A Central American journey

Front matter

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Preface

The attempt to combine in the form of a story for children an account of travel in the various countries of Central America and certain information on our commercial relations with these countries needs a word of explanation. The second of the two elements may seem, at first sight, to have no place in a book for young readers ; for the commerce of today is so many-sided and complex in its operations, it depends for its success on so many elements in agricultural, political, and financial conditions, that the subject might well seem too involved for the understanding even of Macaulay's often quoted schoolboy.

It must be remembered, however, that salesmanship is the romance of today, and the linking of nation with nation, the world over, by friendly trade relations is the romance of the immediate future. Children hear their parents, older brothers, and uncles talk of some successful adventure in salesmanship as the youngsters of a past generation heard of the settlement of the Great West and the voyages of daring Yankee merchantmen to the Orient. It will be found that the subject of commerce has in itself great possibilities of interest for boys and girls.

Successful commerce, as our exporters have found out, must take into account an element which is not down in tables of statistics, which has never been reduced to a formula — and that is human nature. Every business transaction is a human relation. Every time an exporter receives an order from a ranchero in Guatemala or a dealer in a coast city of San Salvador, every time he sends out a consignment of shoes, or barbed wire, or vi Preface

striped drilling, or oil stoves, to some remote mountain locality of a little-known country, his success in the transaction depends a great deal upon what he knows of the people to be supplied and of their ways and wishes.

The foregoing facts were most forcibly brought home to the author in the course of a journey made in the spring of 1916 as a member of the Central American Commission appointed by W. G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, under the direction of the President. It was on this journey that the idea occurred to him of writing a story to set forth the unique conditions and picturesque features of our trade with Central America. Considering that the commerce of the next fifty years will be in the hands of the boys and girls of today, it seemed well worth while to attempt a book that might help to give our young people a more sympathetic knowledge of one of the most important fields of our commercial relations.

It is the belief of the author that no successful trade relations can be established with any country on merely selfish principles. Action and reaction take place whenever one man has anything to do with another, whether they meet on a street corner or cable half around the globe. Unfairness begets unfairness, and fair dealing sooner or later insures fair dealing. The old saying that he who would have friends must show himself friendly is quite as true in the export business as it is in any other form of human association.

It is not the purpose of this little book to preach any particular business creed or establish any special theory in commercial dealing. Nevertheless, truth is truth, and no book not based on the truth is of much value in either prose or poetry, history or fiction. Every

Preface vii

American must desire that the American standard of business dealing, the American sense of honor, should be such as every American will be proud of. It rests with the boys now growing up to maintain what is fine and high and to root out, as far as they can, what is unwise and selfish in our business world.

In this story, the Carroll family, in their travels through Central America, see not only the beauty of mountain and valley, the quaint costumes of senorita, caballero or peon, but also the forces that help to make civilization. In the cities and towns of Central America they find people as interesting as any of their friends at home. They learn, as only the traveler can learn, the infinite variety and complexity of human life and the peculiar pleasure of adapting oneself to new conditions and making new friends where no friends were.

Grateful acknowledgment is made of the author's indebtedness to the President of Guatemala and to various other persons in official position in Central America who put at his disposal every opportunity for observation and for the gathering of information ; also to Mr. John Barrett, Director-General of the Pan American Union, for valuable suggestions given. For assistance in adapting the material to the interests and the comprehension of boys and girls, thanks are due to Miss Louise Lamprey. The photographs which are used to illustrate the book have been gathered from many sources ; the author wishes to acknowledge especially the kindness of the Pan American Union and the Washington Office of the Panama Canal in permitting the use of prints from their collection.

Contents

CHAPTER ~ PAGE

2. Castles in New Spain . . . . j . .10

6. On the Trail of Columrus 57

CHAPTER ONE A Southward Flight

"What should you say, Isabel," asked Mr. Carroll from the doorway of the living-room, "to our going to Guatemala to live ? "

He had not yet taken off his overcoat, and his wife had been on the point of asking him why he had come home so early. At his amazing question she gave a start that sent spools rolling over the table. "Why, Robert," she said breathlessly, "what do you mean? How could we leave the children?"

