcano, one of the worst burning mountains of Central America, ever threatening the life of the capital. Upon this bay lies La Union, the chief port of Salvador.
The Republic prides itself, and not unjustly, upon the freedom of its life politically. But it is by no means immune from the inevitable factional strife of Central America, the ambition of dictators and the evils brought about by such corruption of self-government. However, many foreigners carry on successful businesses in the capital.
The population tends to increase with some rapidity, and we shall remark the much smaller proportion of Indians found here; the bulk of the people, the Ladinos, being a mixture of white and Indian, distributed throughout a number of pleasing secondary towns, and, in the country districts, are engaged in the production of coffee, sugar, tobacco and other characteristic resources; whilst the hills afford them those minerals with which the region in general is dowered, with some mining establishments, which, as usual, are controlled by foreigners.
The economic life of Salvador is too greatly dependent upon European markets and financial centres; upon the export of coffee thereto; upon the elevation or depression of such markets—a condition, of course, common to many Spanish American States, but which a better-ordered regimen will seek to rectify.
We might wander long through the beautiful scenery of Salvador, enjoying the grand and imposing aspect of its volcanoes, the beauty of its valleys and streams, for this part of Central America is famed, or rather should be famed, for the beauty of the landscape. Quaint towns and curious products, the quiet and in some respects pleasant life of its folk, the budding industries, and a certain promise for the future leave a pleasant impression upon the mind of the traveller in this little State facing the broad Pacific.
Of the Republic of Nicaragua, which we may approach either from the Atlantic or the Pacific, and which is the largest of this group of States, many dismal descriptions have been given. It is described as economically and in civic conditions the most backward. Yet some of its towns are fine places. Leon was described as a splendid city by travellers in 1665, and about that period the very active buccaneer Dampier gathered rich booty from it. Granada, founded by Cordova in 1523, was also one of the richest cities in Central America, and it, too, gave up its toll of booty to the corsairs. The Cathedral of Leon is one of the most noteworthy, massive and ornate of the great stone temples with which the Spaniards endowed the New World, typical of the colonial architecture which redeems these centres of life from the prosaic vulgarity of some other lands.
THE CITY OF GUATEMALA.
Vol. I. To face p. 80.
We may visit these towns from the line of railway which runs from Corinto, the chief seaport on the Pacific coast.
The capital of the Republic, the city of Managua, is of less interesting character, and was, in a measure, raised to that position in order to put an end to the rivalry between Leon and Granada, both of which claimed metropolitan predominance. It is situated upon the great lake of Nicaragua, the most prominent topographical feature of this part of Central America, and which, it will be recollected, was at one time destined to form part of the waterway of a proposed trans-isthmian canal in place of that of Panama.
This great lake valley and its adjacent highlands form the most plentifully inhabited part of Nicaragua, as the Spanish colonial development seized first upon its more fertile soil, watered by the lake and streams. This civilization entered the country from the Pacific side, from which we remark the grim and distant ramparts of the Central American Cordillera, with its volcanoes intervening between the western versant and littoral, and the low, monotonous and swampy region of the east, and the Mosquito Coast bordering upon the Atlantic. The Pacific coast here is bold and rocky, with a headland enclosing the Bay of Fonseca in Nicaraguan territory.
Through the Cordillera flows the San Juan River, draining this low eastern slope, and here lay the route of the projected Nicaraguan Canal, whose abandonment caused bitter disappointment to the people of the Republic.
In places in this wild land we remark the remains of the pre-Colombian folk, who have left vestiges of their temples and other structures, and thus we realize once more how a chain of temple and palace-building folk in ancient times was carried down the length of the continents from Mexico to Peru.
If too gloomy a description of the eastern side of Nicaragua has been given, this must be tempered by noting that it possesses certain natural advantages which may render it one of the most valuable districts, from an economic point of view, in the whole of Central America. Its rivers may be navigated by ocean-going steamers, and in the Bluefields district the industry of banana production and shipment has risen to very considerable importance.
