Six Days On The Hurricane Deck Of A Mule Part 3

Time, a good deal of time, pa.s.sed before our servant came, but there he sat. The lunch was spread and partaken of long and heartily, and still he calmly surveyed us, not at all in an impertinent way, but just as if he were honestly interested. We offered him some jelly, which he ate in a totally unabashed manner, but withdrew not his gaze. We ignored him, but he took not the hint. Stay there he did until we were remounted, and then for miles and miles he rode along with us.

We were rather amused than otherwise at his course, though perhaps we experienced a scarcely recognized feeling of relief when we came to a place where our roads lay in different directions. He shook hands with us in the same friendly, impressive, almost warm manner, and then galloped merrily off as if he had fulfilled an arduous duty and now felt as if he had a right to enjoy himself.

Shortly afterward we came to a height overlooking the _Yegnare Valley_, one of the most beautiful and far-reaching scenes it has ever been my good fortune to behold.

Great pointed peaks kiss the sky on every side, and seem to shut out all the noise and strife of the world beyond, and like sentinels, grim and gaunt, guard intact the peace and prosperity of the vast plains within that natural wall.

Two farms occupy nearly all of the valley, and so extensive are they, that the farm-houses are four miles apart. The owner of both proved to be none other than the father of my companion, and though there was still one more day's journey before us, we already felt quite at home.

We made the descent and entered upon the broad domain of the _Hacienda de San Francisco_, the boundary of which, to my amazement, I found indicated by a very familiar American barb-wire fence.

We rode through fields where the gra.s.s waved high above our heads, over pasture plains where hundreds of cattle, mules, and horses roamed at will, and then, when the sun was sinking low, we came to the farmhouse, and here we dismounted to make our last night's stop.

The building is a remarkable one, having been a monastery years and years ago, when the Jesuit missionaries were devoting their energies and lives to the conversion of the untamed Indians.

It is one hundred and fifty feet long, probably one third as deep, and has walls a yard thick. All this is divided into five rooms--three large ones running the whole depth of the house and communicating with each other, and two smaller ones, one behind the other, and only had access to from the outside.

The floors are of stone, and it pleased me to fancy that many of the worn places had been formed by constant contact with the bended knees of the holy and indefatigable priests. The projecting roof of tiles forms a sort of porch, we would call it, all around the building, and is paved, as is also the yard for many feet. Beyond this the land gently slopes to a river, and still farther on a mountain rises up to limit the landscape and prevent our greedy eyes from drinking of beauty to a more than endurable state of intoxication.

It was blissful to lie in a hammock and watch the setting sun give here and there a lingering farewell touch as if loath to go and leave behind so much that was beloved, and then at the close of the short tropical twilight to see fair Luna crown, first with a halo of approaching glory and then with her own sweet self, the dark peak whose outlines rose sharp and clear against the star-pierced blue of the evening sky.

It was blissful, I say, to revel in this grand pastoral poem in the full consciousness that the transition to prose would be one of terror; to know that in one of the big, cool, clean rooms a comfortable bed was prepared for me, where I would lose myself in restful unconsciousness, guarded by the saint whose figure could be clearly defined in an old oil-painting on the wall, and which, with two others of a like kind, were relics, doubtless, of a chapel's previous decoration.

'Twas even so, and when I awoke in the morning to find a huge vessel of water from the river standing by a shallow tub hewn from the trunk of a tree, while near at hand were placed all the articles necessary for body and soul-satisfying ablutions, my perfect content knew not how to manifest itself.

Beautiful _San Francisco_! What happiness to fill the house with twenty chosen friends and there to dream away a month or more of idle joy!

Surely after such _dolce far niente_ days life could hold no bitterness for which we had not, in experience, a ready antidote.

Too soon, it seemed, we were forced to leave there, for we had a long, weary day of mountain climbing ahead of us.

"A bad road," Vincent said, and when he warned me thus I knew I could expect the worst.

We departed through the fields again, past the barb-wire boundary line, across the river, and up among the foot-hills, leading to the mountain close at hand. When the topmost crest was reached I stopped for a last look at the _Yegnare Valley_, at _San Francisco_ lying below, at _San Morano_ farther in the distance, at the mountain looming up in the background, beyond which lies _Tegacigalpa_, and then I turned with strengthened spirit to the task before me.

To my surprise, at this height we emerged from the woods, to find ourselves on a most extensive plain, very properly called, in the Spanish, _La Mesa_--the table. Here we encountered the wagon-road leading from the capital to our destination and for a long distance we followed it. After we left _La Mesa_ it was simply horrible, and all my attention became absorbed in self.

