CHAPTER XIII
IN SUNNY SALVADOR
A mule trail leads overland from Guatemala to Salvador—a rugged, bowlder-strewn path that curls along mountain sides, and fords rivers, and scales precipitous cliffs—a road such as only a mule could travel with security and comfort.
I crossed it in an automobile.
The chauffeur—evidently a revolutionist keeping in practice at risking his life—drove out of Guatemala City with myself and another gringo passenger, at four in the morning, and raced through the black night with the shrieking claxon characteristic of all Latin-American motor traffic, past the sleeping suburbs and up the heights to the first narrow ledge.
There, while the car still raced at full speed above a sheer drop of several hundred feet, he removed both hands from the wheel to light a cigarette.
This was merely the beginning. A protest from his American passengers would have delighted him, and furnished bar-room anecdotes for the next ten years. Wherefore Shields—a lean lank Yankee salesman from the Middle West—smiled cheerfully as though he were having the time of his life, and I followed his example.
The trail was not merely narrow, but it squirmed and twisted, following the scalloped contour of the mountainside. The driver took the curves without use of brake. As a matter of fact, he explained later, the brakes did not work. So we sped unchecked around and around the many bends, until, making a particularly abrupt turn, we collided with an ox-cart.
This stopped us with a crash. The ox-cart overturned. A load of melons, bound for the Guatemalan market, rolled down the slopes, starting a small landslide. The oxen, bumped off the road, pawed frantically for a foothold on the brush-grown decline. The peon marketer glowered in sullen resentment. Our chauffeur lighted another cigarette, climbed out to survey his twisted fender and his awry lamps, produced a flask of cognac and took a comforting swig, climbed back again to discover that his car would still run, and drove away as fast as before.
The road grew steadily worse. Our seat-springs were in the same condition as the brakes. This scarcely mattered, since we so seldom touched them, but spent most of the journey somewhere midway between the seat and the awning, contriving as a rule to miss the steel framework of the top, but clinging to the sides lest we puncture the canvas above us.
Our most difficult task was to maintain a cheerful, dignified expression of countenance for the benefit of observers along the road. Dawn brought the entire population out to see us. Barefooted peons—men, women, and children—came racing across the fields at the shriek of our claxon, to obtain a closer view. It was now three years since the first automobile had crossed this trail—an achievement hailed at the time by marveling editorials in the local Central-American press—and motor traffic was becoming a fairly regular thing, but not so regular that the novelty had diminished. In fact, the chickens of the region had not yet learned to jump across the road in front of the car. The other species of livestock were more apt, however, in acquiring the customs of civilization. The dogs chased us with outraged yelps. The cows, always lying in the center of the road, lurched to their feet directly in our path. Horses and donkeys, convinced that we were after them and were as apt to catch them in the woods as on the trail, stuck to the trail, and galloped ahead of us for mile after mile without turning aside, while their indignant owners trotted behind us, hurling imprecations, and describing us as cattle-rustlers.
Boys, and occasionally grown men, took delight in standing loutishly in the center of the street at each village, making faces at us to amuse their admiring friends, and leaping aside at our approach. If we stopped at one of the infrequent towns, as we usually did—in order that the chauffeur might again produce his cognac flask—the whole population surrounded us to stare. On such occasions Shields would reach out and remove five-cent pieces from the ears of the natives within reach of his arm—a diversion practiced with much amusement by Richard Harding Davis on his travels in Central America—with the result that the local police were frequently called upon for the return of the money discovered in local ears.
These policemen took our names at each stopping-place—a custom in vogue throughout both Guatemala and Salvador whenever strangers make their appearance—but they allowed us to inscribe our own nomenclature, wherefore, should any list of distinguished tourists ever be published in these countries, the public will be amazed at the many world-famous notables who have made the overland journey. The policemen, unable to read, always bowed profoundly, and if we inquired of them where gasoline might be purchased, they would hop upon the running-board, and show us the way, bowing again for a two-cent tip.
