Volume 2 — THE ROUTE OF THE NICARAGUA CANAL.

JULIUS FROEBEL.

[The waters which it is proposed to utilize in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, mainly those of the San Juan River and the Lake of Nicaragua, are of sufficient interest to call for some description at our hands, and we subjoin, from Froebel’s “Seven Years of Travel in Central America,” an account of a journey on those waters.]

At that time [1850] steamboats were not yet plying on the San Juan River and the Lake of Nicaragua, and I had to content myself with the accommodations of one of the large canoes of the natives called bongos, which were then the principal means of transport between the coast and the interior, for passengers as well as for merchandise. In company with two Americans, who, like myself, were anxious to proceed to Granada, I hired one of the largest of these clumsy little crafts, manned with ten boatmen or marineros, together with their captain or patron, all of them colored people from the interior. We laid in provisions for a fortnight, such being the full time of a passage which is now performed by steamers in two days.

We left San Juan on the 23d of November, and arrived at Granada on the 5th of the following month. In reference to the beauties of nature the trip is one of the most interesting that can be made, though the state of my health prevented my enjoying it.... An open shed, furnished with a hammock and surrounded by a plantain garden of half an acre, was the only improvement in an extent of more than a hundred miles. With this single exception, and with that of the site of the old castle of San Juan, more generally known by the popular name of Castillo Vièjo, the banks were covered with trees to the water’s edge, their branches often bearing a vegetation of vines, climbers, and parasites, so densely interwoven that the whole appeared like a solid wall of leaves and flowers.

I shall never forget the impressions of one night and morning on this river. Our boat had anchored in the midst of the stream. Strange forms of trees, spectre-like in the dark, stood before us, and seemed to move as the eye strove in vain to make out their real shape. From time to time a splash in the water, caused by the movement of an alligator, the bellowing of a manatee, the screeching of a night-bird, or the roar of some beast of the forest, broke the silence, and mingled at last with my feverish dream.

In the morning a song our boatmen addressed to the Virgin roused me from my sleep. It was a strain of plaintive notes in a few simple but most expressive modulations. Several years later I heard them again, sung by the Mexican miners in the subterraneous chapel of the quicksilver mine of New Almaden in California, and I never shall forget the deep emotion felt on both occasions, so widely different in every other respect. In the latter the scene passed in a narrow excavation before a little altar cut out of the natural rock, on which, before a gilded image of the Virgin, two thin tallow candles were casting their scanty light over the forms of fifteen or twenty men calling down the blessing of Heaven on their day of work in the interior of the mountain. In the former, it was in the brightness and splendor of a morning of which no description can convey a full idea to one who has had no experience in the most favored regions of a tropical climate. The sun was just rising, and as the first rays, gilding the glassy leaves of the forest, fell upon the bronze-colored bodies of our men, letting the naked forms of their athletic frames appear in all the contrast of light and shade, while accents plaintive and imploring strained forth from their lips, I thought to hear the sacred spell by which, unconscious of its power, these men were subduing their own half-savage natures.

At once the same song was repeated from behind a projecting corner of the bank, and other voices joined those of our crew in the sacred notes. Two canoes, covered from our view, had anchored near us during the night. The song at last died away in the wilderness. A silent prayer—our anchor was raised, and, with a wild shout of the crew, twelve oars simultaneously struck the water. The sun was glittering in the river. The tops of the trees were steeped in light, monkeys were swinging in the branches, splendid macaws flew in pairs from bank to bank; all around exhibited the glory and brightness of superabundant nature.

Near the mouth of the river, as far up as the higher end of its delta, the banks are almost on the water’s level, overgrown with reeds, mangroves, and a low species of palm-tree, the latter forming extensive thickets in the swamps. After a distance of fourteen or fifteen miles the land gradually becomes a little higher, and steep embankments of a brown or reddish clay rise to some ten or twenty feet above the water. The low palm thickets of the swampy region disappear, and a vegetation of splendid trees, mostly exogenous, overhung with blooming vines, takes their place. Flowery garlands, swung from branch to branch, hang over the stream, while now and then the slender shaft of one of the tallest species of the palm tribe wafts its little crown of feathery leaves high over the gorgeous masses of the heavier foliage.

Eight or ten miles higher up the region of the randales, or rapids, begins. Here the river, locked in between wooded hills, presents a new character of scenery. The trees, covering the hill-sides with an almost impenetrable forest, exhibit an extraordinary variety of forms in striking contrast. The most interesting situation in this region is that of the Castillo Vièjo. Here, where the river foams over a bed of rocks, stands the old Spanish castle of Don Juan. Since 1780 it has remained a ruin, though Nicaragua has always kept a few soldiers here, occupying a shed at the foot of the hill on which the remains of the fort are seen. In the civil wars of the last years this place has repeatedly been occupied and evacuated by the contending powers.

Among the rapids, that of the Castillo Vièjo is the only one that forms a real impediment in the navigation of the river. With the necessary caution canoes may descend, and I myself have passed over it on my way back to the coast in a bongo carrying forty passengers; upward, however, all boats must be towed, after having been unloaded....

Above the region of the rapids the river is almost stagnant, and the designation of the aguas muertas, or dead waters, is not inappropriately applied to it. It is a deep and still water, full of fish, with low and swampy banks, on which the palm thickets of the delta reappear.

