Guatemala

The run back to Escuintla took two hours and a half, and our comida was welcome at five o’clock. In the evening we strolled to the church,—an ancient building,—and found all the inside in confusion; the altar was hidden from profane eyes by a cotton curtain, while preparations were being made for the fiesta of December 8,—the Immaculate Conception. One of the attendants showed us with great pride a huge doll, representing the Virgin Mary, standing on a blue globe studded with silver stars. Beneath her feet was a culebra grande; and on twisting his tail the serpent’s tongue was thrust out,—to the intense delight of the Indian devotees. The priest—if such were his dignity—wished us to examine the lace robes of the “Queen of Heaven,” and to note particularly the decorations. As we returned to the hotel we heard a marimba, and soon met a religious procession, consisting mostly of women. In a small plaza we saw, covering a figure of the Virgin, a booth decorated with flowers and fruits,—especially long strings of manzanillas.[23] Before this image men and women (of respectable rank, we were assured) were dancing, disguised in horrible masks representing devils and animals.

Escuintla is the favorite watering-place of the capital, and its baths are certainly attractive,—especially to the Guatemalans, whose city is supplied with miserable water. The citizens, some five thousand in number, are occupied in commerce and agriculture. In the near future Escuintla seems destined to become the railroad centre of the republic, as the lines from Puerto Barrios and from Ocós will meet there.

Early in the morning of the third day of our stay at this place we started out for one of the best bathing-places, on the way taking several photographs. At a bath-house we passed, the men bathing in the tank came out frequently through the wide-open door to talk with the women who were washing clothes in the brook outside. As these men were wholly naked, I wished to photograph this “custom” of the country; but when they saw the camera they modestly retired within and shut the door.

Our own bath, an open pool some fifty by a hundred feet, was of a depth increasing from three to eight feet. A high brick wall bounded one side, and we were told that beyond this was a bath for women. A shed in which to undress, and a tile platform on which to dry one’s self, was all the apparatus; but the water was cool and of a wonderful clearness, and we prolonged our swim. The fee was only a medio (five cents). In the season, which extends from December to March, doubtless the crowd is disagreeable; but we had the pool entirely to ourselves.

After almuerzo we started for Amatitlan; and a weary, dusty road it was, although the main road to the capital from the port. Frank’s mare seemed as though sunstruck, and sank down powerless by the road. Fortunately we were near a brook. We poured cool water on her head, and she soon recovered. We met great herds of cattle on their way from the dry uplands to the juicy pastures of the lowlands, and also stages full of miserable people, shaken and dusty, and with the look one might fancy a soul in purgatory would assume,—always supposing it had a face.

The Falls of the Michatoya by the roadside relieved the monotony of the way, but were not so beautiful as I had expected from Stephens’s account. We found the rails of the ferro-carril laid as far as Palin;[24] and it was graded beyond Amatitlan, on its way to Guatemala City, which it has since (1886) reached. Basaltic rock was abundant along the road, and so were beehives,—generally made from a hollow log and hung horizontally under the eaves of the houses. Honey, costing us a medio a quart, was very good; wax, however, is a more valuable product, as it plays a very important part in the service of religion, masses costing so many pounds of wax candles. The bees seem to be quite inoffensive, and the hives often hung close to the house-doors. Sugar estates were common in this district, the water-power being generally furnished by the Michatoya river. The chimneys of the ingenios did not indicate severe or frequent earthquakes here. Oranges, not of the finest quality, sold at three cents a dozen. Late in the afternoon we passed some cochineal plantations in a rather neglected state, and soon after entered Amatitlan, where we found a pretty little posada. Our mozos, who were fine fellows, were not far behind us. The barometer told us that we were 3,650 feet above San José.

In the morning, finding sacate very dear, we made up our bestias’ breakfast with maiz, and started betimes. We rode to the Lago de Amatitlan, which is very shallow, but clear near the shore. In the depths of this lake were thrown, according to tradition, immense treasures; and every now and then some ancient idol or bit of pottery is dragged up. On the banks were willows of considerable size; altogether, the whole scene was very different from anything we had found in the republic. The fishermen’s boats were of a peculiar shape,—projecting below the water-line, so that a cross-section amidships would be like the diagram. In trying a short cut back to the main road, we were lost in a cafétal, and had to ask the people in charge to open a locked gate and let us out upon our road. We ascended seven hundred feet and found a good path. In various places there were deposits of fine pumice, much of which had been excavated, leaving caverns large enough to shelter many people from the weather. We entered the capital about noon, meeting Santiago on the outskirts, who conducted us to the Hotel del Globo. At this hotel, which was kept by a wretched German, we found our mozos, and the luggage we had sent from Coban and Antigua, in perfect order.