The road, having scaled the first mountain range, crossed a wide plateau. This was a cattle country. From time to time a cloud of dust appeared before us, indicating another drove of steers, and the chauffeur headed always for the exact center of it, sometimes plowing through without missing a steer, but usually dispersing the herd in all directions, whereupon native cowpunchers waved their arms and screamed curses and rode frantically away to round up their galloping protégés.
Having crossed the plateau, we came upon the worst roads of all. The chauffeur gave his wheel a twist, and we started up a river-bed, where a frothing stream tumbled down over a succession of huge bowlders. No one but a Latin-American, fortified with cognac, could have driven a car up those rapids. The water sprinkled us, and blinded us. But up we went, the auto climbing from rock to rock, much as a man might pull himself hand over hand up a steep embankment. One wheel would catch; down would jolt the other three wheels; the motor would roar; another wheel would catch; another roar; a lurch that made the teeth chatter; another roar; a few feet of progress; a few feet of sliding backward—
Somehow, we made it. Leaving Guatemala behind, we raced through Salvador, around another series of cliffs where the chauffeur kept looking backward to see whether we flinched, and at last down into the valleys of another fertile coffee country, just as night descended, and the askewness of our damaged lamps made driving still more difficult. Long trains of ox-carts, returning from the Salvadorean markets, loomed out of the blackness before us. But still we charged ahead, missing most of them, and arrived at eight o’clock—still breathing, though very much bruised—in Santa Ana, the second city of the republic.
Salvador is the smallest nation in Central America, but with the exception of Costa Rica the most progressive.
The railway train which carried me to the capital the next day was neat and clean, and the coaches freshly painted by an artist who had covered the interior with bright colors, and had traced designs of lilies and tulips wherever there was sufficient woodwork to permit of ornamentation.
As in Guatemala, the way led through a land of volcanoes, wherewith Salvador is so abundantly supplied that for some years she did not bother to construct lighthouses on her coast. At a distance, from the railway train, one could count several of them, some in mild eruption. For miles we rode through a congealed river of metal, a great stream that traced its way downward through the green of Mount San Salvador—a tumbled river of black rock that had hardened into fantastic shapes while still foaming and boiling. But already it had decomposed in places, and islands of green jungle were appearing along its surface.
Salvador, like Guatemala, is mainly a coffee country. It is not, however, a country of large estates, but of small holdings. Patches of farm-land cover every available space. This is the most thickly populated republic not only in Central America but in the entire hemisphere. Into its 7,225 square miles were packed some 1,500,000 people. As everywhere, over-crowding, by intensifying the struggle for existence, had developed among the Salvadoreans an energy and industry greater than that of their neighbors. Hillsides that would have gone to waste in Guatemala were plowed here to the very summit. Villages, ruined by the last volcanic eruption, were springing up in all the valleys.
One looked upon the heavily populated landscape and wondered why some of the natives did not gravitate over into the next republic. But the people of all these nations are like those of the Balkans in their hatred of one another. When I mentioned the subject to a Salvadorean who shared my seat, he muttered:
“Go to Guatemala? Never! People there are scoundrels!”
Which reminded me that Guatemalans had already warned me against the Salvadoreans, all of whom were said to be cut-throats and purse-snatchers. It is this spirit of mutual distrust that has kept Central America divided into five diminutive states. There has been talk of union ever since they first gained independence from Spain and Mexico back in 1821 and 1823, but it has resulted only in a series of temporary combinations of two or three republics, opposed by the other three or two, and brought to an end through internal bickerings. Politicians in all the countries favor the present multiplicity of offices. Wherefore each little nation staggers under the burden of supporting a president, and a congress, and a complete diplomatic corps, although the whole five could be lost in Texas.
Salvador, the smallest, is so tiny that from its center one could sometimes look westward to the Pacific Ocean, and eastward to the mountains of Honduras.
