Isthmiana/Granada Hospitality

by Theodore Winthrop

Granada Hospitality

Hospitality is the virtue of scantily inhabited countries. When a man can make his own room his castle at an inn, he ceases to become a social animal. It is delightful in Oriental regions to be the guest of the Pacha, and to take your coffee and your pipe in his serene presence; but would the distinguished foreigner arriving at Washington be pleased were he forced to take his cocktail and cigar only at the Presidential mansion and in the Presidential presence? Infer not from this decay of hospitality, O reactionist, O laudator temporis acti, that man has become selfish, that this seclusion is from dislike of society. No; for this is the great secret of the highest civilization, that it alone has made the independent development and perfection of the individual possible; it is only in a crowd that you can truly be alone. The unenlightened draw together like trees in a copse, and are dwarfed. Their public opinion is general, minute, Procrustean. Public opinion enlightened is as simple as the noblest music and the highest art. It says only, “To thine own self be true; thou canst not then be false to any man.” Even in the dense forest of society a man may find a spot for spontaneous growth, and the sincere, untrammelled broadening of a character will always be worthy. Cut off sunlight from the infant oak, or admit it only through a gap in foliage, and your tree will be stunted or grotesque. The best education is one that starts a man in life emancipated from crushing conventionalisms; and that is a bad system that sends out machines or oddities, — for oddity is in social life often only the unhealthy and distorted action of a vigorous character, which, if there had been no attempt at clipping or trimming, would have been marked, but not singular.

But to return. Though I, as a civilized man, might not approve of the civility which obliged me to quit the unquestioned liberty and permitted sulkiness of my bachelor quarters at my inn for the abode of my millionnaire friend, yet it is very different in a country where there are no inns. The village of Parita was, as I have hinted in my last chapter, not marked by the delicate neatness of its houses. In fact, there was only one structure meriting the name of house. This was inhabited by Don Pedro G., the representative of the district, just elected for a two years’ term. It was easy to persuade ourselves, in reply to his kind invitation, that we were rather conferring than receiving a favor in becoming his inmates. Don Pedro was a cultivated fellow; and, while our dinner was preparing, we fell into a literary chat. He read me some verses from a Bogota newspaper dedicated to a young lady who had been his particular star at a picnic to the Falls of Tequendama.

Presently dinner was announced by a girl bringing a small silver basin, and a thin linen towel, embroidered at the ends with gay flowers and birds. Each guest performed his slight ablutions.

The house consisted of one large room, paved with tiles, rough and unfurnished. Several small sleeping-apartments opened into it, and the kitchen and pig-yard were contiguous. The ladies of the family did not appear. occasionally, however, we had a glimpse of a slender form, limply undressed, and a dark, impassive face, “melancholy and mild-eyed.” The calm indifference and resignation of all these people is more than Mahometan. Time, is of no value; life seems of none. Their answer to a question is Quien sabe, to a request, Poco tiempo. But no doubt our activity and interest seem quite as unnatural to them. Which is right?

They may be dilatory and indifferent, but the dinner, when it came at last, was artistic. Happy is the man whose nature or cosmopolitan habits have made him omnivorous and unquestioning.

Our dinner commenced with a thick rice soup, very nice. Then sancoche, a stew of beef, chicken, yam, plantain, and rice, with Chili peppers, strips of tasajo or jerked beef fried, a dish of boiled vermicelli, omelet with chopped pork, boiled ground maize finer than our hominy, fried and roasted plantain, thick tortilla, cheese, sweetmeats, and a sort of maize pudding called tamal. Bordeaux wine was upon the table, and the dinner ended with coffee. Our breakfast was nearly the same, except that we had chocolate instead of coffee. Everything was offered with quiet hospitality and freedom. Dimora V. en su casa.

My English friend picked up a nag in the course of the day, for which, under the pressure of need, he paid forty-five dollars, — and, as he had brought a saddle, was henceforth independent. It was not till noon of the next day that we others succeeded, by the kind aid of Don Pedro, in hiring “bestias.” But I had no saddle, and our host could not let me depart without a complete outfit. He rummaged among his stores, and produced a Galapago, or dilapidated English saddle. Nothing had sat upon it lately but birds, and it looked like one of the Chincha Islands. A girth was soon manufactured of ropes’ ends. A neighbor supplied stirrup-leathers and a crupper for three dimes. We disinterred from a heap of rubbish a monstrous pair of wooden Costa Rica stirrups, clumsy as sabots. Shabby as the whole turnout seemed, it not only served me admirably, but I sold it at the end of the journey for four dollars, which I hereby promise to pay over to Don Pedro, in champagne or other liquid, when he comes to see me. The half is more than the whole. A saddle is sometimes more than a horse, and in South America, as well as among the North American Indians, will sometimes buy two. Fortified by a letter of introduction to another great proprietor at Santa Maria, four leagues distant, we started about noon.

