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Not far beyond we came out on the edge of a tableland with a splendid view of the valley of Comayagua, far below, almost dead level, some ten miles wide and thirty long, deep green everywhere, with cloud shadows giving beautiful color effects across it in the jumble of green mountains with the purple tinge of distance beyond which lay Tegucigalpa.
You see, we could not go back to Tegucigalpa until the steamer arrived which is to take us South of Panama and we could not go to Manaqua either and for the same reason that we had sent back our mule train and we would not wait in Amapala partly because of fever which had been there and partly because we wanted to get to Corinto where they have ice and to see Manaqua.
You will be pleased to hear that I am writing this in a fine state of perspiration in spite of the fact that I have light weight flannels, no underclothes and all the windows open. It is going to storm and then it will be cooler. We have had a bully time so far although the tough time is still to come, that will be going from Puerto Cortez to Tegucigalpa.
And then my eyes fell on a paragraph which at first I had overlooked a modest, brief despatch tucked away in a corner, and unremarkable, except for its strange date-line. It was headed, "The Revolt in Honduras." I pointed to it with my finger, and Beatrice leaned forward with her head close to mine, and we read it together. "Tegucigalpa, June 17th," it read.
He looked down at the throng on the wharf, and up and down the rail at his fellow passengers. Then he saw the girl again! He had seen her before. The first time had been at Tegucigalpa, at a ball given by some society people for charity. He had known her at once for an American, and finally had obtained an introduction. Her name was Kate Gilbert, and she lived in New York.
It is still six days to Tegucigalpa. The trip across Central America will certainly be one of the most interesting experiences of my life. It is the most beautiful country I have seen and the most barbarous. It is also the hottest and the most insect-ious and the dirtiest.
The best view of Tegucigalpa is had from Picacho, a long ridge from back in the mountains, ending in a blunt nose almost sheer above the city. Whoever climbs it recognises the reason for the native saying, "He who holds Picacho sleeps in the palace." Its town-side face is almost precipitous, and on every hand spread rolling, half-bare upland mountains.
The country reminded one of the California foot-hills in the dry season, and me, particularly, of Honduras and the road from the Pacific up to Tegucigalpa gravelly brown hills and tangled valleys with sparse pines and scrub-oaks; rocky slopes down which tinkled brown and white flocks of sheep and goats; sunshine and scarlet poppies and fresh wind; and over all a curious, quiet, busy web of war; a long shoulder, sharp against the blue, with a brown camel train ambling down it; a ravine with its arbor-like shelters for cavalry; wounded soldiers in carts, or riding when they were able to ride; now and then an officer on his cranky little stallion the whole countryside bristling with defense.
Why had Kate Gilbert whom he never had seen and of whom he never had heard until she appeared at the ball in Tegucigalpa avoided him in such a peculiar manner? And why had the misnamed Marie glared at him, and expressed loathing and anger when her eyes met his? "What the deuce " Prale asked himself again. Then a taxicab drew up at the curb, and he got in.
In Ecuador with one more man it would constitute a revolution. SANTA BARBARA January 25, 1895. DEAR FAM: We are not at Tegucigalpa as you observe but travelling in this country. "As you see it on Broadway " and as you see it here are two different things. We have had five days of it so far and rested here today in order to pay our respects to General Bogran the ex-president of the Republic.
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