A lady's ride across Spanish Honduras

It was the question of pounds, shillings, and pence. Should I take steamer from San Francisco to Panama, cross the isthmus, and from the Atlantic side enter Spanish Honduras? or had I better travel by steamer as far as Amapala, and thence take mules and ride across the country to San Pedro Sula—my destination—a distance of about two hundred and nineteen miles? Thus was perplexed the mind of your globe-trotting servant “Soltera,” as she pored over railway and steamboat guides and calculated expenses, in her comfortable but very costly bedroom in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, in the month of June, in year of grace 1881.

The steamer to Panama! A fine expense! And once arrived at that place, the end of the journey is not by any means reached. After enduring more or less sea-sickness, much thunder, and lightning unlimited, for about twelve days, there would be the further risk of catching the Panama fever.

This fever is often irreverently styled the canal fever (in grim compliment to that cutting), and its general result is to put a decided stop to all plans and locomotion for many a day; often for ever. Should I avoid that misfortune, there would be the certainty of being detained at some miserable place to wait for a vessel going to Puerto Cortez. A bill for “discomfort supplied,” at a fearful charge of dollars, would be the inevitable result of that detention.

Arrived at Puerto Cortez, which is also called Puerto Caballo, there would still be fifty miles to travel over mountains, through streams, and upon the ruins of the late Inter-Oceanic Railway of Honduras, till the haven of San Pedro Sula were reached. So far the one side of the question.

Now for its converse.

Take steamer as far as Amapala, which is the only Pacific port of entry to Spanish Honduras; invade the consulate thereat; make a friend and ally of good Señor Don Pedro Bahl; ask him to provide mules, servant, and muleteer; and thus ride straight and hard for San Pedro Sula. That is the better plan. It will also be the cheaper route; and I shall, by this means, enjoy the mountains I love so well, and see them in all their beauty, the grand Honduras mountains, over which few Englishmen, and still fewer Englishwomen, have ridden!

It has been ascertained, and I have been assured of this from Honduras, that the dangers of this route have been much exaggerated, the chief drawback being the bad roads and the peril of fording some of the streams. There exists also a great difficulty in obtaining food. But I shall have a servant and a muleteer to forage, and I can live as they do for twelve days or so (rash asseveration); and let me only come by a tolerable supply of milk, and I will travel far and well.

Now falls on my soul the remembrance that I am alone in the world; and at this moment the knowledge brings no pang. No one near of kin exists whose anxieties might deter me; no loving heart will be broken should my portion be evil. Suffering, physical and mental, will fall upon myself solely; and should this expedition end in the “last disaster,” there remain those outside the ties of kin, thank God, who will hold me in kindly remembrance and deal gently with my name. Let me forward whilst I have health and willing spirit. I am alone in the world. Yes; but I go with God.

“What are you doing, Soltera? why are you going to San Pedro Sula, and where on earth is the place?” had inquired of me, some weeks previously, my handsome young cousin of the clan Campbell, who had come on board at Auckland, whereat the steamer Australia (in which I formed one of the passengers) touched, from lovely, hospitable Sydney. We were bound to San Francisco, and had to stay a few hours in Auckland in order to take in the New Zealand contingent of mails and seafarers. This cousin and his wife were bound “home” on a visit, and it was quite in the usual accidental nature of things in travel, that we should thus meet without the slightest provocation thereto on either side.

Rail and steam here gave evidence that the world is small enough to render chance encounters with long-parted friends a common incident.

Apart from the fact that the presence of this relative would contribute to throw an air of respectability over me, I was very glad to meet him, and to secure an auditor as to my plans and intentions.

In answer to his inquiries, I informed Mr Campbell that San Pedro Sula was a large town in the Republic of Honduras, situate about fifty miles, or rather more, off the Atlantic coast, at the foot of a range of mountains, name forgotten. That its climate, according to a pamphlet compiled by the Rev. Dr Pope, is salubrious (it is no such thing—but the nights are bearable); that a colony of Britons and some French people were being located thereat. In addition to this, the Government of Honduras was granting large concessions of land (quite true), and doing its utmost to get Europeans to make a settlement there.

“What has all this to do with you?” cut in my cousin, who seemed to fear that the whole contents of the pamphlet were about to be let loose upon him.

“Simply this: as I speak Spanish fairly, and can be otherwise useful, I am invited (after some correspondence on the subject) to take charge of the school which is being erected for the colonists’ children at San Pedro Sula. A salary has been guaranteed me; and in addition to this, the Government will assign me a plantation of one hundred and sixty acres for the taking it, subject, of course, to its being cultivated and kept in order. Dr Pope writes me that a plantation once put in working trim, requires little further outlay, beyond the first or second year’s expenses.”

