time the Indians revolted against intolerable oppression, and, later, rebellion after rebellion took place against the Mother Country. After Independence, the Wars of the Confederation constantly deluged the soil with blood, and the political government of the State was distinguished by a continuous series of military or civil revolts, during which the land was impoverished, debased and ruined, and from whose effects it has never recovered so far.
Yet Nicaragua is rich in natural products, agricultural, forestal and mineral.
Famous in local history is the name of the North American filibuster, William Walker, who for a space became president, and the doings of this man and his band are stirringly adventurous. The traveller will also recollect the long British Protectorate over the Mosquito Coast.
But few remember that Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar, nearly met his death from fever in Nicaragua. The great sailor, sent to report upon the prospect of a canal, stated his intention of occupying Lake Nicaragua, which in his opinion was "the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America," whose possession would permanently sunder Spanish America into two parts. But Nature was against it. Nelson and his force ascended the river to the lake and successfully attacked the Spanish force. He was wounded by a cannon shot, fired by a sixteen-year-old girl, wife of a Spanish officer, and the maid was rewarded for the act by her people.
Of Nelson's army of two hundred men all but ten perished of fever, and left their bones in the soil of Nicaragua.
In the adjoining States of Costa Rica and Panama we are approaching the narrowing, curving form of the isthmus, whose topography culminates in the famous neck of land which joins the twin continents of America together, and which has been severed to give access between the world's greatest oceans, in the great Canal.
Whence the name of Costa Rica? Their eyes ever sharp to the glint of gold, the Spaniards who approached Central America from the sea immediately remarked that the swarthy forms of the Indians were decorated with trinkets of yellow metal. The savages wore earrings of gold, which dangled invitingly from their scared countenances when the bearded and armoured white warriors approached, and there was little ceremony in the transference of ownership. "This is a rich coast! This is Costa Rica!" the Spaniards exclaimed.
Indeed, it was part of the old culture area of Chiriqui, whose folk were clever producers of native jewellery in gold and precious stones. Pedro de Alvarado called the whole region, including Salvador, Cuscatan, the native Mexican name, meaning "Land of precious stones, of treasures and abundance." But here in Costa Rica the greedy Iberians found disappointingly little gold, except for these trinkets. This region was the limit of the Maya civilization.
To-day Costa Rica is a flourishing little State, with fertile soil and bright sunshine, with many luscious fruits, with food in plenty, famous for its splendid coffee, special product of the volcanic earth: a land of small peasant owners, upon which is founded some political stability and civic prosperity, an example to other Spanish American States, where oligarchies monopolize the countryside, and the labourer dwells in peonage.
The Pacific coast here displays as we approach it, bold headlands and broad bays, among them the Gulf of Nicoya, the home of that pious-minded Indian chief, who, as before described, gave his name to the adjoining State of Nicaragua. Studded with richly wooded islands, and famous for its purple-yielding murex (the beautiful ancient dye of the whelk), its pearls and mother-of-pearl, is this bay, from which, leaving our steamer at the port of Punta Arenas, we may ascend by railway to the pleasing capital of San José de Costa Rica, on a plateau between the Cordillera at an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet above the ocean.
Here we are in a well-advanced city, the amenities of whose public life are creditable to Central America. The line runs on and descends to Puerto Limon, on the Atlantic, thus crossing the isthmus.
But, like its neighbours, Costa Rica stands perennially in awe of the volcanoes which top the summit of the Cordillera. Turialba, ever hot and angry, and Poas are among these, pouring forth smoke and vapour.
Let us take our stand a moment on Irazu, 11,000 feet above the sea—we may reach it on horseback—higher than the summit of the Pyrenees, and looking east and west remark the vast horizons which unfold below: on the one hand we see the gleaming waters of the Atlantic, on the other those of the Pacific, whilst, between, the whole expanse of the country unfolds. Here, indeed, may the inhabitant of Costa Rica cast a glance over the whole domain of his patria, and let fancy wander over the realms of ocean towards Europe and Asia.
Costa Rica was peopled largely by Spaniards from Galicia, but the bulk of the folk are to-day Ladinos or Mestizos, and, where the native tribes have not been exterminated, there are Indians still in complete savagery. The land is one of the healthiest in the region we are treading, and its products of fruits and foods, of timber, tortoise-shell, rubber, cedar, mahogany, ebony, and great stores of bananas, give to the land a further claim to the name of the Rich Coast.
And now our vessel floats upon the beautiful Bay of Panama, studded with verdant isles, and if perchance it be the sunset hour the flashing colour of the sky may light up the towers of the old colonial city near its shore, a romantic haven, whose memories of Drake and of the cruel Morgan, of Nuñez de Balboa, of Pizarro, and all that gallery of bygone adventurers who made the history of the New World upon these tropic shores. The sun does not rise, however, in the Bay of Panama, but sets, for the curvature of the isthmus has disoriented us, at Panama.
A COFFEE ESTABLISHMENT IN CENTRAL AMERICA.
Vol. I. To face p. 86.
This independent Republic of Panama threw off its allegiance to Colombia, whose heritage the isthmus was, in a grandiloquent manifesto after the—alleged—machinations of the Americans, who, wearied of the dilatory tactics of the parent State, laid hands on the isthmus to carry out their cherished plan of making the Canal. "Just as a son withdraws from his paternal roof, so the isthmian people, in adopting the destiny they have chosen, do so with grief, but in compliance with the supreme and inevitable duty the country owes to itself. Upon separating from our brethren of Colombia, we do so without hatred and without joy." So ran the manifesto.
But the people of Bogata, of Colombia, consider that an unspeakable outrage was perpetuated upon them, and regard the United States and its then President, Roosevelt, as its author—an outrage which time will take long to heal.
We shall see something of the doings of the immortal Drake in our journey down the great Pacific coast of South America, undertaken in another chapter.
The Panama Isthmus was to Drake a vantage point, from which he viewed a promised land. After his attack on Nombre de Dios, a fugitive slave—a cimarron—conducted him and his followers to the summit of the isthmian hills. There lay before Drake the gleaming waters of the vast Pacific, as they had lain before Balboa. Drake fell on his knees. He prayed to sail those waters in an English ship. It was partly his destined work of "Singeing the King of Spain's beard." Back to England he went. The commission which Queen Elizabeth had given him to sail the Spanish Main had been honourably accomplished, even if the Spaniards at Cartagena and elsewhere did not so regard it. The queen must extend the charter to the Pacific. She did it, and Drake's exploits there and return home westwards are among the most thrilling annals of those "spacious days."
Hear a tale now of Morgan the buccaneer, and Panama, and the dreadful things that befel that city. Young Morgan, born in Wales, kidnapped for a sailor in the streets of Bristol, also sailed the Spanish Main. Drake was a gentleman; Morgan seems to have been a bloody-minded corsair. At thirty-three years of age he sacked Porto Bello, committing frightful cruelties and excesses. But at Panama he surpassed himself. Yet praise must be given him for his bravery and resource.
Ascending the Chagres River from Colon in boats, with a dreadful struggle over the hills, Morgan and his men, like Drake and Balboa, beheld the Pacific beyond. Whether he prayed for success or not history does not record. But there lay the rich city of Panama. It must be taken. It was defended by hundreds of Spaniards. But Morgan had taken Chagres and killed three hundred Spaniards there, and double his own number at Panama did not daunt him. Down