We were now in the principal city of Central America,—a city well worthy of study; but not at all a representative one, for all that. After the earthquake of Santa Marta, in 1773, had ruined the beautiful city of Antigua Guatemala, the inhabitants sought a more stable site, farther from the slopes of the great volcanoes; and the valley of the Hermitage was selected, towards the north. Here was the half church, half fortress, that still interests the visitor; but all around was a sterile plain, and its elevation and distance from any port seemed most unfavorable to the growth of a large city. Eighty-four miles separate Guatemala City from its port of San José; while the Atlantic ports are more than a hundred leagues away, with no carriage-road between. In spite of these and other disadvantages, the city of Saint James has grown to be the largest and most important of Central America. It numbers among its churches some of the finest in the country; and its other public buildings are of imposing size, if devoid of any architectural merit. Almost all the houses are of one story; and the paved streets, laid out at right angles, and of nearly uniform width, do not attract the stranger as he rides over the exceedingly rough pavement. Indeed, our first impressions were very unfavorable; for had we not seen Coban, Quezaltenango, Sololà, and Antigua,—all of them much more beautiful than any part of Guatemala City? It was not until we were well out of the city that we were pleased with it,—not until it became a confused mass of white walls almost hidden in foliage, with the church-towers rising above, and in the distance those two noble volcanoes higher still, their heads well in the clouds. A city of sixty thousand inhabitants, with its houses extending six miles north and south, with a population of many nations and tribes,—mingling the sixteenth with the nineteenth century in many customs and business ways,—was not to be seen at a glance, was not to be understood even after a sojourn of a few days. We envied the faculty of our English cousins who can come to America, spend a few weeks,—even days,—and then go home and write with more knowledge of the places they have just glanced at than the inhabitants ever possessed.

As we entered the city we passed at some distance the fort of San José; and it was significant that the guns all pointed towards the city it was supposed to protect. Taking no interest in military matters, which I am constrained to believe are undesirable if not unnecessary relics of a barbarous age, I did not go any nearer to see whether, as in the case of San Felipe, the guns were more deadly to those within than those outside the fort; but the walls looked queer, and we were assured that they were of adobe, painted to imitate stone blocks,—a kind of Quaker wall.

Although the Plaza is always the principal focus of a Spanish town, no street ever leads directly to it, all lead by it, as if accidentally; and so we found ourselves in the public square of Guatemala before we had been an hour in the city. It was simply a square taken from the tiresome rectangles of the city; and only on one side had it any sufficiently imposing boundaries. The Government had suppressed the priestly power; but its monument still towered above the very insignificant buildings used as Government offices. This metropolitan cathedral is about two hundred and seventy-five feet long, with some architectural pretensions, but belittled by its front towers, which were added a few years ago. The colossal statues of the four Evangelists which guard the platform in front detract from the effect of a good façade. The interior is plain. In a vault beneath the church repose the remains of Rafael Carrera, the former President of the republic. On the evening of the seventh of December the whole front was illuminated with small lamps in honor of the Immaculate Conception. Within was a large doll dressed to represent the Virgin Mary, “sanctissima, purissima, caramba!—carissima,” as we heard a young heathen exclaim. She stood on a blue ball spangled with stars, and trod the culebra grande as at Escuintla. All the choir-boys wore scarlet robes. It seemed as though the attendants rather hustled the gauze angels, which trod on snakes in imitation of Madonna. The other churches were numerous, and the more imposing date from the days of the Spanish domination, when all good things, including plenty of money, were in priestly hands. Perhaps the most curious of all the churches is that one on the Cerro del Carmen which antedates the city. Santiago carried my camera out to the distant hill, from which I not only brought away a picture of the church, but also chose that position for a view of the city, after patiently waiting for the clouds to roll away from the volcanoes of Fuego and Agua. The church itself seems more a fortress than a temple of the Prince of Peace. The heavy gates stood ajar, and we entered the courtyard of two centuries agone. In the midst stood a round tower, seemingly solid, and decorated by a fillet carved with cherubim in low relief. Within the dark church all was still and deserted; only the graves beneath the pavement of tombstones were tenanted. A curtain hung before the image at the altar, and a carefully written notice requested the visitor not to uncover the Virgin without permission of the sacristan. In the bell-tower hung a bell with the date 1748,—twenty-eight years before the city was built within its sound, when the heavy, awkward burden must have been brought with so much difficulty into this lonely valley. Two others, with the painfully modern date of 1872, hung by its side.