The name of Nicaragua comes from that powerful native chief, Nicoya, who, when the Spaniards first arrived, received Davila, their leader, in a friendly spirit, and accepted Christian baptism at the hands of the Roman Catholic priests. But the Spaniards overran the country; those who invaded it from the east clashing with their own countrymen who came in from the west, and Nicaragua's fine Indian chief—pathetic page of native history—could not conserve here anything of independence for the rightful owners of the soil.
The Spanish rulers of this unhappy land were a dreadful band, of which it has been recorded that "the first had been a murderer, the second a murderer and a rebel, the third murdered the second, the fourth was a forger, the fifth a murderer and a rebel!"
In time the Indians revolted against intolerable oppression, and, later, rebellion after rebellion took place against the Mother Country. After Independence, the Wars of the Confederation constantly deluged the soil with blood, and the political government of the State was distinguished by a continuous series of military or civil revolts, during which the land was impoverished, debased and ruined, and from whose effects it has never recovered so far.
Yet Nicaragua is rich in natural products, agricultural, forestal and mineral.
Famous in local history is the name of the North American filibuster, William Walker, who for a space became president, and the doings of this man and his band are stirringly adventurous. The traveller will also recollect the long British Protectorate over the Mosquito Coast.
But few remember that Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar, nearly met his death from fever in Nicaragua. The great sailor, sent to report upon the prospect of a canal, stated his intention of occupying Lake Nicaragua, which in his opinion was "the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America," whose possession would permanently sunder Spanish America into two parts. But Nature was against it. Nelson and his force ascended the river to the lake and successfully attacked the Spanish force. He was wounded by a cannon shot, fired by a sixteen-year-old girl, wife of a Spanish officer, and the maid was rewarded for the act by her people.
Of Nelson's army of two hundred men all but ten perished of fever, and left their bones in the soil of Nicaragua.
In the adjoining States of Costa Rica and Panama we are approaching the narrowing, curving form of the isthmus, whose topography culminates in the famous neck of land which joins the twin continents of America together, and which has been severed to give access between the world's greatest oceans, in the great Canal.
Whence the name of Costa Rica? Their eyes ever sharp to the glint of gold, the Spaniards who approached Central America from the sea immediately remarked that the swarthy forms of the Indians were decorated with trinkets of yellow metal. The savages wore earrings of gold, which dangled invitingly from their scared countenances when the bearded and armoured white warriors approached, and there was little ceremony in the transference of ownership. "This is a rich coast! This is Costa Rica!" the Spaniards exclaimed.
Indeed, it was part of the old culture area of Chiriqui, whose folk were clever producers of native jewellery in gold and precious stones. Pedro de Alvarado called the whole region, including Salvador, Cuscatan, the native Mexican name, meaning "Land of precious stones, of treasures and abundance." But here in Costa Rica the greedy Iberians found disappointingly little gold, except for these trinkets. This region was the limit of the Maya civilization.
To-day Costa Rica is a flourishing little State, with fertile soil and bright sunshine, with many luscious fruits, with food in plenty, famous for its splendid coffee, special product of the volcanic earth: a land of small peasant owners, upon which is founded some political stability and civic prosperity, an example to other Spanish American States, where oligarchies monopolize the countryside, and the labourer dwells in peonage.
The Pacific coast here displays as we approach it, bold headlands and broad bays, among them the Gulf of Nicoya, the home of that pious-minded Indian chief, who, as before described, gave his name to the adjoining State of Nicaragua. Studded with richly wooded islands, and famous for its purple-yielding murex (the beautiful ancient dye of the whelk), its pearls and mother-of-pearl, is this bay, from which, leaving our steamer at the port of Punta Arenas, we may ascend by railway to the pleasing capital of San José de Costa Rica, on a plateau between the Cordillera at an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet above the ocean.
Here we are in a well-advanced city, the amenities of whose public life are creditable to Central America. The line runs on and descends to Puerto Limon, on the Atlantic, thus crossing the isthmus.