If Salvador sometimes indulges in what the people of larger nations describe as “comic opera,” it is normally peaceful.
It appeared so tranquil at the time of my visit that I was surprised to learn of its being under martial law.
“Oh, that’s easily explained,” said the gentleman who shared my seat. “Our president, Alfonso Quiñonez Molina, is a very excellent man, but he has his enemies. Under martial law, he can draft any one into the army. As soon as an opponent criticizes him, he makes him a General. Thus the critic becomes susceptible to military discipline, and ventures no further criticism.”
A few hours of leisurely travel brought me to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.
It was a warm, sunny capital, only a trifle over two thousand feet in altitude, extremely low for a Central-American city. Its population numbered only some fifty or sixty thousand. Its people, being of mestizo composition, did not affect the barbaric raiment of the Guatemalan Indians. The half-breed maidens wrapped themselves in filmy shawls of pink or blue, but after the blazing serapes of the previous country these garments seemed colorless. The city itself was somewhat drab. A few of its structures were of the heavy masonry found elsewhere in Central America, and its Governmental Palace was imposing in its wealth of marble columns, yet the city as a whole—being another favorite objective of the local earthquakes—was constructed mainly of wood and corrugated iron, even to the cathedral, which, although painted to suggest stone, was convincing only at a distance.
But it was a decidedly pleasant city, with many parks and tinkling fountains. Pretty señoritas were abundant. Priests in black robes—unrestricted by law in this country—were to be seen everywhere. Men walked through the market-places ringing dinner bells, and carrying little boxes containing a tiny image of the Virgin, to Whom one might bow for a penny. Horse cars rattled through the streets with much crackling of the drivers’ whips. There was music each night in the plaza, and flirtation beneath the palm trees. The tropic air was balmy and soothing. About the whole city there was an atmosphere of contentment—and a touch of that fictional romance which the traveler craves.
Deciding to stay for a while, I took lodgings at a cheap hotel opposite the Presidential Palace.
In all of these countries the homes of the wealthy and influential citizens—even of the president—are quite apt to be located between business offices, or stores, or even among slums. Because of the local habit which wealth frequently manifests of shrinking into concealment behind a plain exterior, the magnificent homes are apt to be no more striking in outward appearance than their inglorious surroundings. The palace, a plain one-story building, was recognizable as such only from the large guard of colonels and generals who lined its sidewalk, and from the presence just across the way of the principal military barracks, with protruding towers from which machine-guns could sweep the surrounding streets in case of insurrection.
My room had doors opening directly upon the avenue. If I chanced to open them in the evening, I caught a flash of eyes from one feminine stroller after another, for this region despite its distinction was a favorite haunt of street-walkers, somewhat numerous in Salvador as a result of a preponderance of females, a tropical climate, and the difficulty of earning a living which always accompanies an excess of population. From the opposite sidewalk, the colonels and generals would smile and twirl their moustachios, and the policeman on the corner would offer advice:
“That’s a good one! I know her myself!”
For variety, there was an occasional religious procession—the pase de la virgin. At certain times in the year, the priests at the many churches would send out the image of the Virgin to make a tour of the city, spending a night at the home of each parishioner who chose to receive Her. Every evening a long parade of women would pass my hotel, marching very slowly, each holding aloft a lighted candle, and chanting in a shrill strained voice.
One night, out of curiosity, I followed them. It was strangely impressive—the winding procession of solemn women, intent upon the image before them, singing a weird hymn that rose and fell and echoed through the silent streets—the candles flaming aloft, as though this were all a great stream of fire creeping very slowly through the heart of the city. The family that was to receive the image came to meet us, also bearing candles, and led us to the house, where in one corner of the parlor a great stage had been constructed and decked with palms. The head of the family, seeing a foreigner in the crowd, hastened to welcome me.
“You honor my household, señor. Come early to-morrow night, and I shall let you carry the Virgin.”
