Recollections of a Busy Life — Chapter XVIII, Part 1

CHAPTER XVIII. TRAVELS.

One of the most remarkable developments of modern times has been the increase in the facilities for foreign travel, with the consequence that travelling has become the pastime of the many, and not the privilege of the few.

In the 'sixties and 'seventies travelling was difficult.

In the first place, a passport had to be obtained, with the visé of the ambassador of every country through which it was intended to pass.

It usually took ten days to procure this, and there also had to be faced the difficulties of the Customs at the various frontiers, the absence of through train services, and the general halo of suspicion with which foreigners were regarded on the continent, and which led frequently to unpleasantness.

In 1860, on my way to Trieste, I was detained at Turin, and at the hotel I met Mr. Ed.

Lear, R. A.

, the author of the _Book of Nonsense_, who was on his way to paint a picture in Italy.

Mr. Lear made a few pen-and-ink sketches for me.

When I arrived at the Austrian frontier at Verona, these were found in my baggage, and I was detained for twelve hours while enquiries were made about me by telegraph.

Another time, I was staying at the little Portuguese town of Elvas, and walked across the frontier to see Badajos, the scene of the memorable siege during the Peninsular war.

On entering the town, I was asked for my passport, which I produced, but as it had no Spanish visé I was placed in charge of a gendarme, who with a drawn sword marched me across the frontier back into Portugal.

These little incidents serve to illustrate the suspicion which surrounded travellers on the continent.

In addition to my voyage round the world, already described, I paid annual visits to the Southern States of America, in connection with my firm's cotton business, and I also spent some time in Portugal and the West Indies.

In no department of travel has more progress been made than in ocean travel.

I crossed the Atlantic in 1861 in the "City of Washington," of the Inman Line, and returned in the Cunard steamer "Niagara," the voyage each way lasting twelve days, and they were twelve days of great discomfort.

The sleeping accommodation was below the saloon; the cabins were lit by oil lamps, which were put out at eleven o'clock at night;

the air was foul and stifling; and there was an entire absence of ventilation.

In the saloon, above the dining-tables, trays filled with wine-glasses swung from side to side with every roll of the ship; the saloon was lit by candles, which spurted grease and smelt abominably.

There was no smoking room provided, and we sat in the "fiddlee" upon coils of rope, while the sea washed to and fro, or else we tried to get under the lee of the funnel.

What a change has taken place, and how greatly the electric light has contributed to the comfort of travellers by sea!

THE FRANCO-GERMAN BATTLEFIELDS.

The most interesting journey I ever made was in 1871, when with my father and the late Dr. Grimsdale and Mr. Ryley I visited the Franco-Prussian battlefields.

The war was not ended and the German army was still surrounding Paris, which made travelling difficult, but we met with great civility from the Prussian officers, and visited the battlefields of Saarbrück, where the Prince Imperial received his baptism of fire, Wörth, Hagenau, Weissenburg, Gravelotte, where we found men still burying the horses slain in the battle, Mars-le-Tour, Metz, and finally Sedan.

We gathered many trophies, but were not allowed to bring them away.

Wherever the Prussians made a stand and were slaughtered in their hundreds, as at Gravelotte, we found pieces of small German Bibles, and we were told that every German soldier, from the Emperor William downwards, carried a Bible in his haversack.

COSTA RICA.

The year after I retired from business, in 1891, I visited Costa Rica with my eldest daughter, to inspect the railway in which we were much interested.

The country from Port Limon, which lies on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, bathed in a tropical sun, to San José, the capital, is most picturesque and remarkable for its deep ravines, its rapid rivers, and its wealth of vegetation.

On leaving Port Limon we passed through long and deep valleys filled with palms and every species of tropical plants, which made us exclaim that we might be in the Kew conservatories.

We gradually worked our way up 5,000 feet to the plateau upon which San José is situated, and the scenery hereabouts reminded us of an undulating English landscape, such as we have in Kent or Surrey.

The railway was then in its infancy, and in a very rickety condition; it was said that the man who travelled by it for the first time was a hero, and if he travelled a second time he was a fool.

But reconstruction was already in progress.

We were much interested in the banana cultivation, as it supplied cargoes for our steamers sailing between Port Limon and New York, a trade which has since developed into gigantic dimensions.

We had all the anxiety of finding the capital necessary to finance both the banana industry and the railway, and like most pioneers we did not secure the reward; it went to an American company, who reaped where we had sown.

My daughter and I had a charming trip to Cartago, and ascended the volcano of Iritzu, 13,000 feet, and from the summit had a view of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

We made also a trip to the Pacific coast on horseback; it was a long journey, and in order to escape the heat of the sun we travelled chiefly by night.

We passed innumerable waggons drawn by bullocks and laden with coffee for shipment from the Pacific coast.

