The San Francisco call., 1909-03-08
MULES ONLY .
THING DEPENDABLE

OF all things in Central America the
mule is the most and man the least de-
pendable. A good Honduran mule will
do hundred miles in "a hours He
will do 40 and so miles day after day
jog, jog, jog. at three or four miles an
hour No horse can follow him. The
records Of the cavalry endurance tests
In EuroTA are regularly outdone. It
never occurs TO Central American TO
dismount when the path is of Jagged
stones up declivity. When I did so
L overheard the moso who accompanied
me saying to another:
The gringo was so sore that he got
OF when he came to a bad place"
They are mad. the gringos Did he
swear when he did it?"
No
Then he was not sore. He was
afraid he would fall"
NAfter days of this hoof scraping of
rocks and plug, plug. through sloughs
with an occasional shot at an iguana
by the roadside. / concluded that the
mule did not mind whether | was on
his back or not. He was a machine. a
freight engine of blood and bone and
tough sinews, unconscious of a little
extra freight.
FLIES COOKED TO ORDER
When night came he had no groom
Ing and frequently he walked through
the dining room to the stable, which
nobody minded in the country inns. but
not in the hotels of the capitals nor in
the larger hotels nor in the leading
hotel of Guatemala, which does. all re-
ports TO the contrary notwithstanding
draw the line at some things. 1t was
here that 1 asked my waiter If he could
not put the flies between the yolks of
la fra-f x,Fx - -
albumen blanket.
TN take them back to the cook" he
said; and the cook sent another dish
with a fly nicely placed between the
yolks for that mad gringo. 1t seems
to me that the cook won.
After the third day l asked for a
clean towel. The chamber man scuffed
away timidly, as if he were on the road
to the scaffold. and after a quarter of
an hour returned with one having the
service stripes of a veteran. L appealed
another came, brown antediluvian
that must have served as the only
towel in a suite occupied by a large
family.
= wanted a clean towel. not diff
ferent towel" / explained, but my wit
was lost as a desert wind.
Such idiosyncrasies as this and CALI
ing for an orange for breakfast mark
you as gringO. Does the dairy
farmer eat grass? Should a well to do
Central American descend TO anything
relatively as cheap and Indigenous
You ask in vain for the pineapples, the
alligator pears-and what luscious
aguacates they do have in Guatemala
and all the other fruits which grow
abundantly The only way is to send
ont a boy to pick some or to bring
them from market OF course the
poorer people eat bananas and fried
plantains.
The well to do seem to rate their
standing in society by the amount of
meat they consume. and a meat diet In
a hot climate must be responsible for
much of the disease. People who will
take tablespoonful of tabasco as if it
We're a tablespoonful of catsup are
addicted to certain hot dishes which
no amount of hunger will make palat-
able TO us. If you mistake the chiles
in the center of the table for pickles
and try one, as you rush for the
pitcher the Filipino water cure appears
to YOU as a benign Institution.
HOTEL RATES
$1,000 4 WEEK
The occasional traveller from abroad
who appears at one of the larger hotels
is the fairer mark for eXtortion be-
cause Of his rarity. A former Italian
waiter al the Carlton in London runs
the hotel at Managua. He charges
YOU one Carlton price in gold and an
other Carlton price in the paper of
the country.
Some years ago a British diplomatic
agent came for stay of four weeks
His bill was $4,000. The wine ac-
count with champagne at $40 a bottle.
he would not dispute. because he said
it was his duty TO have looked at the
price list. But he did finally compro-
mise on total of $4,000 How much
OF this the president of the republic
received as his knock down" history
does not say. Presumably enough to
pay for the official banquet to the vis-
itor. It was certainly an awful price
for the eggs and soup, which is about
all that the foreigner may safely eat.
How will you have your eggs?' is
asked much oftener than How is your
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