But, like its neighbours, Costa Rica stands perennially in awe of the volcanoes which top the summit of the Cordillera. Turialba, ever hot and angry, and Poas are among these, pouring forth smoke and vapour.
Let us take our stand a moment on Irazu, 11,000 feet above the sea—we may reach it on horseback—higher than the summit of the Pyrenees, and looking east and west remark the vast horizons which unfold below: on the one hand we see the gleaming waters of the Atlantic, on the other those of the Pacific, whilst, between, the whole expanse of the country unfolds. Here, indeed, may the inhabitant of Costa Rica cast a glance over the whole domain of his patria, and let fancy wander over the realms of ocean towards Europe and Asia.
Costa Rica was peopled largely by Spaniards from Galicia, but the bulk of the folk are to-day Ladinos or Mestizos, and, where the native tribes have not been exterminated, there are Indians still in complete savagery. The land is one of the healthiest in the region we are treading, and its products of fruits and foods, of timber, tortoise-shell, rubber, cedar, mahogany, ebony, and great stores of bananas, give to the land a further claim to the name of the Rich Coast.
And now our vessel floats upon the beautiful Bay of Panama, studded with verdant isles, and if perchance it be the sunset hour the flashing colour of the sky may light up the towers of the old colonial city near its shore, a romantic haven, whose memories of Drake and of the cruel Morgan, of Nuñez de Balboa, of Pizarro, and all that gallery of bygone adventurers who made the history of the New World upon these tropic shores. The sun does not rise, however, in the Bay of Panama, but sets, for the curvature of the isthmus has disoriented us, at Panama.
A COFFEE ESTABLISHMENT IN CENTRAL AMERICA.
Vol. I. To face p. 86.
This independent Republic of Panama threw off its allegiance to Colombia, whose heritage the isthmus was, in a grandiloquent manifesto after the—alleged—machinations of the Americans, who, wearied of the dilatory tactics of the parent State, laid hands on the isthmus to carry out their cherished plan of making the Canal. "Just as a son withdraws from his paternal roof, so the isthmian people, in adopting the destiny they have chosen, do so with grief, but in compliance with the supreme and inevitable duty the country owes to itself. Upon separating from our brethren of Colombia, we do so without hatred and without joy." So ran the manifesto.
But the people of Bogata, of Colombia, consider that an unspeakable outrage was perpetuated upon them, and regard the United States and its then President, Roosevelt, as its author—an outrage which time will take long to heal.
We shall see something of the doings of the immortal Drake in our journey down the great Pacific coast of South America, undertaken in another chapter.
The Panama Isthmus was to Drake a vantage point, from which he viewed a promised land. After his attack on Nombre de Dios, a fugitive slave—a cimarron—conducted him and his followers to the summit of the isthmian hills. There lay before Drake the gleaming waters of the vast Pacific, as they had lain before Balboa. Drake fell on his knees. He prayed to sail those waters in an English ship. It was partly his destined work of "Singeing the King of Spain's beard." Back to England he went. The commission which Queen Elizabeth had given him to sail the Spanish Main had been honourably accomplished, even if the Spaniards at Cartagena and elsewhere did not so regard it. The queen must extend the charter to the Pacific. She did it, and Drake's exploits there and return home westwards are among the most thrilling annals of those "spacious days."
Hear a tale now of Morgan the buccaneer, and Panama, and the dreadful things that befel that city. Young Morgan, born in Wales, kidnapped for a sailor in the streets of Bristol, also sailed the Spanish Main. Drake was a gentleman; Morgan seems to have been a bloody-minded corsair. At thirty-three years of age he sacked Porto Bello, committing frightful cruelties and excesses. But at Panama he surpassed himself. Yet praise must be given him for his bravery and resource.
