Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1895-08-30
BY MuLE-PATHIN HONDURAS.

d cefidtHlN HO IlRuI W COuhpldlh VI NhdI
was to the natives their only means of
communication with the outside world
1t is interesting to think of a country abb
solutely and entirely dependent on such
a thoroughfare for every necessity of
/ life. For whether it be postal card or
a piano, or bale of cotton, or a box of
matches, it must be brought to Teguc-
galpa on the back of Il mule or on the
shoulders of man, who must slip and
slide and scramble over this trail for
nine days.
Sometimes this highroad of commerce
was cut through the living rock in steps
as even and sharp as those in front of
brownstone house on Fifth Avenue, and
so narrow that we had to draw up our
knees to keep them from being scratched
and cut on the rough walls of the pas
sageway, and again it led through jun
gle so dense that if one wandered three
wards from the trail he could not have
found his way back again; but this dan
ger was not imminent, as no one could
90 that far from the trail without having
first hacked and cut his way there. twas
not always so difficult; at times we came
out into bare open spaces, and rode up
the dry bed of a mountain stream, and
felt the full force of the sun, or again it
led along ledge of rock two feet wide
at the edge of precipice, and we were
famed with cool damp breaths from the
pit thousand feet below, where the sun
had never penetrated, and where the
moss and fern of centuries grew in a
thick dark tangle.
We stopped for our first meal at bare
place on the top of mountain, where
there were half-dozen mud huts. Jetls
went from one to another of these and
collected a few eggs, and hired a woman
to cook them and to make us some cot
fee. We added timed things and bread
to this luncheon, which, as there we're no
benches, we ate seated on the ground
Kicking at the dogs and pigs and chick
ems, that snatched in a most familiar
manner at the food in our hands. In
Honduras there are so few hotels that
travellers are entirely dependent for food
and for place in which to sleep upon
the people who live along the trail, who
are apparently quite hardened to having
their homes invaded by strangers, and
their larders levied upon at any hour of
the day or night.
Even in the larger towns and so-called
cities we slept in private houses, and on
the solitary occasion when we were di-
rected to hotel we found bare room
with pile of canvas cots heaped in one
corner, to which we were told to help
ourselves. There was a real hotel. and a
very bad one, at the capital, where we
Jared much worse than we had often
done in the interior; but with these two
exceptions we were dependent for shelter
during our entire trip across Honduras
upon the people of the country. Some
times they sent us to sleep in the town
hall, which was "A large hut with mud
floor, and furnished with a blackboard
and a row of benches, and sometimes
with stocks for prisoners; for it served
as a school or prison or hotel, according
to the needs of the occasion.
We were equally dependent upon the
natives for our food. We carried break
fast bacon and condensed milk and sar-
dimes and bread with us, and to these We
were generally able to add, at least once
a day, coffee and eggs and beans. The
national bread is the tortilla. 1t is made
of corn-meal patted into the shape of q
buckwheat-cake between the palms OF
the hands, aad then baked. They were
generally given to us cold in huge pile,
= and were burnt on both sides, but un-
touched by heat in the centre. The
coffee was always excellent, as it should
have been, for the Honduranian coffee /:
as fine as any grown in Central America
and we never had too much of it; but OF
eggs and black beans there was no end
The black-bean habit in Honduras i
very general; they gave them TO us three
times day, sometimes cold and some
tunes not. sometimes WIFI DdCOu ant
|. sometimes alone. They were frequently
served to us in the shape of sandwiche;
between tortillas, and again in the form
0 of pudding with chopped-up goats meat
Q At first, when they were served hot,
t used to think them delicious. Tina
seems very long ago now. When | was
at Johnstown at the time of the flood
there was a soda-cracker, with jam inside
which was served out to the correspond
a ents in place of bread; and even now, Il
it became question of my having tC
2 subsist onIthose crackers, and the blacl
beans of Central America, or starve
r / am sureII should starve, and by prefer
, ence.
We were naturally embarrassed at frs
when we walked into strange huts bu
the Iowners seemed to take such inva
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