"That's it," he said slowly, watching her face, "do you think it would be wise to take the children there? You l$now something of it yourself from the month we spent there five years ago, and what I've told you. Rut should you like living there? The Company plans to open a Central American office, and has offered me the position of manager. The chief was frank about it. He said that they didn't want to call in a man from outside, and that having been there several times I knew

l more of the region than any one else in the office. But he said that if I went, I should have to stay for some years. I told him I'd talk with you and give him an answer as soon as possible."

Mrs. Carroll was thinking fast. She looked about the pleasant room, so quiet and homelike in the early winter twilight, and felt rather as a plant might if it knew that it was going to be pulled up by the roots. Still, she was gardener enough to remember that transplanting is often good for plants — and sometimes for people.

"Robert," she said as Mr. Carroll came back and sat down in the big leather chair opposite her own, "I should say you ought to take the offer at once if it were not for Betty and Billy. I can see how much it would mean in every way. You have always said that the one big chance for American business just now is in these Central American republics. But if we have to go there now, the children may grow up in another country. They won't have the training and the association that their friends will have, when they come back here. It's a big question."

Mr. Carroll said nothing. He knew that it was a big question, and he did not want to settle it hastily. He was used to his wife's habit of bringing up every objection to a plan before deciding, and he expected her to do it now.

" If they were older," Mrs. Carroll went on, thoughtfully, "it wouldn't matter so much, because they would be away at school for most of the year, and if they were little things we should only have to consider their health. I suppose there are schools in Guatemala?"

"Oh, yes, — and governesses, and tutors. And if Billy decides to be an engineer, he will have the chance to see American engineers working on some of the most interesting problems in the world."

"Lucia has had in many ways as good an education as they have," added his wife. "And she knows two languages."

Lucia Bastido was a little Central American, daughter of a professor in the University of Guatemala, whose mother had been a schoolmate of Mrs. Carroll's. After her mother's death she had been sent to the United States for three years' schooling, and had become almost an adopted daughter in the Carroll family. "The children would learn Spanish in Guatemala," said Mrs. Carroll, as the front door closed with a bang, "anyway."

"What do you mean, mother? What are you home so early for, Dad ? What's it all about ? " The children, rosy from the sharp November wind, came pelting in from school. Lucia, following more quietly, did not join in the clamor, but her big dark eyes were full of eager questioning.

"Too long a story to tell before dinner, children," their father answered, smiling. "You've only a few minutes to spare," he added, looking at his watch and then at Billy's grimy fingers and Elizabeth's bright, ruffled hair. Still wondering, the children took the hint, but their voices could be heard in lively discussion, for they felt that some great plan was in the air.

"They'll be wild to go," said Mrs. Carroll. " They are always begging me to get out my Indian embroideries and show people those photographs we took. After all, I taught twenty-five . or thirty children in a class before we were married, and I suppose I could teach them now."

"And when they're twenty and twenty-two instead of twelve and fourteen," her husband observed, "who's going to know the difference? I studied my Latin and geometry in the sugar house, watching the sap boiling in maple-sugar time, and the other fellows in my class got theirs, some of them in a preparatory school and some in other ways, but it was the same Latin and geometry after all. Betty will learn to play the piano and guitar, and ride well, and dance, in Guatemala just as she might at home. This country's too big to demand that all its children shall be run through one mold."

The children came in, very much on their good behavior, and Guatemala was not mentioned until the soup had been served. Then their father took pity on them and explained.

"This suspense is heart-breaking, isn't it? I'll tell you now that we may possibly go to Guatemala to live. You mustn't say a word about it till it's decided, though. Think how you'd feel if the news got all over town and then we didn't go !"

The children looked rather solemn. Billy's eyes were big and dark with excitement. Elizabeth squeezed Lucia's hand under the table. At last Billy inquired :

"Where should we live, father? On a ranch?"

"No ; at least not for a year or two. We may have a ranch some day, but my office would be in Guatemala City, probably. There are many families who are English or American or who speak English. But if we go there we must try to know Guatemala and its people just as we expect any one who comes from another country to live here, to know and understand our people. We must make it our home."

This was a new idea to the Carroll children. While they were thinking it over, their father turned to Lucia.