We wasted the whole morning in a futile attempt to call on the President. His house was a large one-story building at the corner of the Plaza, not distinguishable from its surroundings except by the guard of soldiers at the gateway to its interior courtyard. The corporal in charge refused to take my card in, telling several falsehoods as to the whereabouts of the President his master; but at last a superior officer arrived, who at once ordered the fellow to take the card, and we were soon ushered, without further ceremony, into the bedroom of the Chief of the State. It is the custom in this country to arrange the chairs in a reception-room on either side of a sofa and at right angles to it; and the host is expected to sit on the sofa and entertain his guests on either hand. President Barrios occupied this place of honor when I entered; but as we conversed he moved about until we sat side by side. He had not forgotten our interview at Totonicapan, and was affable, seeming to understand our wishes perfectly. He said we should have all we asked for, and called an officer to conduct us to the Department of the Interior, where Señor Lainfiesta, the Secretario de Estado en el Despacho de Fomento, also promised to expedite our business. Some days later, while discussing the resources of Guatemala with the Minister of Foreign Relations, I spoke incidentally of the bad arrangement of the Guatemalan exhibit at Boston in the International Exhibition of 1883; whereupon the minister asked me to accompany him to the President and acquaint him with the matter. We went at once,—simply across the street; and it was gratifying to see the stupid soldiers and the insolent corporal jump up and salute the cabinet officer as we passed in unannounced. The President’s room was full of disorder,—articles of daily use, with books, guitars, newspapers, all mixed together. In the courtyard was a fine bull and several sheep, just imported. I felt that Señor Barrios greatly improved on acquaintance, and his bright, quick eye was decidedly intelligent. He was not tall, but stout, with an air of military stiffness which wore off slowly. In our conversation I asked him to refer me to any printed accounts of his personal history; but he smiled and said, “That, señor, has never been written.” Alas for the progress of the country! that life was soon to end by violence, in an attempt to restore the confederation of the republics,—a scheme very dear to this energetic man, who in ten years did more for the internal prosperity of his own republic than has been effected by all the governments of Central America in fifty years!

There is in Guatemala but one theatre, and to that we went on a Saturday night. The building, a general imitation of the Église de la Madeleine in Paris, stands in the centre of a plaza of considerable size laid out as a public garden.[25] The Government subsidy of $25,000 to $40,000 permits the employment of good artists for five or six months in the year; and we saw a company fresh from Madrid play “La Mujer del Vengador.” The ballet was tolerable,—the males far surpassing the females in skill and agility. The tickets are kept by the visitor, the coupon being taken at the entrance. The auditorium was lighted by gasoline sufficiently, but the decoration was plain, and not attractive. The parquette was occupied almost exclusively by gentlemen, who gazed serenely at the ladies in the boxes which surround this, and were gazed upon in turn in a way that would scandalize even a Boston audience. The wife of the President, a lady of great personal beauty, was pointed out to us; and we were assured that it was not improper to stare at her, even with glasses. In all such places the audience always claims quite as much of my attention as the stage; and among the boxes I noticed an elderly lady of decidedly American appearance, and I fancied she might be the distinguished Madame Susannah Peñol, to whom I had letters. A few days later, as I was ushered into her reception-room, I saw at once that I was not mistaken; for on the wall was a capital portrait of the lady I had seen.

Our hotel proved a most wretched one; the comida was poor in quality and insufficient in quantity. A ballet-dancer and her pet dog took most of the best bits as the various dishes were passed among the company. Our host proved much the same sort as we had met at Quiché; and we were compelled to move to the Gran Hotel, which we found very comfortable.