“Who is this Dr Pope?”

“The agent of the Honduras Government and a Catholic priest. He has already located a number of families from Ireland, and he is to return shortly and fetch out four hundred more. The pamphlet is circulated as a proclamation and confirmation of his position to the outside world, and contains, both in the Spanish and the English language, a copy of all the engagements existing between the President of the Republic, Dr Soto, and this agent. There are also published letters of authority from most of the principal persons of the State, the Dutch consul, and the Bishop of Comayagua.”

“Coma—what?”

“Comayagua,” I replied, “the ancient capital of Spanish Honduras. The seat of government is transferred now to a town which lies further south of Comayagua. The name of this town is Tegucigalpa—perhaps you like that better?”

“Don’t chaff a fellow; the names are wonderful! What a country it must be to stand such queer-sounding appellations! Excuse me further. Let me hope that you have not bought any land, or placed money in this agent’s hands.”

“Certainly not. You know that I have been obliged to increase my pittance by taking pupils in Sydney. I am very, very sorry to part with these dear people; but I am not getting younger, and I want to make a home of my own. This appointment will help me on till I do so. Don’t you see?”

“Yes—well—and if it does not do, you can go back again. I don’t know much about the matter, but I have always had the impression that the climate out there is rather awful. Hot as fire, is it not?”

“Not among the mountains,” I retorted quickly; for a shadow of suspicion must not be allowed to fall upon my beloved mountains. “The climate is unhealthy, and worse, I know, on the sea-coast and low-lying plains; but I shall be very little among these.”

“Haven’t they a place there called Mosquito? That sounds lively, but decidedly the reverse of pleasant, eh?”

“Mosquito, my good cousin, is another province altogether. Look at the map. You can abuse that as much as you please. San Pedro Sula lies in the interior of the country, and is surrounded by the mountains. The only drawback of the situation is, that the town has been placed at their base.”

“What are these mountains called?”

“I do not know that they have any particular designation; but they form part of the chain of the principal range.”

“You seem to be pretty well up in the geography of these parts at any rate, and I hope you will not be disappointed; for really, Soltera, this is an undertaking, and no mistake about it.”

“Yes; and if you read in some newspaper a few months hence, that a lady unknown, together with her mule, have been found at the bottom of a precipice, make up your mind that it is I. Better people can be spared; so any way I will try it. Besides, my late residence in Fiji has given me an insight both as regards tropical and plantation life. I learnt a few things when in those lovely isles of the Pacific which I hope to turn to good account.” (A year previously I had been employed as a finishing governess in a planter’s family in one of the islands of the Fijian group. This fact will inform the reader that I add the crime of poverty to my other detriments.)

The foregoing conversation will also explain the conflict anent ways and means which exercised me during my stay at San Francisco, and why the more perilous route chimed in so readily with my purse and proclivities.

Time and the steamer viâ the Mexican ports of Mazatlan, San Blas, Manzanillo, and Puerto Angel, saw me on my way to the Republic of Honduras, and bound for its port of entry, Amapala.

This latter place is so rarely marked on the smaller maps, that I may mention that this town is situate on a small island in the bay of Fonseca; and that most people revile it as being a hot, dirty, and not money-making place.

Having “been and seen” the stores of the United States of American consul there, and witnessed the traffic which goes on in his well-stocked warehouse, I am much inclined to doubt the latter part of this assertion.

Public opinion, furthermore, appeared to be greatly aggrieved because the nightly lightning which always works with great vigour at Amapala has hitherto left the town intact, and this by a peculiar and persistent perversion of right and wrong. From the manner also in which some persons talked about this coast, I was led to believe that an inevitable lion was to be descried on its shores on the approach of a steamer, watching, it was implied, for the rare meat which, in the shape of a passenger, might descend upon Amapala. This lion also enjoyed the peculiarity of being reported as a “tiger,” probably from the circumstance of an acclivity called “La Montaña de los Tigres” being close to the landing-place, and whence the creature might have hailed. Before the journey had nearly ended, however, he had subsided (by description) into a mountain-leopard. Bad enough; but I never met him under any of these phases.

Acapulco is the one of the Mexican ports at which we touched on our way down the coast, of which I shall ever retain a “pleasant memory.” We arrived in its lovely harbour in the early morning; and the sight of the picturesque little town, over the red roofs of which the thin veil of the mists was slowly clearing itself away, reminded me of the face of a friend determined to wear a smile. Its situation between two irregular and projecting tongues of land, with the background gradually widening and rising towards the hills, invests it with an air of coziness, and of being, at the same time, thoroughly well protected.