Part 12 (1/2)

dick

SAN PEDRO--SULA--February, 1895

MY DEAR FAMILY:

The afternoon of the day ere in Puerto Cortez the man of war Atlanta steamed into the little harbor and we all cheered and the lottery people ran up the A Then I and the others went out to her as fast as we could be rowed and I went over the side and the surprise of the officers was very great They called Somers and Griscom to coer andlot of fellows than those on the Minneapolis and treated us most kindly It was a beautiful boat and each of us confessed to feeling quite teain to civilization after one day on her Their boat had touched at Tangier and so they claimed that she was the one uide Isaac Cohen whom I mentioned in Harper's Weekly carries it around as an advertisement and wanted to shi+p with them as cabin boy

We left the next day on the railroad and the boys finding that two negroes sat on the cowcatcher to throw sand on the rails in slippery places bribed them for their places and I sat on the sand box I never took a o faster than an ordinary horse car but still it was exciting and the views and vistas wonderful

Sometimes ent for a half ht broad leafed palm called the round Is and teas as high as Holy Trinity Church and hundreds and hundreds of them The country is very like Cuba but more luxuriant in every way There are soreat branches covered with oriole nests and a hundred orioles flying in and out of them or else plastered with orchids If Billy Furness were to see in what abundance they greould be quite reat pity he did not come with us This little town is the terminus of the railroad and we have been here four days while Jeffs the A our outfit It has been very pleasant and we are in no hurry which is a good thing for us It is acountry and as despotic as all uncivilized and unstable governments must be But we have called on the Governor of the district with Jeffs and he gave us a very fine letter to all civil and un on theood material for my novel and for half a dozen stories to boot only I am surprised to find how true o ---- disappeared, having as I thought drunk himself to death He came up to me here on my arrival with a lot of waybills in his hand and I learned that he had been eround by a railroad for two years I reh, and last night he askedwhich included everything fro boots in Australia His boss was a Pittsburgh engineer who is apparently licking him into shape and who toldabsolutely His colored ”missus” sat with us at the table and played with a beetle during the three hours I stayed there during which time he asked me about ---- who he said had ruined him He told me of how ---- had done and said this, and the contrast to the thatched roof and the irl was rather striking I never had more luck in any trip than I have had on this one and the luck of R H D of which I was fond of boasting seeood That man of war, for instance, was the only American one that had touched at Puerto Cortez in TEN years and it caraph of Eddie Sothern in a palm hut here so ent before a notary and swore to it and had three seals put on the paper and sent it him as a joke We start tomorrow the 22nd so you see we are behind our schedule and I suppose you people are all worried to death about us We will be alpa as we are going shooting and also to pay our respects to Bogran the ex-president and theup the next revolution But we take care to tell everyone we are travelling for pleasure and are great admirers of Bonilla the present president

So on fareat sense of hu Jeffs e call our military attache and Charwood and four drivers and eleven mules so it is quite an outfit In Ecuador with one more man it would constitute a revolution

dick

SANTA BARBARA--January 25, 1895

DEAR FAM:

We are not at Tegucigalpa as you observe but travelling in this country ”As you see it on Broadway ” and as you see it here are two different things We have had five days of it so far and rested here today in order to pay our respects to General Bogran the ex-president of the Republic It is still six days to Tegucigalpa The trip across Central A experiences of my life It is the most beautiful country I have seen and the most barbarous It is also the hottest and the most insect-ious and the dirtiest This latter seereat deal as the insects prevent your doing anything in a natural way; as for instance sitting on the grass or sleeping on the ground or hunting through the bushes It is pretty ine it is from what you have read, that covers it, and I have discovered nothing new by co to see it I only verify what others have seen The people arechiefly because they are surly to Americans and do not make you feel welcome I do not lad that I did than I can say only I have not, as I have been able to do before, found so that others have not seen I never expect to see such a country again unless in Africa If you leave the path for ten yards you would never get back to it except by accident and you could not get that far away unless you cut yourself a trail In some places the mail route which we follow and over which the mail is carried on the backs of runners is cut in the rock and we go down steps as even as those of the City Hall and for hours we travel over rough rocks and stones and a path so narrow that your knees catch in the vines at the side The h they are very little, and I a awful It bakes you and will dry your pith helmet in ten minutes after you have soaked it in water But the scenery is nificent, sometimes we ride above the clouds and look down into valleys stretching fifty miles away and see the buzzards half a h forests of le steing in front of us like portiers or we cross great plains of grass and cactus and rock The best fun is the baths we take in the mountain streams They are almost as cool as one could wish and we shoot the rapids and lie under the waterfalls and coh we had beenfor two days but as they had no dogs we did not do ot the best shot of the trip and e wild cat and he turned his side full on but I fired over hi chance shots at alligators, but they never gave us a good chance as the birds warn the beat us for some time and then Somers and I started across the river to catch hitepen We had our money belts around our necks and our shoes in one hand and rifles in the other The rapids ran very fast and the last I saw of So out wet bank notes and blowing the water out of his gun barrel I got across all right by sticking my feet between rocks and put on my shoes and crawled up on the old Johnnie