On Sunday the correct course is to see a cock-fight in the forenoon, a bull-fight in the afternoon, and to go to church and wash up in the evening. We varied the programme, and in the morning visited the Chief of Police, Colonel Pratt (formerly of New York), from whom we learned many points of interest in the municipal regulation of this city. The Cemeterio, or Campo Santo, next claimed our attention, where we found catacombs partly underground and lighted by a clerestory. Several very showy monuments have been erected since the prohibition of burial within the churches, though but few of them are in good taste. A far pleasanter visit was to the “Bola de Oro” baths, near the Teatro Nacional, where we had two good bath-rooms, with douche and plunge, all for four reals. The water in the city is not good, and in the baths its turbid character was disagreeable. The pressure on the mains is regulated by water-towers, usually built into the house; and not being sufficient to supply a douche, the water for this purpose has to be pumped into an elevated cistern. From the bath we went to an exhibition of native products and industries in the building of the Instituto Nacional. The exhibition was a good one, and some of the products—as chocolate, rice, sugar, and wax—were of exceedingly high quality. More interesting to me was the Instituto itself. Originally a monastery, the Government confiscated it when the religious orders were suppressed, and President Barrios established in the vacant halls a college which would be creditable to any country. We went through the recitation-rooms, the physical laboratory, the dormitories,—where the iron bedsteads looked neat and comfortable,—into the printing-room; thence through the garden to the menagerie, where were many good specimens of native beasts and birds. We next visited the meteorological observatory, the faculty room, where hung a dismal painting of some poor Indios being torn to pieces by dogs at the command of the Conquistadores, and finally the museum, where, together with stuffed animals and birds, a series of specimens of native woods (labelled only with native names), minerals, ores, and the rest, we found a choice collection of antiquities. Here on the walls were the dress-swords of Alvarado and Cortez, and strange stirrups, of wrought iron of great size and weight, that the Conquistadores had brought from Spain.[26] In the cases were grotesque incense-burners that my friend E. Rockstroh had brought from the country of the Lacandones; idols from various places, a lava mask from Copan (figured on page 200), figurines in terra-cotta with tails and tigre-heads, stone figures with turbans,—all on a subsequent morning made their impression on my plates. But an incense-burner of red clay found in the Lago de Amatitlan failed to excite the delicate film, so dark was the room and so refractory the color; the form was most complicated, quite rivalling in this respect those ancient Japanese bronzes used for the same purpose. In the library are many valuable manuscripts, mostly unpublished, but of interest to the historian and antiquarian.

Almost worn out with sight-seeing, we stopped at a restaurant near by, and with our lunch had some native cerveza negra,—an unpleasant beer brewed from molasses. We had lost the cock-fight; but there was to be a bull-fight in the afternoon, to which we were strangely attracted, and we purchased seats under the roof at three reals, walking over to the Plaza de Toros at four o’clock. There was a fair audience—perhaps six or seven thousand—in the immense circular building or enclosure. As an overture we had an exhibition-drill. The soldiers wore red jackets, blue trousers, and white caps and cross-belts. The evolutions were well done to the bugle-notes, and the whole performance was to me much like a ballet,—simply a complicated series of preconcerted movements of the human body.

A horseman clad in black, mounted on a superb white horse, then rode across the ring and formally asked leave of the Chief of the Corrida to open the games. The Chief tossed him a roll of colored paper, which he carried to the Amador del Toro and then backed gracefully out of the enclosure. Then came the Espada, Manuel Aguilar of Seville, with three Banderilleros and as many Picadores, followed by horses, mules, and mozos. There were only five “bulls,” of which three were oxen,—and they might all have been, for any fight they showed. The Picadores did their work, and the Primero Espada did some excellent dodging; but this did not satisfy us, so bloodthirsty had we become. At first we wanted to have a horse killed, and at last nothing short of the death of a man would satisfy us. But we were not to see anything of the kind; and after the bulls had trotted about the Plaza until half-past five, the show was over, and the unsatisfied audience dispersed. What would a Roman audience have done in the Flavian amphitheatre, had their wild-beast propensities been thus excited and disappointed? So far as the City of Guatemala is concerned, the bull-fight is growing unfashionable, and even with the populace such uninteresting shows cannot long attract. The Guatemaltecans should import some of the fashionable “Cribb Clubs” of our Northern cities, if they still wish to see human blood flow. At present there is more brutality in the sparring exhibitions of Boston than in the bull-fights of the Central American city.

