Nicaragua — A Reader’s Guide

n advance any peregrinations, by unsteady landsmen, beyond the quarter deck. The quarter deck was so called by courtesy only: it was elevated but a few inches above the waist, and, deducting the room occupied by hen-coops, water-casks, and the man at the helm, afforded but about ten square feet of space, in which the unfortunate passengers might “recreate” themselves. This might have sufficed for men of moderate desires, but then it was far from being “contiguous territory.”

In a word, we found ourselves in the midst of a confusion which none but the experienced traveller can coolly contemplate. Our friends, or rather the more daring of them, scrambled over the intervening decks, or hailed us from the rigging of the neighboring vessels. We would have invited them on board, but there was no room to receive them; besides the descent was perilous. All partings are much alike, but ours were made with a prodigious affectation of good spirits. We were to have sailed precisely at ten; but when eleven was chimed, the number which had come “expressly to see us off,” was sensibly diminished; and at twelve we were left to our own contemplations.

There was a prodigious pulling of ropes; the same boxes were tumbled from one place to another and back again; trunks disappeared and came to light, and it seemed as if everybody was engaged in a grand search for nobody knew what. At one o’clock the pilot came on board. The delay had become painful, and now we thought the time for sailing had arrived. But the pilot was a fat man, and sat down imperturbably upon a water-cask. “Well, Mr. Pilot, are we off?” He deigned no audible reply, but glanced upwards significantly towards the streamer at the masthead. The wind blew briskly in from the Narrows. So we seated ourselves upon the water-casks also, and watched the men who were painting the next ship, and almost nodded ourselves to sleep, to the monotonous “yo-ho” of the sailors unloading an Indiaman near by. The roar of Broadway fell subdued and distant upon our ears; and the ferry-boats and little steamers in the river seemed to move about in silence, going to and fro apparently without an object, like ants around an anthill.

By-and-by a little, black bull-dog of a steamer thrust itself valiantly through the crowd of vessels, made a rope fast to our bows, and dragged us, with a jerk, triumphantly into the stream, past Governor’s Island, down to the outer bay, and then left us to take care of ourselves. That night the sun went down cold and filmy, and the Francis tumbled roughly about amidst the dark waves of the Atlantic. * * * A calm under the high capes of San Domingo,—an infinitude of thunder squalls, with the pleasant consciousness of a hundred kegs of gunpowder stowed snugly around the foot of the mainmast,—a “close shave” on the coral reefs below Jamaica,—for twenty-six mortal days this was all which we had of relief from the detestable monotony of shipboard. Blessed be steam! * * * *

It was a dark and rainy morning, when “Land on the lee-bow,” was sung out by the man at the helm, and in less time than is occupied in writing it, the occupants of the close little cabin made their way on deck, to look for the first time upon the coast of Central America. The dim outlines of the land were just discernible through the murky atmosphere, and many and profound were the conjectures hazarded as to what precise point was then in view. The result finally arrived at was, that we were off “Monkey Point,” about thirty miles to the northward of our destined port. This conclusion was soon confirmed by observing, close under the shadow of the shore, an immense rock, rising with all the regularity of the Pyramids to the height of three hundred feet; a landmark too characteristic to be mistaken.

We were sweeping along with a stiff breeze, and were comforted with the assurance that we should be in port to breakfast, “_if_,” as the cautious captain observed, “the wind held.” But the perverse wind did not hold, and in half an hour thereafter we were rocking about with a wash-tubby motion, the most disagreeable that can be imagined, and of which we had had three days’ experience under the Capes of San Domingo. The haze cleared a little, and with our glasses we could make out a long, low line of shore, covered with the densest verdure, with here and there the feathery palm, which forms so picturesque a feature in all tropical scenery, lifting itself proudly above the rest of the forest, and the whole relieved against a background of high hills, over which the gray mist still hung like a veil.

Some of the party could even make out the huts on the shore; but the old man at the helm smiled incredulously, and said there were no huts there, and that the unbroken and untenanted forest extended far back to the great ridge of the Cordilleras. So it was when the adventurous Spaniards coasted here three centuries ago, and so it had remained ever since. These observations were interrupted by a heavy shower, acceptable for the wind it brought, which filled the idle sails, and moved us towards our haven. And though the rain fell in torrents, it did not deter us from getting soaked, in vain endeavors to harpoon the porpoises that came tumbling in numbers around our bows.