Ascending the Chagres River from Colon in boats, with a dreadful struggle over the hills, Morgan and his men, like Drake and Balboa, beheld the Pacific beyond. Whether he prayed for success or not history does not record. But there lay the rich city of Panama. It must be taken. It was defended by hundreds of Spaniards. But Morgan had taken Chagres and killed three hundred Spaniards there, and double his own number at Panama did not daunt him. Down they went to Panama. The enterprise was a tough one, but the result may be seen to-day in the massive ruins of the old city, a sight for sightseers, buried in the jungle some miles from the present city. For within a few hours the buccaneers attacked and slew its defenders and burned the place with fire, leaving but an empty shell, having robbed it of its treasure, excepting that which an escaping plate ship bore safely from his clutches.
It has been said in extenuation of Morgan's doings here that the place was in reality burned by the Indians and the slaves, who were animated by the most bitter hatred of the Spaniards, and were quite ready to assist the Englishmen.
The isthmus resounded for more than a century with the tramp of mules bearing gold and silver from the Pacific plate ships; the treasures of Peru, of Bolivia, the pearls of Nicoya and the isles, the gold and silver stripped from the Inca temples, the silver bars from Potosi, the silver mountain of the Andes. Along that dreadful trail the mule-trains groaned their way. It was a rough road for horsemen.
The trail became, as time went on, one of the world's greatest trade routes, under the development of the Spanish Colonies. We have seen how the great Nelson hoped to split these colonies in two by establishing a "Gibraltar" on Lake Nicaragua. A toll of human life has been paid upon this rugged path for every human movement over it. Has it not been said that for every sleeper in the first Panama railway a human being died in the terrors of construction? If it is not true, it is true that of the eight hundred Chinamen who left the Flowery Kingdom to build the line—labourers who knew nothing of the horrors that awaited them in this fever death-bed—many committed suicide. Crowds of labouring peasantry from Ireland found here, too, a more emerald grave, and hordes of negroes filled up with their poor bodies any vacant tombs.
Punishment fell upon this railway, for, according to an American writer, it degenerated until its rails "became nothing but two streaks of rust."
Another tale of Darien the fateful: Listen, ye sons of Scotia, to the story of one William Paterson, and his New Edinburgh. Not content with having founded the Bank of England, Paterson must fight the great East India Company, and with another enterprising "interloper" he got over-subscribed, a company with a capital of £600,000, and set sail for the isthmus "amid the tears and prayers" of half Scotland. The new settlement was "to hold the key of the world's commerce." "Universal free trade" with all the world was to be maintained; all differences of race and religion were to be annulled in this Utopia. Death, fever, loss, the attacks of the Spaniards and complete disaster—such was the answer of Fate to their enterprise, and of the two thousand trustful souls who left the Clyde in the closing year of the seventeenth century for this desired haven of the Spanish Main, a few hundreds alone returned to tell the tale.
Paterson's idea was in reality that of a great empire-builder. It was a magnificent scheme, and only lacked the element of success. England might have possessed another India, and in the New World. The Scotch were fully alive to the position, but the English were stupid, and lost an enormous opportunity.
The making of the Panama Canal has greatly appealed to the imagination of the world, although its triumph, in a spectacular sense, was interfered with by the rise of the Great War. Here was a wild isthmus which cut off the Atlantic from the Pacific, Europe from Asia to the west. An isthmus which, whilst it formed a barrier between two oceans, did not, nevertheless, serve as a bridge between two continents: those of North and South America. Its construction is an epic of engineering, and, be it added, of medical skill, for without the latter the former would have been of no avail. What has been picturesquely described as the "Conquest of the mosquito," also the conquest of malaria and yellow fever, enabled this work to be done. Formerly the traveller hurried fearfully from his steamer at Colon by rail across the neck to Panama, and if his journey lay beyond to his steamer at Panama, anxious to leave the deadly region as soon as were possible. Now no such anxiety marks his journey.
