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Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America (1896)
Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America (1896)
Three Gringos in Venezuela and Central America (1896)
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
IN MEMORY OF
BY
ILLUSTRATED
TO
MY FRIENDS
H. SOMERS SOMERSET
AND
LLOYD GRISCOM
CONTENTS
PAGE
ON THE CARIBBEAN SEA i
IN HONDURAS 56
AT CORINTO 160
PAGE
FORDING THE CHAMELICON RIVKR Frontispiece
later, when the cold weather set in, and the grass-
plots in Madison Square turned into piled-up
islands of snow, surrounded by seas of slippery
asphalt, I remembered the palm-trees, and went
South to investigate the exiled lottery. That is
how this chapter and this book came to be
written.
Whenever there
is a
drawing, General W. L.
Cabell, of Texas, and Colonel C. J. Villere, of
Louisiana, who have taken the places of the late
General Beau regard and of the late General
Early, take their stand at different wheels, Gen-
eral Cabell at the large and Colonel Villere at
the one holding the prizes. They open the
doors which they had sealed up a month previ-
ous, and into each wheel a little Indian girl puts
her hand and draws out a tube. The tube hold-
lottery.
We left San Pedro Sula on a Sunday morn-
ing, with a train of eleven mules ;
five to carry
my mind of Hondu-
ras there always a is
appearing down a
countries.
These complaints inspired Jeffs to play a trick
upon us, which was meant in a kindly spirit, and
by which he intended to furnish us with a mo-
ment's excitement, and to make us believe that
we had been in touch with danger. There are
occasional brigands in Central America, and their
IN HONDURAS 125
\
IN HONDURAS 129
^ -'
STATUE OF MOKA/.AN
On
the second day after our arrival the vice-
president, Luis Bonilla, who bears the same last
name but is no near relation to President Bonil-
and takes his last look at the hot sun and the
palms and the blue mountains, with the buzzards
wheeling about him, and then shuts his eyes, and
is toppled over into the grave, with a half-dozen
bullets in his chest and stomach. That is what
I should like to see happen to about half of our
professional politicians at home. Then the other
half might understand that holding a public of-
fice is a very serious business, and is not merely
meant to furnish them with a livelihood and with
to some account.
Before we
departed the president paid us a
very doubtful compliment in asking us to ride
with him. We supposed it was well meant, but
we still have secret misgivings that it was a plot
to rid himself of us and of the vice-president at
the same time. When his secretary came to
tell us that Dr. Bonilla would be glad to have us
ride with him at five that afternoon, I recalled
the fact that all had seen in Hon-
the horses I
morning.
He gave one of these to Griscom and another
one to the vice-president, for reasons best known
to himself, and the third to Somerset. Gris-
com's animal had an idea that it was better to
go backward like a crab than to advance, so he
150 THREE GRINGOS IN CENTRAL AMERICA
if
they wanted it, purchase the entire Republic
of Honduras in the morning, and make a pres-
:
AT CORINTO 177
being, at least.
Zelaya said, among other things, that if there
were no other argument in favor of the Nicaragua
Canal than that it would enable the United States
to moveher ships of war quickly from ocean to
ocean, instead of being forced as she is now to
make them take the long journey around Cape
Horn, it would be of inestimable benefit. He also
182 THREE GRINGOS IN CENTRAL AMERICA
tion.
This was our life at Corinto for ten idle days,
until at last thesteamer arrived, and the passen-
gers came on shore to stretch their legs and buy
souvenirs, and the ship's steward bustled about
in search of fresh vegetables, and the lighters
plied heavily between the shore and the ship's
side, piled high with odorous sacks of coffee.
And then Morse and Brackett started with their
phonograph through Costa Rica, and we con-
tinued on to Panama, leaving the five foreign
residents of Corinto to the uninterrupted enjoy-
ment of their whist, and richer and happier
through our coming in an inaccurate knowledge
of the first verse and tune of "Tommy Atkins,"
which they shouted at us defiantly as they pulled
back from the steamer's side to their quiet haven
of exile.
ON THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA
13
IQ4 THREE GRINGOS IN CENTRAL AMERICA
every religion ;
and to-day the end of each is
honor.
There was a little village of whitewashed huts
on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, where
pressed.
Except for the bubbling of the water under
our bow there was not a sound to disturb the
silence that hung above the narrow canal and
the green bushes that rose from a bed of water.
I thought of the entrance of the Suez Canal, as
state, with
pedestal shattered by the many
its
A
THE PARIS OF SOUTH AMERICA 257
Inspector Barnes, Chief of the English Police who were captured by the Ven-
ezuelan troops, is seated on the steps
THE END
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