But the shower passed, and with it our breeze, and again the brig rocked lazily on the water, which was now filled with branches of trees, and among the rubbish that drifted past, a broken spear and a cocoa-nut attracted particular attention; the one showed the proximity of a people whose primitive weapons had not yet given place to those more effective, of civilized ingenuity, and the other was a certain index of the tropics. The shower passed, but it had carried us within sight of our port. Those who had previously seen cabins on the shore could not now perceive any evidences of human habitation, and stoutly persisted that we had lost our reckoning, and that we were far from our destined haven. But a trim schooner which was just then seen moving rapidly along under a pouring shower, in the same direction with ourselves, silenced the pretended doubters, and became immediately a subject of great speculation. It was finally agreed on all hands that it must be the B——, a vessel which left New York three days before us, the captain of which had boasted that he would “beat us in, by at least ten days.” So everybody was anxious that the little brig should lead him into the harbor, and many were the objurgations upon the wind, and desperate the attempts of the sailors to avail themselves of every “cat’s-paw” that passed.

The excitement was great, and some of the impatient passengers inquired for sweeps, and recommended putting out the yawl to tow the vessel in. They even forgot, such was the excitement, to admire the emerald shores which were now distinct, not more than half a mile distant, and prayed that a black-looking thunder-storm, looming gloomily in the east, might make a diversion in our favor. And then a speck was discerned in the direction of the port; and by-and-by the movement of the oars could be seen, and bodies swaying to and fro, and in due time a _pit-pan_, a long, sharp-pointed canoe, pulled by a motley set of mortals, stripped to the waist, and displaying a great variety of skins, from light yellow to coal black, darted under our bows, and a burly fellow in a shirt pulled off his straw hat to the captain, and inquired in bad English, “Want-ee ah pilot?” The mate consigned him to the nether regions for a lubber, and inquired what had become of his eyes, and if he couldn’t tell the Francis anywhere; the Francis, which “had made thirty-seven voyages to this port, and knew the way better than any black son of a gun who ever put to sea in a bread-trough!” And then the black fellow in a shirt and straw hat was again instructed to go below, or if he preferred, to go and “pilot in the lubberly schooner to windward.” The black fellow looked blacker than before, and said something in an unintelligible jargon to the rest, and away they darted for the schooner.

Meantime the flank of the thunder storm swept towards us, piling up a black line of water, crested with foam, while it approached with a noise like that of distant thunder. It came upon us; the sails fluttered a moment and filled, the yards creaked, the masts bent to the strain, and the little brig dashed rapidly through the hissing water. In the darkness we lost sight of the schooner, and the shore was no longer visible, but we kept on our way; the Francis knew the road, and seemed full of life, and eager to reach her old anchorage.

“Don’t she scud!” said the mate, who rubbed his hands in very glee. “If this only holds for ten minutes more, we’re in, like a spike!”—and, strange to say, it did hold; and when it was past we found ourselves close to “Point Arenas,” a long narrow spit, partly covered with water, which shuts in the harbor, leaving only a narrow opening for the admission of vessels. The schooner was behind us, but here was a difficulty. The bar had changed since his last trip; the captain was uncertain as to the entrance, and the surf broke heavily under our lee. Excitement of another character prevailed as we moved slowly on, where a great swell proclaimed the existence of shallows. The captain stood in the bow, and we watched the captain. Suddenly he cried, “Hard a-port!” with startling emphasis, and “Hard a-port!” was echoed by the helmsman, as he swept round the tiller. But it was too late; the little vessel struck heavily as the wave fell.

“Thirty-seventh, and last!” muttered the mate between his teeth, as he rushed to the fastenings, and the main-sail came down on the run. “Round with the boom, my men!” and the boom swung round, just as the brig struck again, with greater force than before, unshipping the rudder, and throwing the helmsman across the deck. “Round again, my men! lively, or the Francis is lost!” cheered the mate, who seemed invested with superhuman strength and agility; and as the boom swung round the wave fell, but the Francis did not strike. “Clear she is!” shouted the mate, who leaped upon the companion-way, and waved his hat in triumph; and turning towards the schooner, “Do _that_, ye divil, and call yerself a sailor!” There was no doubt about it; the Francis was in before the schooner; and notwithstanding the accident to her rudder, she passed readily to her old anchoring ground, in the midst of a spacious harbor, smooth as a mill-pond. There was music in the rattling cable as the anchor was run out, and the Francis moved slowly round, with her broadside towards the town. The well was tried, but she had made no water, which was the occasion for a new ebullition of joy on the part of the mate.