By no means is any one to presume that my mule and I had become reconciled by our lengthened companionship. Discomfort amounting to positive agony had taught me to adopt more att.i.tudes, graceful or ungraceful, than all the combined systems of Delsarte and other physical culturists could possibly suggest.

Every muscle in my body had been so frequently called into requisition that to use any one almost drew forth an involuntary scream. In various places the skin had been worn away by constant friction of the clothing or saddle, leaving highly sensitive sores, even my gauntlets reducing my wrists to such a state.

Words cannot express what I suffered. The torture had been of a less acute kind while we were riding over comparatively level roads, but here we were going "up hill and down dale" again, and how I was to bear it I could not see.

I tried to be brave, and I think rarely, if ever, a complaint pa.s.sed my lips, but during that last day I more than once nearly committed suicide through sheer physical exhaustion.

My stock of reserved strength proved to be far greater than I had ever reason to believe it, and demand for more endurance was always met.

When my mule had some particularly difficult obstacle to surmount, she had a way of approaching it quietly and then suddenly giving a hump that filled her spine with complex curves and a burden, unless care were exercised, with compound fractures. In order to insure one's safety it is absolutely necessary to preserve an exact equilibrium directly over the said spine in a line running from the point midway between her ears to her tail. This is at times so gigantic a task that it is no wonder a temporary oblivion to bodily sensation is induced.

Poor mule! In moments when I could summon up any spare sympathy, I lavished it upon her. She seemed to be tired too.

Finally, when going down steep ravines, she ceased to lower herself and me gently from one foothold to the next, but acquired a habit of thumping down in a reckless way, giving a sort of grunt, which sometimes, for the life of me, I could not help accompanying with a groan that seemed to come from my very shoes. I had no fear of falling.

In fact, I think I should have hailed it as a delightful change could we have rolled down a cliff and finished even life's journey with this one.

Lunch time found us in the midst of a pine forest, but such a spa.r.s.ely grown one that the shade was a mockery. Heat, hunger, and those delightful insinuating little insects known as woodticks were not conducive to our happiness here, and more than glad were we when the arrival of our food bearer gave promise of an early change of scene.

We ate up everything we could, and then, with every nerve tingling with joy at the speedy home-coming, we mounted our faithful carriers for the last time.

Very soon after this we left the abominable but so-called wagon road, and took a short cut over the mountains. It would be but vain repet.i.tion to describe our "ups and downs" for the next few hours. The agony was just as exquisite, the scenery was just as grand and variable, but as far as I know it the English language contains no words of sufficient intensity to express more than I have already iterated and reiterated.

Presently a not far distant peak came in sight, and as we clambered up higher we could see more and more of it until finally, on an elevated plateau at its base, there appeared a collection of houses. Across that intervening s.p.a.ce I could gain no idea of what the village would be like, but I remember thinking that, with that glorious mountain to look at, I could never get homesick.

Here a rapidly approaching horseman came in view, who proved to be still another youth whom I had known in the States, and under this double escort I rode past a suburban mining camp, across the great _plaza_ crowded with Sunday idlers, down another street, through a broad doorway into a paved courtyard, and found myself at last at home in _Yuscaran_.

Kind hands a.s.sisted me to dismount, and led me to the gallery-like corridor above, filled with friendly faces, and from there into a s.p.a.cious parlor that seemed like a palace after my recent experiences.

In consideration of my fatigue I was almost immediately shown to my own room, which I found luxuriously perfect in all its appointments.

In the preceding six days I had learned a good deal that was new, but it remained for the revelation of this moment to teach me what grat.i.tude is. A wave of thankfulness came over me that sent me to my knees, and ever since then I have been content just to be glad I am alive.

Yes, my cousin, that mule was worse than even you knew--infinitely worse than a wheel, thanks to which I lost some twenty-five pounds in six weeks, while in as many days the mule reduced me to a ma.s.s of lacerated skin, fractured bones, and maddening flea-bites. Should you and my gracious captain friend ever meet, may the kindly Fates order my presence elsewhere!

But for the others I have no cheering report of fulfilled predictions.

My complexion has been admired for its fairness, a quality it still possesses--by comparison; I have searched long and vainly among the surrounding inhabitants for even one barbarian; I have failed to feel either sea-sickness or home-sickness; I have never been more perfectly healthy, and no dread fever seems to have selected me for a victim; I have found no snake coiled within my shoe of a morning, nor have I discovered one as an unwelcome bedfellow at night. Truth to tell, you are all wrong, but one, and now hear _me_.

Until railroads, flying machines, balloons, seven-league boots, magic wishing-rings, or some such means of transit are adopted in _Honduras_, I choose to stay here and grow up with the country, for _never_, while I have breath to object or heart to consider self, will I spend another six days "on the hurricane deck of a mule."

ALMIRA STILWELL COLE.