" Your father plans to come North for you in December, Lucia. Perhaps we may all go together. We should have to leave during the Christmas holidays to reach Central America in the dry season. I haven't had a vacation in two years, and I should have to travel through the Central American countries and look over the field before settling down. My idea would be to take you all with me, so that you could see something of the country at the beginning. We should land at Colon — "

"And see the Panama Canal!" exclaimed Billy. For the last two years he had studied every account and map and picture of the big canal that he could find in magazines, books, and newspaper supplements. When he was only a little fellow he had made mud dams in the brook on his grandfather's farm, and played with water wheels and dug new channels for the stream. Billy intended some day to be a civil engineer.

"They have parrots," said Elizabeth, "and bananas and oranges."

"Orchids," said Mrs. Carroll.

"And snakes," said Billy.

"Snakes don't five in cities," said Elizabeth, "do they, father?"

"It will be hot there," said their mother, warningly.

"It isn't hot in Queza tenango," Lucia remarked in her soft little voice. "It's the coast cities that are so very hot."

"What made them build their cities in disagreeable places?" asked Elizabeth.

5 " That's about as intelligent a question as people usually ask about a foreign country," her father answered. " Not all the cities are hot and uncomfortable. Three fourths of Central America is cool and pleasant. The lowland country along the coast is hot and unhealthy, but inland it is mountainous country with a temperate climate."

"Then why don't they live there ? " persisted Elizabeth.

"I need an atlas to explain that," said her father, "unless you have a map in your head, which is the great reason for knowing geography, Betts, my dear. Get that map of Central America that has the heights of the mountains marked, and we'll have a lesson here and now."

Mr. Carroll swept most of the dishes still remaining on the table to one side, to make room for the great map. Four heads bent above it as his long pencil pointed out one place after another.

"Before the canal was built, all the ships had to go around the Horn, but here and there, along the coast, they would stop for water and supplies. In the old days of sailing ships most of the Central American fruits could never have been taken to our markets, because they would have spoiled. It is always summer in those tropical waters, remember. Ships in the business of trading between New York and San Francisco came near Central America all along the west coast, and in that way the west coast came to be settled first.

"Cities aren't built where they are because people found a place that was pleasant to live and said, 'Let's have a city.' They grow up in places where people have to live on account of business. The ships must have a good harbor, and people who come to the coast with things to sell to the sea captains must have storehouses to put them in, and there must be boarding houses or hotels for the sailors and merchants and travelers who come into the town. If there is a rich country inland where a great many things are produced, and many roads come from it to the seaport, and the harbor is so large that many ships can anchor there, the port may come to be a big city like London, Hamburg, Marseilles, New Orleans, or New York.

"But this wasn't the case in Central America. You see this long range of mountains all down the middle of it like a backbone. Look at the heights of those mountains marked on the map. No matter what grew there — coffee, or mahogany, or grass for cattle — whatever came down to the coast had to come over mountain trails on the backs of men or mules. That's an expensive way of carrying freight, you see. Bananas, one of the chief crops of Central America, need low, hot, moist land like this near the coast. But until very lately it cost so much to get goods to market from the inland country that traders let Central America alone and gave their attention to countries where the profits were bigger. In New Orleans, for instance, you find a city to which all the produce of the Mississippi Valley could come by boat, and did, for half a century."

"Well, how is it any better in Central America now than it ever was ? " asked Billy. " Did the Panama Canal make a difference ? "

"Yes ; and there are other things that have changed," answered his father. "That's where electricity and engineering come in. There is water power which can be made to run factories, either directly or by using it for electrical plants. Engineers can bridge canons and build new roads and invent ways to make mining profitable. Sanitary engineers know how to make life safe in an unhealthy place. There's an immense amount of wealth in Central America ; all we have to do is to figure out a way to get it to the markets. The people of these republics know it, perhaps even better than we'do. They need us and we need them."

"What steamers go there, Dad?" asked Billy, who still remembered his visit to the wharves where ocean liners lay awaiting their passengers.

"The fruit companies have their own steamers, and we'll probably take one of those if we go," his father replied. "This is the route," he added, tracing it with his pencil.

"If we go!" repeated Elizabeth. "Seems to me we are going. Aren't we, mother?"

"I think we are," laughed Mrs. Carroll.

''New York harbor was growing small in the distance."

Chapter Two

When a robin hatched in spring finds all his family ready to go South for the winter, he must be surprised to see how easily they leave their pleasant summer home. As the Carroll children saw their home packed away in boxes and their mother busy with lists of things to be bought and done, they felt rather like young birds getting out of the nest for the first time. They had to answer all sorts of questions from their friends at school, and almost every day some plan for the coming winter had to be met with the reminder :

"But we aren't going to be here then, you know."

