I had intended to embark at Panamá in the American steam-ship \'Columbus\' for the coast of Central America. In that case I should have gone to San Juan del Sur, a port in Nicaragua, and made my way from thence across the lake, down the river San Juan to San Juan del Norte, now called Greytown, on the Atlantic. But I learnt that the means of transit through Nicaragua had been so utterly destroyed—as I shall by-and-by explain—that I should encounter great delay in getting across the lake; and as I found that one of our men-of-war steamers, the \'Vixen,\' was immediately about to start from Panamá to Punta-arenas, on the coast of Costa Rica, I changed my mind, and resolved on riding through Costa Rica to Greytown. And accordingly I did ride through Costa Rica.
My first work was to make petition for a passage in the \'Vixen,\' which was accorded to me without difficulty. But even had I failed here, I should have adhered to the same plan. The more I heard of Costa Rica, the more I was convinced that that republic was better worth a visit than Nicaragua. At this time I had in my hands a pamphlet written by M. Belly, a Frenchman, who is, or says that he is, going to make a ship canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. According to him the only Paradise now left on earth is in this republic of Costa Rica. So I shipped myself on board the \'Vixen.\'
I had never before been on the waters of the Pacific. Now when one premeditates one\'s travels, sitting by the domestic fireside, one is apt to think that all those advancing steps into new worlds will be taken with some little awe, some feeling of amazement at finding oneself in very truth so far distant from Hyde Park Corner. The Pacific! I was absolutely there, on the ocean in which lie the Sandwich Islands, Queen Pomare, and the Cannibals! But no; I had no such feeling. My only solicitude was whether my clean shirts would last me on to the capital of Costa Rica.
And in travelling these are the things which really occupy the mind. Where shall I sleep? Is there anything to eat? Can I have my clothes washed? At Panamá I did have my clothes washed in a very short space of time; but I had to pay a shilling apiece for them all round. In all these ports, in New Granada, Central America, and even throughout the West Indies, the luxury which is the most expensive in proportion to its cost in Europe is the washing of clothes—the most expensive, as it is also the most essential.
But I must not omit to say that before shipping myself in the \'Vixen\' I called on the officers on board the United States frigate \'Merrimac,\' and was shown over that vessel. I am not a very good judge of ships, and can only say that the officers were extremely civil, the sherry very good, and the guns very large. They were coaling, the captain told me, and he professed to be very much ashamed of the dirt. Had I not been told so I should not have known that the ship was dirty.
The \'Merrimac,\' though rated only as a frigate, having guns on one covered deck only, is one of their largest men-of-war, and has been regarded by them, and by us, as a show vessel. But according to their own account, she fails altogether as a steamer. The greatest pace her engines will give is seven knots an hour; and this is felt to be so insufficient for the wants of the present time, that it is intended to take them out of her and replace them by a new set as soon as an opportunity will allow. This will be done, although the vessel and the engines are new. I mention this, not as reflecting in any way disgracefully on the dockyard from whence she came; but to show that our Admiralty is not the only one which may have to chop and change its vessels after they are built. We hear much—too much perhaps—of the misfortunes which attend our own navy; but of the misfortunes of other navies we hear very little. It is a pity that we cannot have some record of all the blunders committed at Cherbourg.
The \'Merrimac\' carries the flag of Flag-officer Long, on whom also we called. He is a fine old gentleman, with a magnificent head and forehead, looking I should say much more like an English nobleman than a Yankee sailor. Flag-officer Long! Who will explain to us why the Americans of the United States should persist in calling their senior naval officers by so awkward an appellation, seeing that the well-known and well-sounding title of admiral is very much at their disposal?
When I returned to the shore from the \'Merrimac\' I had half an hour to pack before I again started for the \'Vixen.\' As it would be necessary that I should return to Panamá, and as whatever luggage I now took with me would have to be carried through the whole of Costa Rica on mules\' backs, it became expedient that I should leave the greater part of my kit behind me. Then came the painful task of selection, to be carried out with the thermometer at ninety, and to be completed in thirty minutes! To go or not to go had to be asked and answered as to every shirt and pair of trousers. Oh, those weary clothes! If a man could travel as a dog, how delightful it would be to keep moving from year\'s end to year\'s end!
We steamed up the coast for two days quietly, placidly, and steadily. I cannot say that the trip was a pleasant one, remembering how intense was the heat. On one occasion we stopped for practice-shooting, and it behoved me of course to mount the paddle-box and see what was going on. This was at eleven in the morning, and though it did not last for above an hour, I was brought almost to fainting by the power of the sun.
Punta-arenas—Sandy Point—is a small town and harbour situated in Costa Rica, near the top of the Bay of Nicoya, The sail up the bay is very pretty, through almost endless woods stretching away from the shores to the hills. There is, however, nothing majestic or grand about the scenery here. There are no Andes in sight, no stupendous mountains such as one might expect to see after coming so far to see them. It is all pretty quiet and ordinary; and on the whole perhaps superior to the views from the sea at Herne Bay.
The captain of the \'Vixen\' had decided on going up to San José with me, as at the last moment did also the master, San José being the capital of Costa Rica. Our first object therefore was to hire a guide and mules, which, with the assistance of the acting English consul, we soon found. For even at Punta-arenas the English flag flies, and a distressed British subject can claim protection.