The fight against the natural obstacles to the work—those of climate, of inefficient labour, of mountainous cuttings, of floods, of finance and political intrigue, and all else, was brought to an end—or mainly so—in November 1913, four hundred years after Balboa's dramatic discovery of the Pacific from the "Peak in Darien"; when a vast concourse of people witnessed the great explosion that blew up the last barrier, and a small steamer, the little French steamboat Louise, which, twenty-five years before had conveyed de Lesseps to turn the first sod, passed completely, on its own keel, across from Atlantic to Pacific waters—an act of American courtesy to France.
Several lessons were learned by the construction of the Panama Canal. One was that corruption and inertia among officials will ruin all effort, as it did with the French—who, however, did very valuable work on the Canal. Another that, with modern appliances and just methods, even so stupendous a work could be carried to success, even in the face of enormous natural obstacles; that the obstacles raised by Nature are less formidable than those man raises himself.
Another lesson was in the methods of overcoming the dreadful tropical diseases of yellow fever and malaria.
The last lesson was in the treatment of labour, in this case that of the negro; a matter of much importance to all tropical lands, which may justify here a few words.
A great part of the labour employed on the Canal, in fact, the majority of it later, was that of the West Indian negro, largely from Barbadoes. But it was soon found that this labour was very inefficient. The negro would not or could not "put his back" into the work. In 1906 an American commission appointed to investigate conditions, reported upon the impossibility of concluding the job with negro labour. "Not only do they seem to be disqualified by lack of actual vitality, but their disposition to labour seems to be as frail as their bodily strength," ran the report. The negro was, in fact, roundly cursed as a lazy or incapable hound.
But some, wiser than others, thought there must be a cause below this inertia. Such, indeed, was found to be the case. It was shown that the negro either could not afford, or was too idle to prepare, proper food for himself; in short, that he was ill-nourished. A few bananas, and whatever else the difficult conditions of the isthmus afforded, formed his meals. It was then resolved that he must be properly fed and housed. A commissariat was set up, at which the negro was obliged to take his meals, and the bare cost was deducted from his wages. No profit was to be made. The system answered admirably; the actual cost was found to be only thirty cents American money, equal to about one shilling and threepence, for a day's board of good food. The result was that the negro performed entirely satisfactory labour, and he practically built the Canal.
Many writers have sung of the deeds of the Canal building, which must always furnish a thrilling story of the triumph of human genius, and we need not enter upon it here.
The Great War over, the American fleet—which had played a valuable and noble part—accomplished, in July 1919, a spectacular passage of the Canal, which brings us to-day again to realize the strategic value of the waterway. Some two hundred vessels of war, flying the Stars and Stripes, including six Dreadnoughts, embodying the American Pacific fleet, entered the eastern end of the Canal as the sun was rising in the Spanish Main. But before the orb of day had turned its "westering wheel" into the bosom of the Pacific, the great procession had passed through the Canal and was ruffling the waters of that great sea, thus accomplishing in a few hours, a passage which the battleship Oregon, during the American war with Spain in 1898, had taken nearly two weeks to make, around the South American Continent.
The Americans have fortified the Canal, but blockading would be in contravention of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty with England; and indeed it is to be hoped and believed that the United States will prove a conscientious guardian of her charge and creation. Yet the future may have much in store in this region for good or ill.
Enthusiastic descriptions of the possibility of the Canal to commerce have been written, in the shortening of distances, in the "shrinkage of the world," and there is no doubt of its great utility, which it is not, however, needful to exaggerate. Since the project was conceived and executed, the world has learned that more than the passage of armaments and argosies of merchandise are requisite for the stability and progress of mankind.
A glance now at the general life of the people of these States.[6]
In the aggregate the population numbers somewhat over five million souls, but they tend to increase more rapidly than others of the Spanish American countries, or at least in some of the Republics, for the native women are prolific, and mortality is low, due to the comparatively easy conditions of life and the beneficence of Nature. In some districts illegitimacy, both among whites and Indians, is very marked, and the economic condition in a modern sense is a low one. Primary education is generally compulsory, the Governments generally making considerable parade of educational intentions, but, withal, only a small proportion of the population can read and write. Naturally this is true mainly of the Indian and lower class mixed race.