They bore Her reverently into the house, and placed Her upon the improvised Altar. For several minutes, they stood before Her, and the chant reverberated through the room, vastly impressive. Then, as though to shatter the whole effect, some woman shrieked in a loud voice:
“Who’s the cause of such great joy and happiness?”
From the crowd the answer came in a mighty roar, profanely like a college yell:
“The Virgin Mary!”
They trooped noisily into the street. All was over. The solemnity was gone. As I came out, several of the girls, so intent before upon their hymn, favored me with a flash of eyes. I recognized them as those who regularly passed my hotel door.
The Central-American, like the Mexican, is both an idealist and a materialist. He sees no inconsistency in being both devoutly religious and frankly immoral.
He is quite apt to use the name of his favorite saint as a fitting title for his gin mill. He employs it as a harmless ejaculation. He may even resort to it for emphasis, as in the case of an advertisement I recall, which endorsed a Charlie Chaplin moving picture with the phrases: “Is it funny? Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” And, among the lower classes, he is quite apt to regard any religious holiday as a fitting excuse for over-indulgence in liquor.
It is frequently charged throughout these countries that the great waves of illegitimacy follow the principal church processionals, which fact is not a reflection upon the church, but upon the inability of the peons to associate the ideas of religion and personal behavior. In fact, the common people see nothing essentially wrong, or even unusual, in illegitimacy itself. In Nicaragua, the newspapers in publishing a list of births, distinguish each new citizen with the candid “legitimo” or “ilegitimo,” and the latter outnumber the former by two or three to one, a ratio which holds good for all these countries.
It must not be assumed from these statements, however, that all Central America is a hotbed of immorality. In discussing any moral question, a writer must indicate which social class he has in mind. In any of these countries there is a distinct division between the aristocrat and the peon.
In aristocratic circles, a man has every privilege, and a woman none. It is assumed, in Latin fashion, that boys will be boys. Lest girls be girls, their virtue is assured by a close chaperonage. A man of wealth may keep several establishments in town beside his regular home, if bound upon a journey, he may take with him some other lady in order that his wife may be spared the discomforts of travel. The wife remains a model of propriety. Here prevails the double standard.
In peon circles, both sexes share something more of equality. They mate usually without the formality of marriage. Should they prefer to change partners from time to time, they do it casually, yet this is the exception rather than the rule. In some cases, a woman objects to any ceremony, preferring to remain free of ties, so that in case her new spouse proves a drunkard or a wife-beater, she can leave him, for there is no divorce in most of these countries. In some cases, they would prefer the marriage ritual, but can not afford it. And in most cases, although free to change partners, they remain faithful throughout life. Women in this class, so long as they have a consort, are apt to be as loyal as the women of the upper classes. Illegitimate children, consequently, are more a result of these informal unions than of a general promiscuity.
Yet promiscuity is not unknown. The peon girl without a partner is the daughter of a rather sensuous race, and of a race that is not inclined to work when an easier living is to be obtained. In this land of tolerance, little stigma attaches itself to her or to her children if she takes up prostitution as a career. In most Latin-American countries, she is restricted to a certain segregated district, but she is recognized by the police as a legal and useful member of the community. The gente decente, or decent people, as the aristocrats describe themselves, may not invite her to their homes, but the gentlemen may sometimes call at hers.
If, in San Salvador, she chooses to ply her trade before the presidential palace, what matters it? She does not molest the president. And if she chooses also to join a religious procession, and return immediately to her profession, the Central-American sees nothing inconsistent therein. What has religion to do with one’s personal affairs?
These people, of whatever class, are naturally tolerant toward one another.
A man may be strictly moral, and many of them are, even in aristocratic circles, yet he never takes it upon himself to enforce a similar morality on his neighbor. There are no organizations in Mexico or Central America for minding other people’s business. The only society engaged in uplifting the fellow of different viewpoint in these parts is one with offices at Albany, New York, which sends out propaganda to combat the evil of bull-fighting.