All danger past, we had an opportunity to look about us. We were not more than two cable-lengths from a low sandy shore, upon which was ranged, in a line parallel to the water, a double row of houses, or rather huts, some built of boards, but most of reeds, and all thatched with palm-leaves. Some came down to the water, like sheds, and under one end were drawn up pit-pans and canoes. Larger contrivances for navigating the San Juan river, resembling canal-boats, were also moored close in shore, and upon each might be seen a number of very long and very black legs, every pair of which was surmounted by a very short white shirt. In the centre of the line of houses, which was no other than the town of San Juan de Nicaragua, was an open space, and in the middle of this was a building larger than the others, but of like construction, surrounded by a high fence of canes, and near one end rose a stumpy flag-staff, and from its top hung a dingy piece of bunting, closely resembling the British Union Jack; and this was the custom-house of San Juan, the residence of all the British officials; and the flag was that of the “King of the Mosquitos,” the “ally of Great Britain!”

But of this mighty potentate, and how the British officials came there, more anon. Just opposite us, on the shore, was an object resembling some black monster which had lost its teeth and eyes, and seemed sorry that it had left its kindred at the Novelty Works. It was the boiler of a steamer, which some adventurous Yankees had proposed putting up here, but which, from some defect, had proved useless. Behind the town rose the dense tropical forest. There were no clearings, no lines of road stretching back into the country; nothing but dense, dark solitudes, where the tapir and the wild boar roamed unmolested; where the painted macaw and the noisy parrot, flying from one giant cebia to another, alone disturbed the silence; and where the many-hued and numerous serpents of the tropics coiled among the branches of strange trees, loaded with flowers and fragrant with precious gums. The whole scene was unprecedentedly novel and picturesque. There was a strange blending of objects pertaining to the extremes of civilization. The boiler of the steamer was side by side with the graceful canoe, identical with that in which the simple natives of Hispaniola brought fruits to Columbus; and men in stiff European costumes were seen passing among others, whose dark, naked bodies, protected only at the loins, indicated their descent from the aborigines who had disputed the possession of the soil with the mailed followers of Cordova, and made vain propitiations to the symbolical sun to assist them against their enemies. Here they were, unknowing and careless alike of Cordova or the sun, and ready to load themselves like brutes, in order to earn a sixpence with which to get drunk that night, in concert with the monotonous twanging of a two-stringed guitar!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our anchor was hardly down before a canoe came alongside, containing as variegated an assortment of passengers as can well be conceived. Among them were the officers of the port, whose importance was made manifest from the numerous and unnecessary orders they gave to the oarsmen, and the prodigious bustle they made in getting up the side. They looked inquiringly at the bright silken flag which one of the party held in his hands, and which looked brighter than ever under the rays of the setting sun. The eagles on the caps of the party were also objects which attracted many inquiring glances; and directly the captain was withdrawn into a corner, and asked the significance of all this. The answer seemed to diminish the importance of the officials materially, and one approached, holding his sombrero reverently in his hand, and said that “Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul-General in Mosquitia, Mr. C——, was now resident in the town, and that he should do himself the honor to announce our arrival immediately, and hoped we had had a pleasant voyage, and that we would avail ourselves of his humble services;” to all of which gracious responses were given, together with a drop of brandy, which last did not seem at all unacceptable. I had warm letters of introduction to several of the leading inhabitants of San Juan, and accordingly began to make inquiries as to their whereabouts of a respectable looking negro, who was amongst the visiting party. To my first question, as to whether Mr. S—— S—— was then in town, the colored gentleman uncovered his head, bowed low, and said the humble individual named was before me. I also uncovered myself, bowed equally low, and assured him I was happy to make his acquaintance, delivering my letter at the same time with all the grace possible under the circumstances.

He glanced over its contents, took off his hat again, and bowed lower than before. Not to be behindhand in politeness, I went through the same performance, which was responded to by a genuflection absolutely beyond my power to undertake, without risk of a dislocation; so I resigned the contest, and gave in “dead beat,” much to the entertainment of the Irish mate, who was not deficient in the natural antipathy of his race towards the negro. Ben, my colored servant, next received a welcome not less cordial than my own; and my new acquaintance “was glad to inform me, that fortunately there was a new house under his charge, which was then vacant, and that he was happy in putting it at my disposal.” The happiness was worth exactly eight dollars, as I discovered by a bill which was presented to me four days thereafter, as we were on the point of leaving for the interior; and which, considering that the usual rent of houses here is from four to five dollars per month, was probably intended to include pay for the genuflections on shipboard. We were impatient to land, and could not wait for the yawl to be hoisted over the side; so we crowded ourselves into the canoe of the “Harbor Master,” and went on shore.

The population of the town was all there, many-hued and fantastically attired. The dress of the urchins from twelve and fourteen downwards, consisted generally of a straw hat and a cigar, the latter sometimes unlighted and stuck behind the ear, but oftener lighted and stuck in the mouth; a costume sufficiently airy and picturesque, and, as B—— observed, “excessively cheap.”