Then one evening their father came home with the steamer tickets, and they began to feel that they were really going.

"Our rooms are the best in the boat," said Mr. Carroll with satisfaction. "They're on the windward side — the ocean side."

"What difference does that make?" asked Billy, the practical.

"The trade winds blow from the ocean and make that side of the boat cooler," explained his father.

"B-r-r! Cool, in this weather!" shivered Elizabeth.

"Three days after we leave port," remarked her mother, tucking the fifth white dress into Elizabeth's little new steamer trunk, "you'll be glad of these white linen suits even if it is December."

The furniture and whatever else was not needed for traveling would go straight to Guatemala City. The Carrolls took with them only steamer trunks and hand bags, and a hold-all containing rugs. Not only the trunks but most of the clothes that went into them were new, and Elizabeth said that they had "skipped a winter and got their clothes ready for next summer." White linen suits, soft broad-brimmed hats, light waterproof coats, light underwear, and a few light woolen garments had to be provided, and Mr. Carroll warned his wife that laundry work was often unsatisfactory and that he was going to lay in a supply of soft collars and neglige shirts. Into his trunk went his well-worn riding-suit and leather leggings; and mosquito nets, ready made for hanging over beds, were among the curious things provided for emergencies. The two cameras were provided with films carefully packed for the tropics.

In the midst of their preparations came Christmas, and all the presents that they gave each other as well as most of those from relatives and friends were chosen for use on the journey. Mrs. Carroll made out a list of things which would be useful, and it was passed around among the uncles, aunts, and cousins, who were very indefinite in their ideas of tropical life and only too glad of further information. Thus the Christmas gifts received that year included traveling bags, toilet sets, and suitcases, all as light in weight as possible, silk sweaters, maps, books on Central America, rugs, umbrellas, and a fine camera for each of the three children.

"At this rate," chuckled Mr. Carroll as he tucked some new ties into his scientifically packed steamer trunk, "we shall not find ourselves in the position of the man who went to sell snow plows in Brazil."

Elizabeth's eyes grew round with astonishment. " Father ! Nobody ever did ? "

"I have heard so, my dear. He probably didn't come out as well as Lord Timothy Dexter. He was a queer old fellow who lived in Newburyport in the great days of sailing ships, more than a hundred years ago, and he sent a cargo of warming-pans to the West Indies. The sugar planters took off the lids and used the longhandled pans to ladle out their sirup."

"I can tell you truthfully," said Senor Bastido, who had come to spend Christmas with his little daughter and her friends, "that a large consignment of fur-lined coats was once shipped to Honduras. Honduras is only fourteen degrees from the equator."

"I know of a house in New York," added Mr. Carroll, " whose export department not only sent handsome catalogs printed in English to correspondents who knew only Spanish, but inclosed perfectly good United States stamps for replies. A stamp, of course, is no good outside the country that issues it, except to carry a letter to some foreign country. You couldn't post a letter here with an English or French stamp on it, and have it reach its destination. It would be returned to you, possibly, or it might be treated like a letter with no stamp at all."

"Yes," said Senor Bastido, "when one builds a castle in Spain one should not be disappointed when it vanishes into the clouds.

I am afraid many of the dreams of a great trade with Central and South America are nothing but castles in Spain with no foundation to carry them."

"Father," said Elizabeth, who was getting a little out of her depth in this conversation, "what do you mean by a castle in Spain?"

"Just what you heard just now — a dream that has no foundation. I have heard that the saying came from the fact that there are no castles in Spain, so

that a man who bragged about his estates there was drawing on his imagination. But it is true that many of the companies which have been formed to trade with our southern neighbors are simply got up for the purpose of getting something for nothing by cheating some one else.

"We shall go to Central America to give as well as to receive, I hope. If I didn't believe that I have something to give to Guatemala I should stay where I am. Every one has something to give to his neighbors. We shall adopt the ways of Central America when we find that

A cook in a Central American city returning from market.

they are better than ours, considering the place and the climate, and they may like some of our ways better than they do their own. When a man starts out to get as much and give as little as he can, he is likely to lose what he has. Fate comes back at him just as a rubber ball flies back when you bounce it against the wall. Every action, good or bad, has its reaction. We want to be pioneers, ready to build on a good foundation."