Whether one wishes to raise the devil or not, one has a comfortable sense of liberty here which is lacking in Anglo-Saxon lands. If one chooses to drink, and to become disgracefully drunk, to such an extent that we at home would remark the next day, “You certainly were a mess last night!”, there is no such comment forthcoming from a Latin American. Like the little General at Culiacán, the native of any of these countries will say, “You were very lively last evening.”
Perhaps the wife of his hotel proprietor will even compliment him. “After sixteen copitas of Scotch whiskey, you did not molest a single one of my servant-girls,” she will say. “You have a remarkably fine character, señor!”
And he sobers up, feeling that he has been a paragon of virtue.
If these people seldom criticize harshly, however, they are very fond of gossip. The women especially have few interests to discuss, and infinite leisure for the discussion.
There were some fifteen señoras and señoritas at my hotel in San Salvador, the wives or daughters of guests, all of them built to resist earthquake, who spent the entire day sitting in a chair upon the patio veranda, without amusement or occupation. Anglo-Saxon girls, with nothing to do except to wait for a husband to come home from work, would have gone insane, but these of Salvador were passively content. None of them ever read anything; in fact only a very few people of either sex ever seem to read anything in these countries; few of them ever sewed or knitted; all of them were quite satisfied with their peaceful existence.
During the absence of their husbands, they were extremely circumspect. When spouses were present, they might greet me with a pleasant, “Good morning.” When alone, they affected not to see me. Since the Latin-American gentleman, unless patently snubbed, fancies always that a lady must be encouraging amorous advances, they had learned to be extremely cautious.
But they all had a great curiosity about the United States—which newspapers had taught them to regard as a country whose population spent most of its time in a divorce court—and they were eager to ask me questions. Wherefore they would gather in a body, and reassured by the security of numbers, would occasionally surround me for purposes of conversation.
Since the feminine mind runs mainly to romance, their questions were rather personal. The women here always wish to know whether the man they meet is married or single, and if single, whether he has a sweetheart. On the theory that the lack of a sweetheart would interest them most, I had always answered questions in the negative, but in San Salvador I discovered that by inventing one I merely interested them the more. The news spread rapidly, and within two minutes every woman in the hotel was present to ask further questions about her.
“Is she beautiful?”
“No, she’s about as ugly as they make them.”
That provoked much discussion. These strange gringos did not care for beauty! Had one not seen many an American bringing with him a wife that no Latin would have wed?
“But what does she look like? Six feet tall! Dios! And wears number ten shoes! Ay, carramba! Do you really love her?”
Night after night they asked questions about her, until I regretted her invention. If friends or relatives came to see my inquisitors, the entire story had to be repeated again. I finally decided to let her marry another. But this merely invited further inquiries.
“Are you not disconsolate? No! Ay, what unfeeling creatures are the Americans! And she married a man of ninety years for his millions! How commercial the gringos!”
Sympathy and comfort were offered in abundance. Each of the ladies seemed to have a friend or relative who was suggested as a substitute. I was forced to decline the suggestions.
“We are merely waiting, my sweetheart and I, until the old millionaire dies. Then we shall inherit his wealth, and live happily ever after.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. Some one suggested that I was joking, but was immediately overruled by the others. This, they insisted, was a common practice in the United States. Anything was possible among Americans! And was I not even jealous that I must wait while my beloved lived with another?
“Not at all. I’ve cabled a second girl, and she’ll be my wife until the first one is free. We do that regularly.”
My love affairs became the sensation of the community. And the story did not reach the breaking point until the first girl, in the furor of her love for me, announced in an imaginary cable that she had poisoned her husband, and that the millions were ours. Even then, there were several doubtful inquiries as to whether I really meant it. And when I confessed that the whole story was fictitious, they were vastly disappointed. It was all so in keeping with their visions of the United States that they wished to believe it.
In all of these women one observed a strangely child-like quality.
