Isthmiana/A Bestia

A Bestia
I was informed, on credible authority, that Don Marco had forty thousand dollars in silver buried about his house. His possessions in cattle straying over the unclaimed prairies were enormous. He had three or four melancholy young sons, whom he intended sending to the United States to be educated. He asked my advice on the subject. I gave him the best. I wish I had given him the worst, — the old villain. He thought he had discovered a coal-mine. I hope he spent all his money, and found his coal black stone; — for he sold me a horse.

He had promised to supply us with horses, and we had a most plentiful breakfast, in which a banana omelet figured nobly. Presently arrived our friend Don Ramon, with a servant carrying two big bags of plata ($2,500), which he was to pay to Don Marco for cattle. The sum was mostly in francs and half-francs. They were fresh and bright from the mint, the first issue of Napoleon III. As the half-franc is current in the country for the real, or eighth of a dollar, our shilling, it has been profitable to certain parties to import them largely into the country, a dodge well understood by omnibus drivers, and on the Staten Island ferries. Don Marco and his major-domo seated themselves at opposite ends of a long table, and, piling up the sum in the middle, began to count in by four pieces into calabashes.

A sound of galloping announced the arrival of our horses, — two for hire to the next stage and one for sale. And I was to buy him. Shade of Bucephalus! what a charger! He had been, said our host, the favorite horse of his wife, but had now been turned out for a year. If so, I do not wonder that she looked worn and melancholy. The animal was a small, crisp, wiry stallion of a vicious yellow-dun color. He looked like an ill-bred bull-terrier exaggerated into a horse. His mane and tail were matted with briers. He was hung with garrapatas; at every attempt to eradicate these, be snorted and jerked wildly at the hakima or hair-rope which fastened him. His appearance was unprepossessing in the extreme; but he was the only thing to be had, and he looked vicious enough to be hardy and enduring. O Don Marco, who took advantage of the necessities of a traveller to sell him a most villanous beast, may your spirit expiate its crime in the world to come by riding saddleless and bridleless battered upon that beast to whom early in our acquaintance I applied the name of Bungo! Then, Don Marco, thumped upon his back-bones when he pounds you in his trot, and bounced, as a pilot-boat bounces from crest to crest of waves in a chopping sea, from tail to ears of his skeleton as he gallops, may you shuffle, stumble, tumble, along to that limbo of unrepentant thieves, which, if there be any faith in religion, awaits you to all eternity. Yet more, — may your sons be sent to the United States; may they learn everything that young Spaniards generally learn; may they go home, and in your lifetime dissipate your hidden bags of plata; and may they be domineered in future by my progeny, inevitable Yankees. Hector Hippodamos, hear my prayer!

We left Don Marco with a calm sense that we had been villanously cheated, for we had paid enormously for our fare. But I, mounted upon Bungo, was too much occupied to express my sentiments of affectionate adieu. Bungo did not wish to leave his native groves and fields; I persuaded him, first gently, with suggestive words and shaking of the bridle, then more decidedly with whip taps, and at last with repeated lunges of my cruel spurs. When he concluded to go it with a sudden impulse, he did not, however, succeed in leaving me at that time. I fought him for five miles, and had him tamed, as I thought; but suddenly there came up a shower; I pulled out my mackintosh, and, letting go the bridle for an instant, essayed to pass it over my head. When I picked myself up from the mud, Bungo was half a mile on his way home. José followed him at full speed, whirling his lasso, and I was soon remounted.

We passed an immense enclosure of green meadow, fenced in by a hedge of prickly wild pine-apple. It must have contained at least a half-section. Picturesquely grouped over its graceful undulations, or straying wild over the surface, were hundreds of horses, the late companions of my steed. Here, as we passed through the copses, we found numbers of caoutchouc-trees, with their bright laurel-like leaves and drops of milk-white sap exuding from chance broken twigs. They formerly exported much india-rubber from this neighborhood, but it was found that, selling the stuff by weight, they forgot to take out the stones they had used for a nucleus. Toward evening, riding hard and steadily, we emerged upon a vast plain. Before us it swept far away toward the horizon; the eye was lost in its reach, and in the imagination of a boundless stretch beyond the horizon. This lake of verdure, only occasionally rippled by the breeze that chased the declining sun, flowed smoothly up to the base of the mountains, the main ridge of the Isthmus. One mass of jagged peaks marked itself sharply against the sky, its glens and dells vibrating in a cobalt atmosphere, as the heat of the day seemed to quiver forth. This Sierra of Olla is a landmark for a great distance; but upon the plain was an isolated conical hill stretching two long arms away from the parent range, and enclosing an exquisite bay of meadow. Everywhere numberless herds of cattle were grazing, scattered occasionally by a dashing horseman, who emerged from the mass dragging a bullock by his lasso skilfully attached to the horns. To the eastward the plain spread level to the sea, and sometimes the eye caught a bright gleam, as some adventurous wave sparkled upward to catch a last smile from the setting sun. We galloped twelve miles over this level Llano of Pocri, and at sunset reached Pocri, a pastoral village.

We dismounted at the house of N.’s friend. He was off shooting pigeons. In front, a girl was occupied in strewing corn in a circle, like a fairy ring, of thirty feet in diameter. Some religious ceremony, I thought, and quite in accordance with the primitive and charming simplicity of this patriarchal life. Presently she stepped aside, and opened the gate of a small enclosure. Then the pigs, not in a greedy tumult, as Americans at a hotel, but with the calm confidence of a man who goes to his own well-appointed table, at his own house, came forth and ranged themselves about this magic circle. A verdant sward was spread, over their table. They were chatty over their banquet, and occasionally some sally of one of them would rouse a unanimous murmur. I inferred contentment and general development of the finer social qualities by the remarks they made, which were quite as intelligible as the ordinary conversation of similar select circles. It is worthy of notice that the only meat served up was pork, but in the varied forms of ham, shoulder, side, cheek, head, toes, spare-ribs; in fact, they went the entire animal. It was a scene for a Hogarth.

Our friend arrived with a string of pigeons and a small deer over his shoulder; He had also seen and shot at a tiger-cat. We made a jolly supper and evening of it, and concocted, as appropriate to the meridian, a wonderful salad, a salad worthy of Sancho Panza; then we strung our hammocks here and there, and slept deliciously in the cool atmosphere of this subalpine locale.

We made but a short ride next day to Natà, passing along the wooded edge of the same magnificent Llano. The cattle were very fine, generally of a delicate mouse-color, like those of the South of Europe. One noble bull occupied in imperial solitude a beautiful glade of the forest, his fitting palace. The woods were alive and resplendent with macaws, parrots, paroquets, doves, changames, and multitudes of unknown but beautiful birds; in all opening in the woods we found a council of turkey-buzzards surrounding in black deliberation their richly attired sovereign, el Cacique de los Gallinazos, and I had my first glimpse of the ocellated turkey, the peacock of turkeys. All that ride I fought resolutely with Bungo.

Natà was quite a village. The bells of its church were hung in a tower, and regularly rung with ropes, instead of being placed on a frame and tapped with a stone by the bare-legged sacristan. The priest was a “brick,” a very jolly ecclesiastic of the hedge order. He had tried marriage, then military life, and preferred his present state in the Church triumphant with good reason. He was very sorry that we were not Christians, but Protestants, and asked if the priests among us were in his style. He and quite a party were to go next day, the feast of the Annunciation, to Penonomé, whither we were also travelling.