The children rather liked to hear their father talk when he was thinking aloud. They did not always understand all he said, but they felt that he was speaking of big things, and wanted them to see how he regarded them.

When at last all the preparations had been made, and each of the children had been sure some treasured possession was left behind, and had found it safe after hasty search, the Carrolls found themselves on board the steamer. New York harbor with its towering down-town buildings was growing small in the distance. The blue water sparkled under a brilliant winter sun. The keen wind made them button up coats and sweaters.

Three days later all the steamer chairs were occupied by passengers in white linen, exchanging stories of the tropics.

There was a grim-looking old Scotch doctor on board, who turned out to be especially friendly to children. They never tired of hearing his quaint rhymes and stories of the Scottish mountains and lakes.

"I wish things like that happened in America," said Elizabeth, one day. "I know about Pizarro, of course, and the Incas, and Sir Francis Drake, but nothing very exciting seems to have happened since the explorers came."

"Ay, do ye say that?" asked the old doctor, with a twinkle in his eye. "Weel now, let me tell ye there's a tale about this vera Isthmus of Panama — they called it 'Darien' two hundred years ago. It was a real Castle in New Spain. Did ye never hear of William Paterson and the Darien Company?"

Nobody had. Mr. Carroll sat down on the foot of his wife's chair close by and listened as eagerly as the children.

"Ye may have heard of the persecuting of the Covenanters," Dr. Macgregor began, "and the wars between England and Scotland for two-three hundred years? After all their experience o' that sort, the Scots were none too willing to be friendly ; and when William and Mary strove to unite them under one flag with England, they held off. But there were those even in Scotland wha thought it a good thing and favored the Union.

"Now, William Paterson was frae Dumfries, where my ain family lived, and must ha' seen something o' the persecution o' the Covenanters. They say that when he was a lad of eighteen he was one of those who risked life and liberty to carry food to the refugee ministers hid in the glens. When the officers heard of it and came to arrest him, he fled and went to the West Indies. There were plenty of his own folk there — the Scotch are aye roving about the world — and he learned the ways o' the country and traded in one thing and another. Some say he lived awhile in New York. In time he became a rich merchant in London, and that was no so easy for a Scot in those days. He founded the Bank of England in 1692, and organized a company to give London a better water supply ; and they say he surveyed the part that's now called Bloomsbury and planned it out for houses with gardens and open parks around them.

"He was just wonderful in his knowledge of accounts, William Paterson was. As the Bible says, 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings.' The King had a good head for business, and he listened to all William Paterson had to tell o' the wonderful new country in the tropics.

"It was William Paterson the Scot, I'd have ye mind, wha could see more than two hundred years ago the vision of yon Panama Canal. He said the Isthmus was 'the door of the seas and the gateway o' the world.' He made it plain to the King how goods might be carried over mountain trails from one ocean to the other where the neck of land was narrowest, and save the long voyage round the Horn. He told him furthermore that by the Providence of God this Isthmus was the last bit of land unclaimed in this part o' the world. He said that if a colony o' righteous, God-fearing traders were given

House building and plastering in Central America.

the right to found a settlement on that little strip o' land between the seas, there would be some day a second city of Tyre.

"So long as they thought it only talk, the English merchants didna trouble their heads. But at last the King granted the charter to the Scots, and the subscriptions for shares began to come in like snowflakes on the moor. The Darien Company took in a million pounds, — that's five million dollars, — almost before they knew it. The subscriptions came in from England and Holland and France as well as Scotland, and there seemed no end to them.

"Then the East India Company in London were in fear that the new Scotch company would be getting their trade away from them. They were like what ye call a trust nowadays. There was wealth enough in the New World for every one, but they couldna believe it, and they were in a state of great fear. And it's a coward, always, that is cruel.

"But while the Londoners were talking to the King and Parliament, the Darien Company was fitting out ships, five of them, and twelve hundred men ready to go. Not a man of them but was sure of coming back wi' shiploads of gold. Some grasping ones got control of the Company, and at last they let Paterson go just as a supercargo — a kind of clerk. They were mad for gold. He tried to advise them, but they paid no heed. He told them to take care they had stores for a nine weeks' voyage, but they never even did that. Then when they were out to sea they found there had been dishonesty there and they had food for only six weeks, some of it not fit to eat.