The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-08-19
A 97-MiIe Journey Which Re-
 quired IS Hours
COAST BACK 15 MINUTES
Loss Was Not Recovered for Four Hours-Englneer Used the Whls- tie All the Way-Mahooany
 Fence Whitewashed.

 oceanic Railway are numerous and har- rowing dating his letter fram San Pedro Sulu, Honduras, which he reached after a journey of thirty-seven miles in eight cen hours.
 Our leaving time was o'clock, says the writer, but we didn't pull out of Puerto Cortes until 10 In the morning. The nondescrlpt affair which they call train down here consisted of a wood burning engine, four flat cars and 0 passenger coach. Duh crew was con- posed of an engineer. half dozen fire 1 men, one brakeman and the conductor.
 There was an extra man, but In the whole vocabulary of railroads l find no name for him. Ills position, however was q commanding one. and, as subse- quent events proved. q most important one. He perched himself on the front of the engine, above where the cowcatch- CT should be, and upon occasion indus triously laded sand from a box beside him to the rails in front
 Our numerous fremen passed the wood from the cars to the engine, and at vari- ous points along the road turned into a bucket brigade and supplied water from nearby streams to the engine. The en- 1 gineer was a Jamaican imbued with an extraordinary pride for the land of his nativity and given upon occasion to de- claring that he was not native of Hon duras-he was a British object" Jerry, l fear, is something of a gay Lotharlo, | and on his frequent trips over the road has worked sad havoc In the hearts of rIr. A.. invariably announced our approach to a village by putting the hard pedal on the whistle, and the entire population | turned out to greet us
 Train Slipped Back.
 Jerry's strenuous musical efforts came near causing a catastrophe at one point l where we encountered a very heavy grade. Just before we reached the top of the hill Jerry thoughtlessy pulled the whistle cord, and in the screaming blast that follower the steam gave out | and the train began to slip back. AL thought the cars were without brakes of any kind, the company had prepared for such emergencies by providing a mahog- any log on the rear platform, to be dropped under the rear wheels. Unfor- tunately the rear brakeman was asleep on a flat car in front. and before he | was so great as to render our remedy unavailing. We ran so fast and so far In the next fifteen minutes that it took us four hours to get back.
 At Laguna a stop of forty minutes to re- plenish sand and water afforded oppor- tunity to take note of our surroundings and our fellow passengers. The latter were mostly natives and not over clean. They were nice and soclable and fra
 
 My neighbor on the right was a sonora of unguessable age, with complexion of antique oak. She took pity on my tender years and inexperience and lav- ished a bunch of lingo on me that drove out of my head in the first round all my carefully prepared Berlltz vocabulary She was regular Waterbury lngust.
 Spanish falling me in a pinch resorted to the sign manual and we got along fairly we'll Somewhere midstream in the torrent of language which she directed at me I detected a familiar phrase and gallantly offered her a cigar The ex- panslve smile which greeted my donation proved my interpretation to have been correct. Wandering around the village I was struck by q neat and attractive little cot tage which invited closer inspection. It was incosed by a broad fence. an un- usual feature here. As drew near discovered that the fence was made of mahogany boards. With the extreme good taste which Is so characteristic of these natives the owner had carefully whitewashed 1t.
 Magnificent Scenery Unfolded.
 Leaving Laguna, the train plunged into a tropical swamp and forest. The foliage was indescribably luxuriant and beautiful Mile after mile we passed through arch ways of bending palms, gigantic In size and through groves of corozo trees. To my mind the latter is the most perfect representation of the picturesque In trop- ical vegetation. Its trunk Is clad in the richest attire of parasitic life; it's won derful feathery leaves, often thirty or forty feet in length bend in elegant and graceful curves under the weight of their own luxurance or the burden of ornamental vines. while beneath all this mass of tropical richness may be seen clusters of those delicious cahorn nuts hanging like immense cornucopias and containing two or more bushels
 For a distance we passed beside a deep. swift stream. which flows for miles through a wild jungle, in the eternal shadow of the gigantic celba, cedar and rubber trees. between whose moss and vineclad trunks grow palm trees of every description. Nature, all giving and boun- tiful, Is here revealed. Precious woods are so common that rosewood Is often used for telegraph poles and the ties are of mahogany.
 Emerging from the jungle, we came to the banana plantations and here learned that this remarkable railroad transports to the steamers GO per cent of the bananas which enter New Orleans. Practically all of the bananas consumed west of the Ohio river are carried on the railroad to the seacoast