We rode again over green savannas, sprinkled with noble, broad-spreading trees, and with fresh, verdant circles hedged in a belt of shrubs, and protected without against all intrusion by a belt of the prickly pimula, outlying the island like a coral reef. Wild turkeys whizzed away before us; deer bounded away, as I have seen them, on the prairies of Illinois, fly startled from the whistle and roar of the intrusive train.

But this was too bright to last. The rainy season was not over. You have been under the sheet at Niagara? Yes. Then you have had a momentary impression of a rain in the tropics. My shoulders were protected by a mackintosh, but my straw hats, — I wore two, one above the other, not in Rafael Mendoza’s style, but on account of the heat, — my hats were pervious, and the drops trickled by the way of my spine into my boots. As we proceeded, we found dry ravines becoming water-courses, presently torrents, until at last we were obliged to wait at one swollen stream dum defluat amnis. The rain ceased, and the brook fell visibly, as it had risen, and we plunged through. Here a highly respectable old citizen, Don Ramon G., overtook us, and imparted life even to our apathetic Mexican companions by informing us that, unless we despatched we should find the river Costal impassable. So it was hurry-scurry through the mud. But it was too late; the Costal was up. We were beginning to think of a camp in the mud and water, when Don Ramon’s servant, who had been prowling about, discovered the semblance of a canoe across the stream. He denuded himself and horse, and plunged in. We meantime waded to an island, around a noble tree, and under its imperfect shelter we unpacked our pulpy luggage. Wet is the most disheartening thing to a traveller; — to come into camp at night chilly and cramped; to spend a fruitless hour in trying to kindle spongy wood with flashes of wet powder; to try to relish a bit of damp biscuit with raw pork; to be deprived even of the consolation of a pipe; and at last to spread your wet blankets on the wet ground, and, yourself wet, to creep between them. However, sleep comes even thus, and though it is disagreeable to wake by a louder blast and more pelting shower, and find that your weight has made a depression in the ground, and this depression has become a pond, still dawn comes, and you wake to the consciousness of misery. Stiff though you be, cold and breakfastless, you must rouse, and, painfully packing and saddling, pursue your disconsolate way. But the road is reviving, the sun appears, you are warmed and cheered; and when the nooning time comes, with a bright clear sky and a good fire, and your traps spread out to dry, you forget the past discomforts. Though I have many times known nights such as I have described, fortunately on this occasion nothing of the kind was in prospect. We were wet, to be sure, and shivering, with the thermometer at seventy-five degrees; but our lively little horses would soon gallop over the savanna to our resting-place, and the sun was scattering the thick clouds and throwing broad beams of glittering light across the plain. As we stood waiting on the bank, a noble drove of the half-wild cattle of the country came by at full speed, the half-naked drovers shouting and plunging in among them. They came galloping down to the bank, tossing their heads in the air. One moment there was a tumultuous mass of picturesque cattle, the next only some tossing heads were seen scattered in the water. With one grand conwulsion, as Mr. Weller would say, they struggled up and out upon the opposite bank, and then, with a snort and a shake, they scampered like a tempest away through the rain-dripping glade behind us, the air resounding with the curses of their drivers.

Meantime our goods had been ferried and our horses swum across. Everything was in a pulp; but when you are once thoroughly in for anything, whether it be issuing spurious stock or a wetting, you are certain that things cannot be worse. Don Ramon asked us to make them better by a little agua diente at his house, only a mile or so out of the way. Leaving the woods upon the river we issued upon a vast savanna, stretching unbroken, save by a few exquisite islands of thick groves, far to the central sierra of the Isthmus. The jagged summits cut sharp against the brilliant sky of sunset. Over a few of the highest, white mists floated, snow-like. At once there, came to my mind a sense of familiarity with the landscape. Where had I known this boundless spread of meadow, where those clearly defined snow-ridges, cold before the last glow of twilight? It was the plain of Lombardy, and my fog-capped mountains were the Alps.

Don Ramon was the owner of countless thousands of cattle, and they were selling in Panama, not one hundred miles off, for forty dollars per head; but nevertheless the residence of Don Ramon was little better than a shed, and the liquor which he called by courtesy Cognac was very untoothsome agua diente. Still it was spirit, and infused itself into us, tingling through our chilled veins, and giving us an impulse for our night ride to Santa Maria. The prairie would have been a glorious gallop when dry, but now we plunged wearily through the mud and water, and strayed about among the devious cattle-paths. Beating and spurring my tired horse, and somewhat bored, though calmed, by the dim evening, now become dark night, and by the solemn grandeur of the deep blue mountains against the sparkling violet of the sky, I was by no means displeased when the flashes of myriad fire-flies gave place to the steady gleam of the village lights.

Don Marco received our letter, and, with no great empressement, I thought, gave us shelter. Perhaps I misjudged him; the manners of the people are apathetic, and he profited enough by our visit to have felt a thrill of joy at our approach. We were soon refreshed by hot coffee and dry clothes, and provided with hammocks and cots. Then Don Marco and our Spanish companion talked droningly till we were lulled asleep.