As to food, this is mainly such vegetable products as maize, beans and bananas, and at times jerked meat. Excessive drinking is a frequent attribute of all Spanish American folk of the working classes, and it is not in the financial interests of their masters to stint the supply of liquors, the fiery aguadientes or spirits, which are so remunerative a product of the sugar-cane plantations, possessions of the large landowners frequently. The Indians are generally a peaceful folk, however, except when under the influence of liquor, and they have many good qualities, which it is time should now be more beneficently and wisely fostered by those in whose hands their destiny so greatly lies.
The Central American States are dowered, as regards Nature, with almost everything that could make a people happy and prosperous. The varying elevations of their lands above sea-level afford every variety of climate, and consequently of food product and industrial material. They can enjoy their own beef and corn, produced in their highlands, or, descending to the torrid strip of their coasts, gather coffee, cocoa, bananas, oranges, sugar-cane, and a variety of fruits which tempt both the eye and the palate. As for their minerals, the precious metals of gold and silver in the hills could provide sufficient for their uses and to spare, the baser for manufactures. The timber of the forests is rich and varied, the fibrous plants are of innumerable uses.
The noble landscapes which open to the view, of wooded mountains and majestic peak, of romantic river valley, and the blue line of the tropic sea, are such as might well bring out those attributes of the poet and the artist which exist in the Spanish American mentality.
In brief, there are here, in each State, the elements of a quiet and pleasing existence, far, it is true, from the world's more ambitious centres, but nevertheless capable of producing peace and plenty. Alas! however, for the unsettled temperament which cannot yet assimilate the bounties of Providence in such method as shall ensure their equitable enjoyment.
CUTTING SUGAR-CANE IN CENTRAL AMERICA.
Vol. I. To face p. 96.
To the foreign traveller, Central America might afford an extremely pleasing field of travel. There is a charm in the remains of the prehistoric American cultures, the carved walls of the old temples, the buried idols, the ancient industries. Restful and quaint are these little towns with the stamp of the Spanish Colonial architecture. Here man and Nature soon forget the bloodshed and the enmity of the torn and stained pages of history. The simple folk of the countryside are full of courtesy, the needs of life are cheap and plentiful, for the earth is bountiful. All these are elements which impress themselves upon the mind of the traveller here.
This, then, is Central America, that region so slightly known to the world outside that, as elsewhere remarked, its very geographical position is often a matter of doubt. But, in the future—it may be distant—it cannot be doubted that, with its advantages, the region must play a more important part in the developing world.
Three Latin American island-Republics enclose the Caribbean Sea and Spanish Main to the north: those of Cuba, Hayti, and Santo Domingo, upon which, however, we cannot here dilate at length.
Nature has, in general, endowed these regions of the Antilles with great beauty, but man, in their past history, has made them the scene of the utmost cruelty, first by the Spaniards, in the ill-treatment and extermination of the gentle and harmless natives, and second, in the slave trade.
Cuba stretches its long, thin bulk from the Yucatan Strait, off the Mexican coast, and the line is continued by the Island of Hayti, containing the Republic of that name, the famous Hispaniola of the days of the Conquistadores, now a French-speaking negro State, and Santo Domingo, whose capital, the oldest settlement in the New World, founded in 1496, may be regarded as the most perfect example of a sixteenth-century Spanish town. Its cathedral contains the reputed burial place of Columbus.
No countries in the world excel these lands in the variety and richness of their tropical products, and in the beauty of their scenery. Havana, the handsome capital of Cuba, was the last stronghold of Spain in America, the Spanish flag flying there until the time of the war between Spain and the United States in 1899. The American attitude towards Cuba revealed the wisdom and generosity of the great Anglo-Saxon Republic.
Our way now lies to the north, into Mexico, that buffer-state between the Spanish American and the Anglo - American civilizations, which, upon its frontier, roll together but do not mingle.
