Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/321

Rh next morning the courier returned, having procured a bungo, to be ready the next evening, and with a message from the owner that the embarcation must be at my risk.

Early the next morning I sent on an ox wagon with the luggage, and a stock of corn and grass for the mules during the voyage, and, after a pleasant ride of a league, reached the Viejo, one of the most respectable-looking towns in Nicaragua. The house of the owner of the bungo was one of the largest in the place, and furnished with two mahogany sofas made by a Yankee cabinet-maker in Lima, two looking-glasses with gilt frames, a French clock, gilt chairs with cane bottoms, and two Boston rocking-chairs, which had made the passage round Cape Horn. Don Francisco went over to the commandant. He, unluckily, had received his orders direct from the government, and dared not let me pass. I went over myself with Mr. Foster, the English vice-consul. The order was positive, and I was in agony. Here I made a push with my official character, and after an hour's torment, by the warm help of Mr. Foster, and upon his undertaking to save the commandant harmless, and to send an express immediately to Leon for a passport from the chief of the state, it was agreed that in the meantime I might go on.

I did not wait long, but, taking leave of Mr. Foster and Don Francisco, set out for the port. It was seven leagues, through an unbroken forest. On the way I overtook my bungo men, nearly naked, moving in single file, with the pilot at their head, and each carrying on his back an open network containing tortillas and provisions for the voyage. At half past two we reached the port of Naguiscolo. There was a single hut, at which a woman was washing corn, with a naked child near her on the ground, its face, arms, and body one running sore, a picture of squalid poverty. In front was a large muddy plain, through the centre of which ran a straight cut called a canal, with an embankment on one side dry, the mud baked hard, and bleached by the sun. In this ditch lay several bungoes high and dry, adding to the ugliness of the picture. I had a feeling of great satisfaction that I was not obliged to remain there long; but the miserable woman, with a tone of voice that seemed to rejoice in the chance of making others as miserable as herself, desisted from washing her maize, and screeched in my ears that a guarda had been sent direct from the capital, with orders to let no one embark without a passport. The guarda had gone down the river in a canoe, in search of a bungo which had attempted to go away without a passport; and I walked down the bank of the canal in hope to catch him alone when he returned. The sun was scorching hot, and as I passed the bungoes, the boatmen asked me if I had a