He s that you could have found him in the dark

I had, a beautiful shot at hireedy and ran around soet nearer and he heard rown parrots with tail feathers three feet froot his with a shotgun I cah I was very sore atthe wild cat We sleep in hats and we sleep precious little for the dogs and pigs and insects all help to keep us awake and I cannot get used to a ha such as they put over tea chests, or bull's hide stretched Last night I slept in a hut with a wohters all over fifteen and they sat up and watched reat interest I would not have h it and we've roughed it and ill have another week of it too

We have soht to be ran proved to be a very handso talk with hio directly to Venezuela across the Isthmus of Panama and not visit another Republic We have all travelled tooby reh of it and ill not get away from Amapala before the first of February We are all well and happy and dirty and sing and laugh and tell stories and listen to Grisco So goodbye and God bless you all

dick

TEGUCIGALPA, CENTRAL AMERICA

February 1st, 1895

4th, 1895

DEAR FAMILY--

Here we are at last, the trip from Santa Barbara where I last wrote you wasas the first part because it was very high up and the tropical scenery gave way to iht have been in California, or the Rockies The Corderillas which is the name of the mountains we crossed are a continuation, by the way, of the Rockies, and the Andes but are not h We had two very hot days of it in the plains of Coaqua where there was once a city of 60,000 founded by Cortez but where there are not now more than 6,000

The heat ful We peeled all over our faces and hands and dodged and ducked our heads as though so at us My saddle and clothes were so hot that I could not place ht was to be given at the next fifteen miles away, so we rode on there and arrived in time to take part They had enclosed the plaza with a barricade of logs seven feet high, bound together with vines They roped a big bull and lassoed hiot on his back with spurs on his bare feet and held on by the ropes around the bull's body and by his toes and threw a cloak over the bull's eyes when ever it got too near any one-- They stuck it with spears until it was mad and then let the lassoes slip and the bull started off to tear out the torreadors I thought it would be a great sporting act to kodak a bull while it was charging you and so we all volunteered to act as torreadors and it was ood results but I got so at me with his head down and then I'd skip into a hole in the wall The best pictures I got were of So over the seven foot barriers with the bull in hot chase We all looked so funny in our high boots and helht and thought we had been engaged especially for their pleasure Our ”mosers,” or mule drivers treated usbecause Jeffs

had engaged them and we did not want to interfere with his authority but at a place the last day out one of them told Jeffs he lied and that we all lied He had lost or stolen a canteen of Griscoiven it to hiht and left and knocked him all over the shop There were half a dozen drunken ht they would take a hand but they did not That night Jeffs thought to try us to see ould have done and left us bathing in a mountain stream and rode on ahead and hid himself behind a rock in a canon and lay in aht and So the ”Walrus and the Carpenter,” when suddenly Jeffs let out a series of yells in Spanish and opened fire on us over our heads So my mule and I had no weapons, so I yelled at hio at the rock behind which Jeffs ith the carbines So that in about five seconds Jeffs'

curiosity was perfectly satisfied as to ould do, and he shouted for reatly disappointed when it turned out to be Jeffs We got here last night and a dirtier or raphed ahead for rooed much worse than we had been several times in the interior where there was occasionally a clean floor Thisfor an interview or audience and did not ask our Consul to help us because Jeffs had asked him in our presence to co to some other men, but he never came Before we heard from Bonilla however, we learned that the Vice-president who has the sa with the populace in their bare feet

We sat out of sight but the English Consul as the finest looking person in the chaiven places in front, which theasked us to take but we objected on account of our clothes Somers had on a flannel suit that looked exactly like pajamas and lawn tennis shoes But as soon as the cere in to the banquet hall and in spite of our objections ere there conveyed and presented to Bonilla who behaved very well and after saying he had received our letters but had not had time to read them left us and avoided us, which e wanted for we looked like the devil We lish and Guateave them drinks and then ent to their rooms, so the day went very pleasantly The President sent us a funny printed card appointing an audience at eleven to-ine it would be, the soldiers are barefooted except about fifty and the President leaned out of thein his shi+rt sleeves after the review and they have not plastered up the holes in his palace that his cannonVasquez, and Vasquez was then on the inside and Bonilla on the hills