Beyond this latter portion of the river the Lake of Nicaragua opens to the view. On the little promontory formed by the lake and the inlet of the river the custom-house of Nicaragua, designated by the high-sounding name of the “fort of San Carlos,” has been established. There are a few houses at this place, and a small military force is kept up to protect the establishment and, in case of necessity, enforce the payment of the dues. The ruins of an old Spanish castle still exist here, but they are hidden among the trees and shrubs with which they are overgrown.

The view from this elevation has a peculiar character of grandeur. At the foot of the hill a broad sheet of water is spread, studded, in the immediate neighborhood, with some green islands of diminutive dimensions, and extending, in a northwesterly direction, as far as the eye can reach. To the left, a low wooded shore begins at the outlet of the lake, and continues in that direction till it is lost in the distance of the western horizon. A chain of high mountains, cast in a shroud of dark forests, rises in the rear, covering an unknown region of Costa Rica. It comprises several active volcanoes, which on late occasions have illumined the surface of the lake by their flames and red-hot streams of lava. To the right, the view does not extend beyond the nearest hills; but at a short distance from the lake it ranges over a long line of broken eminences, with the mountain-chain of Chontales in the rear, bordering like a wall the table-land of Upper Mosquitia. Hill and dale, forests and savannas, appear in endless variety in this direction. On the distant horizon in the centre of the view the two cones of the island of Ometepe are seen, faintly traced, and as their forms are lifted upward by refraction, they seem to swim over the water.

At the very spot where the San Juan River leaves the lake the Rio Frio enters it. This is a river coming down from the mountains of Costa Rica, through an absolute wilderness which, it is asserted, has never been trodden by the foot of a civilized man. The dense forests of this region are inhabited by a warlike tribe of Indians who refuse to have any intercourse with the rest of the world. They are said to be of very fair complexion, a statement which has caused the appellation of Indios blancos or Guatusos,—the latter name being that of an animal of reddish-brown color, and intended to designate the color of their hair. It is stated that not only do they not allow a foreigner to enter their territory, but that they are even in the habit of killing those of their own people who again fall into their hands after having been away among the civilized inhabitants of the neighboring settlements....

While in California, I heard of a young German, living in the neighborhood of San Francisco, who recounts a little romance of adventures he met with among this people. Though the story was not told to me by the man himself, still, as it was repeated by a trustworthy friend who had derived it from the original source, I may be allowed to introduce it here.

The young man was on his way to California. When at San Carlos he had some difference or quarrel with his travelling companions, and, being afraid of a pistol-ball or a bowie-knife, took the desperate resolution of swimming to the opposite side of the river, where he soon fell into the hands of a body of these Indians. He was tied to a tree, and they then held a council as to the manner—so at least he believed—of putting him to death. Suddenly, however, as it has happened before in similar cases, a young girl, the daughter of the chief, hurried forth, clasped her arms round the neck of my blue-eyed countryman, and gave a favorable turn to his fate.

Of course, he married the girl, and, as the consort of this Indian princess, he spent a few months in the forest, till he was ungrateful enough to forsake his generous bride, and avail himself of an opportunity to swim back to San Carlos, continuing, after this romantic episode, his journey to California.

According to his statements, he would have remained with the Indians had he been able to endure the life in the wilderness, which he found rather too ill-provided with accommodations for enjoying his honeymoon. During the rainy season the tribe lived almost exclusively on the trees, and he speaks in very high terms of the dexterity with which they would leap from branch to branch, a mode of travelling in which he often found it too difficult to follow his nimble spouse. At the time of each full moon the whole tribe met in council, for which the place was designated from one meeting to the next by the chief, and whatever was done by common agreement was regulated according to the phases of the moon.

Some years before the period of my first arrival in Nicaragua, the officer then in command of the fort of San Carlos fitted out an expedition for the purpose of exploring the country on the Rio Frio, which is known to be rich in gold. This little corps, having hit upon a deserted village of the Indians on the bank of the river, and resting in the shade of some trees in the outskirts of the forest, was suddenly assailed by a shower of arrows, and, with the exception of the commanding officer, who was severely wounded, but succeeded in hiding himself between the reeds till a boat from the fort came to his rescue, every man of the expeditionary force was killed....

Our passage up the river had taken us nine days, making an average progress of about twelve miles per day. Three days more were spent in crossing the lake. With the native boatmen it seems to be a rule to abstain from using oars even when they are becalmed. Before we left the aguas muertas a small tree had been cut. This was now erected as a mast, a sail was spread, and slowly we began to move in the direction of Granada. Our navigation was of a very primitive kind. At night, while every soul on board slept soundly, our bongo was left to find its own way, which, however, it refused to do; for when we awoke at dawn I saw we were heading to the place we had come from. By and by, nevertheless, we drew nearer to our point of destination. When we had left the two peaks of Ometepe on one side, the summit of Mombacho, designating the site of Granada, gradually rose from the water. We passed the island of Zapotera, celebrated for its idols, which have been discovered and described by my friend Mr. Squier. It is uninhabited, and may be said to be a mountain covered with a forest, here and there interrupted by a savanna. Like other islands in this lake, it contains numerous wild animals, such as deer, peccaries, monkeys, and panthers....

On the evening of the 5th of December we doubled the outermost rock of the Corrales or Isletas, a cluster of more than a hundred diminutive islands at the foot of the Mombacho, and a few hours after dark landed on the playa, or beach, of Granada.