When better conversational subjects were exhausted, several of them requested that I guess their ages. Oddly enough, in this land where frankness is seldom encountered, women make no effort to hide the number of their years. Perhaps it is because their personal vanity, so very manifest in younger girls, practically ceases after marriage has been achieved.
One of them I judged to be fifty. To please her I guessed forty. She proved in reality to be thirty-two. They grow old so quickly here. Yet in their manner they retain toward men that air of a child toward a parent. Should a husband see fit to discuss with them any serious subject, they listen in awed admiration to his opinions, exclaiming occasionally, “I see! Ah, I understand!”
It would probably offend the average Latin-American to discover that his spouse knew as much about anything as he did himself. He likes the rôle of the patient mentor. He prefers that his wife be a gentle pet rather than a comrade. I dined one day with a Salvadorean gentleman and his wife; the lady, who came from one of the leading families, had been educated abroad and had traveled extensively; yet the gentleman, although he conversed quite brilliantly with the men at the table, chattered only playful nonsense to his wife. In consideration of his pride, she artfully concealed the fact that she was his intellectual equal.
Now and then one reads in our newspapers or magazines about the equal suffrage movement in Mexico or the organization of a new women’s club in Chile. But such innovations have yet to gain an extensive following. With the same conflict of idealism and materialism that distinguishes Latin-American men, the women may verbally deplore their lack of liberty but are in reality quite satisfied with it. They are of a race which is inclined to follow the easiest course, and the easiest course is to attach themselves to some convenient man and allow him to worry about life’s problems. In these pleasant tropical countries no girl of the lower classes escapes maternity; most girls of the middle classes, not being over-critical about whom they marry, can land some one; even in the more particular aristocratic circles the spinster is a rarity. The wife usually has her own way when questions arise about the household or the children. Beyond that she is quite content with complete male dominance. And she is passively happy.
IN THESE PLEASANT TROPICAL COUNTRIES NO PEON GIRL ESCAPES MATERNITY
So accustomed are the Latin-Americans to the timid, gently-shrinking type of woman that they usually misunderstand the visiting American girl. When the native gentlemen observe her chatting with masculine acquaintances upon the street in her frankly carefree manner, they leap immediately to the conclusion that she is of the demi-monde. And when a gringo informs them that her smiles mean nothing, they shake their heads in wonderment.
“Ay!” they exclaim. “Your Anglo-Saxon females are so cold! So unsentimental! Altogether sexless!”
They shake their heads again, in pity, reflecting that the poor girl is missing all the most delicious of life’s sensations. But since they are ever hopeful, they linger awhile, to make sure that the gringo did not err in stating that her smiles meant nothing.
Salvador has the smallest foreign colony of any Central-American country. Since it is entirely a coffee country, and since Central-Americans are essentially coffee planters, it has little need for outsiders.
It judges the gringo largely by the occasional deluges of tourists who make the brief automobile journey up from the port of La Libertad during their “Go-from-New-York-to-Frisco-through-the-Panama-Canal” trip. As this is the only capital hereabouts that can be reached within a couple of hours from the seacoast, they all rush up the mountains to laugh at “one of those ridiculous little countries that O. Henry used to write about!”
One group came up during my sojourn.
They came in five automobiles, pausing at the central plaza to exclaim, “So this is Paris!” They looked at the leading hotel—an unimpressive but comfortable establishment—and roared, “There’s the Ritz!” They stopped for dinner, and demanded frijoles, having learned the name of that dish from Latin-American fiction, and being anxious to tell their friends at home about a real native dinner. They waited with much trepidation, having heard that all native dishes were peppery. And when the waiter brought frijoles, they screamed with laughter.
“We tried in every way to explain to that little brown fellow that we wanted a native dinner,” each would later tell the people at home, “and what do you think he brought us? Beans! Just think of it! Beans!”
After lunch they rode about town again. The monument in the central plaza interested them. The suspender-manufacturer from Buffalo called it “Napoleon crossing the Delaware.” Gr