Our day was not yet ended; and as we crossed the Plaza in the evening, on returning from a call on a friend, we found the pavement crowded with people and dotted with little fires, over which various Indios were cooking doughnuts, fritters, and chocolate. The fritters were eaten with plenty of honey, and were very palatable.

Another night we had an opportunity to see one of the religious processions so common in former days,—afterwards prohibited by law, but now occasionally allowed, as there is little danger of a renewal of the priestly power, and these spectacles please the priests, women, and children. This particular one, which we attended in part, was in honor of “Nuestra Señora de Guadeloupe.” A huge doll, all lace and tinsel, was carried through the streets with music, flowers, and fireworks. It was a miracle that the image was not set on fire,—especially when the “toro,” all blazing with squibs and Roman candles, ran through the crowd; but no accident befell, so far as I knew. I am somewhat confused as to the person the image represented, but was told that she was visiting the holy lady (santissima señora) who lived in the church to which the procession marched. On arriving at the door the visitor was obliged to tip over and go in head first in a horizontal position. It was no doubt all right, but it seemed so utterly undignified that we did not care to go into the church and see how she got up again.

At the hippodrome in the plain of Yocotenango, to which the horse-cars run from the grand Plaza, horse-races are held in May, August, and November, at which times prizes are offered by the Government and the Sociedad Zoótecnica.

It was interesting to see how the State had occupied the buildings of the banished or suppressed communities. In the Franciscan convent was the Revenue and Customs Bureau; the Post-Office occupied the church and convent of the Third Order (of St. Francis); the Treasury and Telegraphs divide the fine house formerly the home of the suppressed Sociedad Económica; and the Bureau of Liquors and Tobacco holds the splendid building of the Dominican friars. Other of the confiscated edifices are used as schools, and are most admirably suited to the purpose. There are eight elementary schools for boys, and ten for girls; two finishing schools or academies for each sex; six night-schools for artisans and others; and two asylums, which collect in the morning the young children of poor parents, instruct and feed them, and return them at night to their homes. There are two establishments for secondary instruction, one for each sex, directed by foreign professors and well installed; one is the Instituto Nacional, already mentioned. All these institutions are supported by the Government, much of the system being due to the enlightened policy of General Barrios. Provided for special instruction, and also supported in the same way, are the Technical School (Escuela de Artes y Oficios), well provided with laboratories and steam-power; the Agricultural College, with fields near the city for practical work; a Business School, with night sessions for clerks; a Law School, Medical School (Medicina y Farmacia), Normal School, Polytechnic Institute, and School of Design; besides many schools supported by private means.

Benevolent institutions, too, are not wanting,—among them the Asylum for Orphans and Invalids; the Central Hospital, where four hundred patients are cared for daily; and the Military Hospital in the suburbs. The Penitentiary seems to be well conducted, and the House of Correction has extensive workshops, in which good work is done. No less than twenty public fountains and washing-places adorn and keep the city clean.

All business is not conducted in the shops, which are small, and seldom make much display; but there are two markets, one of which, the Nacional, is very extensive, and seems to contain within its bounds merchandise of every sort,—in one place pottery, in another fruit; saddlery and cloths, confectionery and hardware, bread and guns, are close at hand. The prices are high, even of the necessaries of life; and the cheapest things were pottery and nets, both of Indian manufacture. It was not a little amusing to remember that the great retail stores of Boston were imitating the variety-shops of this uncommercial city, and collecting within their walls all kinds of goods,—from shoes to hats, from dinner-sets to carpets, from stoves to books. The country variety-stores of New England are outdone in both cases. As almost everywhere else, it is expected that the purchaser will try to beat down the price. Among the curiosities of the market we found native jackets (guepiles) made in the simplest manner, but embroidered with the greatest labor and most barbaric fancy of color and form. These the women take great pride in; and the showy garments cloak many deficiencies in the rest of the wardrobe.