Part 3 (1/2)
Time, a good deal of time, pa.s.sed before our servant came, but there he sat. The lunch was spread and partaken of long and heartily, and still he calmly surveyed us, not at all in an impertinent way, but just as if he were honestly interested. We offered him some jelly, which he ate in a totally unabashed manner, but withdrew not his gaze. We ignored him, but he took not the hint. Stay there he did until we were remounted, and then for miles and miles he rode along with us.
We were rather amused than otherwise at his course, though perhaps we experienced a scarcely recognized feeling of relief when we came to a place where our roads lay in different directions. He shook hands with us in the same friendly, impressive, almost warm manner, and then galloped merrily off as if he had fulfilled an arduous duty and now felt as if he had a right to enjoy himself.
Shortly afterward we came to a height overlooking the _Yegnare Valley_, one of the most beautiful and far-reaching scenes it has ever been my good fortune to behold.
Great pointed peaks kiss the sky on every side, and seem to shut out all the noise and strife of the world beyond, and like sentinels, grim and gaunt, guard intact the peace and prosperity of the vast plains within that natural wall.
Two farms occupy nearly all of the valley, and so extensive are they, that the farm-houses are four miles apart. The owner of both proved to be none other than the father of my companion, and though there was still one more day's journey before us, we already felt quite at home.
We made the descent and entered upon the broad domain of the _Hacienda de San Francisco_, the boundary of which, to my amazement, I found indicated by a very familiar American barb-wire fence.
We rode through fields where the gra.s.s waved high above our heads, over pasture plains where hundreds of cattle, mules, and horses roamed at will, and then, when the sun was sinking low, we came to the farmhouse, and here we dismounted to make our last night's stop.
The building is a remarkable one, having been a monastery years and years ago, when the Jesuit missionaries were devoting their energies and lives to the conversion of the untamed Indians.
It is one hundred and fifty feet long, probably one third as deep, and has walls a yard thick. All this is divided into five rooms--three large ones running the whole depth of the house and communicating with each other, and two smaller ones, one behind the other, and only had access to from the outside.
The floors are of stone, and it pleased me to fancy that many of the worn places had been formed by constant contact with the bended knees of the holy and indefatigable priests. The projecting roof of tiles forms a sort of porch, we would call it, all around the building, and is paved, as is also the yard for many feet. Beyond this the land gently slopes to a river, and still farther on a mountain rises up to limit the landscape and prevent our greedy eyes from drinking of beauty to a more than endurable state of intoxication.
It was blissful to lie in a hammock and watch the setting sun give here and there a lingering farewell touch as if loath to go and leave behind so much that was beloved, and then at the close of the short tropical twilight to see fair Luna crown, first with a halo of approaching glory and then with her own sweet self, the dark peak whose outlines rose sharp and clear against the star-pierced blue of the evening sky.
It was blissful, I say, to revel in this grand pastoral poem in the full consciousness that the transition to prose would be one of terror; to know that in one of the big, cool, clean rooms a comfortable bed was prepared for me, where I would lose myself in restful unconsciousness, guarded by the saint whose figure could be clearly defined in an old oil-painting on the wall, and which, with two others of a like kind, were relics, doubtless, of a chapel's previous decoration.
'Twas even so, and when I awoke in the morning to find a huge vessel of water from the river standing by a shallow tub hewn from the trunk of a tree, while near at hand were placed all the articles necessary for body and soul-satisfying ablutions, my perfect content knew not how to manifest itself.
Beautiful _San Francisco_! What happiness to fill the house with twenty chosen friends and there to dream away a month or more of idle joy!
Surely after such _dolce far niente_ days life could hold no bitterness for which we had not, in experience, a ready antidote.
Too soon, it seemed, we were forced to leave there, for we had a long, weary day of mountain climbing ahead of us.
”A bad road,” Vincent said, and when he warned me thus I knew I could expect the worst.
We departed through the fields again, past the barb-wire boundary line, across the river, and up among the foot-hills, leading to the mountain close at hand. When the topmost crest was reached I stopped for a last look at the _Yegnare Valley_, at _San Francisco_ lying below, at _San Morano_ farther in the distance, at the mountain looming up in the background, beyond which lies _Tegacigalpa_, and then I turned with strengthened spirit to the task before me.
To my surprise, at this height we emerged from the woods, to find ourselves on a most extensive plain, very properly called, in the Spanish, _La Mesa_--the table. Here we encountered the wagon-road leading from the capital to our destination and for a long distance we followed it. After we left _La Mesa_ it was simply horrible, and all my attention became absorbed in self.
By no means is any one to presume that my mule and I had become reconciled by our lengthened companions.h.i.+p. Discomfort amounting to positive agony had taught me to adopt more att.i.tudes, graceful or ungraceful, than all the combined systems of Delsarte and other physical culturists could possibly suggest.
Every muscle in my body had been so frequently called into requisition that to use any one almost drew forth an involuntary scream. In various places the skin had been worn away by constant friction of the clothing or saddle, leaving highly sensitive sores, even my gauntlets reducing my wrists to such a state.