It is a small village lying along a creek of the sea, inside the sandy point from whence it is named. Considerable business is done here in the exportation of coffee, which is the staple produce of Costa Rica. It is sent chiefly to England; but it seemed to me that the money-making inhabitants of Punta-arenas were mostly Americans; men who either had been to California or who had got so far on their road thither and then changed their minds. It is a hot, dusty, unattractive spot, with a Yankee inn, at which men may "liquor," and a tram railroad running for twelve miles into the country. It abounds in oysters and beer, on which we dined before we started on our journey.
I was thus for the first time in Central America. This continent, if it may be so called, comprises the five republics of Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. When this country first broke away from Spanish rule in 1821, it was for a while content to exist as one state, under the name of the Republic of Guatemala; as it had been known for nearly three hundred years as a Spanish province under the same denomination—that of Guatemala. After a hard tussle with Mexico, which endeavoured to devour it, and which forty years ago was more prone to annex than to be annexed, this republic sat itself fairly going, with the city of Guatemala for its capital. But the energies and ambition of the different races comprised among the two million inhabitants of Central America would not allow them to be governed except each in its own province. Some ten years since, therefore, the five States broke asunder. Each claimed to be sovereign and independent. Each chose its own president and had its own capital; and consequently, as might be expected, no part of the district in question has been able to enjoy those natural advantages with which Providence has certainly endowed it. To these States must be added, in counting up the countries of Central America, British Honduras, consisting of Belize and the adjacent district, and the Mosquito coast which so lately was under British protection; and which is—. But here I must be silent, or I may possibly trench upon diplomatic subjects still unsettled.
My visit was solely to Costa Rica, which has in some respects done better than its neighbours. But this has been owing to the circumstances of its soil and climate rather than to those of its government, which seems to me to be as bad as any can be which deserves that name. In Costa Rica there certainly is a government, and a very despotic one it is.
I am not much given to the sins of dandyism, but I must own I was not a little proud of my costume as I left Punta-arenas. We had been told that according to the weather our ride would be either dusty or muddy in no ordinary degree, and that any clothes which we might wear during the journey would be utterly useless as soon as the journey was over. Consequently we purchased for ourselves, in an American store, short canvas smock-frocks, which would not come below the saddle, and coarse holland trousers. What class of men may usually wear these garments in Costa Rica I cannot say; but in England I have seen navvies look exactly as my naval friends looked; and I flatter myself that my appearance was quite equal to theirs. I had procured at Panamá a light straw hat, with an amazing brim, and had covered the whole with white calico. I have before said that my beard had become "poblada," so that on the whole I was rather gratified than otherwise when I was assured by the storekeeper that we should certainly be taken for three filibusters. Now the name of filibuster means something serious in those localities, as I shall in a few pages have to explain.
We started on our journey by railroad, for there is a tramway that runs for twelve miles through the forest. We were dragged along on this by an excellent mule, till our course was suddenly impeded by a tree which had fallen across the road. But in course of time this was removed, and in something less than three hours we found ourselves at a saw-mill in the middle of the forest.
The first thing that met my view on stepping out of the truck was a solitary Englishman seated on a half-sawn log of wood. Those who remember Hood\'s Whims and Oddities may bear in mind a heart-rending picture of the last man. Only that the times do not agree, I should have said that this poor fellow must have sat for the picture. He was undeniably an English labourer. No man of any other nation would have had that face, or worn those clothes, or kicked his feet about in that same awkward, melancholy humour.
He was, he said, in charge of the saw-mill, having been induced to come out into that country for three years. According to him, it was a wretched, miserable place. "No man," he said, "ever found himself in worse diggings." He earned a dollar and a half a day, and with that he could hardly buy shoes and have his clothes washed. "Why did he not go home?" I asked. "Oh, he had come for three years, and he\'d stay his three years out—if so be he didn\'t die." The saw-mill was not paying, he said; and never would pay. So that on the whole his account of Costa Rica was not encouraging.
We had been recommended to stay the first night at a place called Esparza, where there is a decent inn. But before we left Punta-arenas we learnt that Don Juan Rafael Mora, the President of the Republic, was coming down the same road with a large retinue of followers to inaugurate the commencement of the works of the canal. He would be on his way to meet his brother-president of the next republic, Nicaragua, at San Juan del Sur; and at a spot some little distance from thence this great work was to be begun at once. He and his party were to sleep at Esparza. Therefore we decided on going on further before we halted; and in truth at that place we did meet Don Juan and his retinue.
As both Costa Rica and Nicaragua are chiefly of importance to the eastern and western worlds, as being the district in which the isthmus between the two Americas may be most advantageously pierced by a canal—if it be ever so pierced—this subject naturally intrudes itself into all matters concerning these countries. Till the opening of the Panamá railway the transit of passengers through Nicaragua was immense. At present the railway has it all its own way. But the subject, connected as it has been with that of filibustering, mingles itself so completely with all interests in Costa Rica, that nothing of its present doings or politics can be well understood till something is understood on this canal subject. Sooner or later I must write a chapter on it; and it would almost be well if the reader would be pleased to take it out of its turn and get through it at once. The chapter, however, cannot well be brought in till these, recording my travels in Costa Rica, are completed.
Don Juan Mora and his retinue had arrived some hours before us, and had ne............