It required some vigilance on our part to prevent our horses being struck by the long horns of the bullocks as we passed by.

We had eventually to leave the high road and strike through the bush, the Indians going before cutting down with their _machettes_ the vines and tree branches which blocked the path.

We returned only a few days later, yet such is the rapid growth of tropical vegetation that the Indians had again to clear the track.

We stayed the second night at the village of Esperanto, and early next day reached the Trinidad gold mines, situated on the mountain side looking down on the Pacific coast.

I shall never forget the view which stretched out before us.

There was the Pacific Ocean lying opalescent in the bright beams of the morning sun, and studded with little blue islands, looking like so many blue beads upon a silvered mirror.

On our way out from Jamaica to Limon we spent two days at Colon.

The works on the Panama Canal were in active operation.

We went a little way up and saw enough to convince me that the French would never make the canal.

The waste of money was prodigious.

We saw a train of trucks loaded with cases side-tracked into the bush and completely grown over.

The sickness was also terrible.

Every day a funeral train came down to Colon from the works with bodies for interment, and grave spaces in the cemetery were so scarce that they were let at a rental of so much a month.

Now, thanks to the researches of the Liverpool Tropical School of Medicine, these pestiferous swamps have been rendered innocuous.

JAMAICA.

I made a voyage to Jamaica in 1864, the year of the rebellion, and had the pleasure of staying with Governor Eyre.

The rebellion at one time assumed a very grave aspect, and the governor got into serious trouble, because, to save the situation, he shot several of the rebel ringleaders, after a trial by drumhead court-martial.

I fully believed from what I knew of the circumstances that he was justified in doing so, and his action prevented a serious outbreak, but he was made the scapegoat.

I have visited Jamaica several times, and until I had seen Ceylon, considered it the most beautiful island in the world.

MEXICO.

In 1892, when on a visit to America with my daughter, I was asked to proceed to Mexico, to endeavour to induce the Mexican Government to give their National Bonds in exchange for the bonds of the Mexican Southern Railway.

These had been guaranteed by the several Mexican States through which the railway passed, but there had been default in the interest payments, and the bonds were in consequence greatly depreciated in value, the bond selling in London for . I thought it was a hopeless mission, but decided to go.

We proceeded from New York through Arkansas and Texas.

It took us thirty-six hours in the train to cross Texas, travelling all the while; this will give some idea of the great size of this state.

On our way we saw in the newspapers that an insurrection had broken out in Mexico, headed by Gusman.

The New York papers had long detailed accounts.

This induced me to break our journey at Laredo, which is situated on the frontier of Mexico, as I did not wish to expose my daughter to any danger.

On my arrival at the hotel at Laredo, I sent for the landlord and asked him where the rebellion was.

He replied, "Right here, sir, in this hotel."

I could not understand what he meant, and desired him to explain himself.

"Well," he said, "I will tell you how it was.

Some reports reached the north that a civil war had broken out, and one day fourteen newspaper reporters arrived.

They came to this hotel and sent for me, and demanded how they could get to the seat of the war, and where Gusman, the leader of the rebels, was to be found.

I told them there was no rebellion, and that I had seen Gusman in Laredo a few days before, selling cattle.

They were not, however, satisfied, and said that they had come down to write up a civil war, and a civil war there must be.

They stayed in this hotel ten days, sending to the north every day long accounts of the progress of hostilities, and then they returned home."

I thought this was one of the best stories of the methods of American journalists that I had ever heard, and as I knew it to be true, I repeated it to President Diaz a few days later, on my arrival at the city of Mexico.

The old President was much amused, and said it reminded him of the story of a tiger.

He received news that the people of a certain village were being destroyed by a tiger, and dared not venture out for fear of the animal, so he sent down a company of soldiers; they found it was quite true that the villagers were scared to death, but there was no tiger.

A puma is called in Mexico a tiger.

When I told the President the object of my mission to Mexico he laughed, and exclaimed, "Did I think he was going to give me his good money for my bad money?"

In my heart I thought he had very aptly described the situation, but I replied that I hoped to convince him that the good credit of Mexico was in jeopardy by my railway bonds being in default, and if the Government would step into the breach it would place the credit of Mexico in a high position in the London money market.

I,

however, made very little impression upon him.

I was asking for Mexican bonds worth £900,000 for my railway bonds worth at the outside £250,000. I had several interviews, but met with very little encouragement.

I,

however, got to know the President, and he became very friendly and pleasant to me.

On one of my visits he told me of his birthplace, Oaxaca, situated about 200 miles south of the city of Mexico; he was evidently very proud of it.

He spoke of the beauty of the situation, the richness of the country, both in the fertility of its soil and mineral resources, and the industry of the Indian population.

I thought it would not be a bad idea to run down and see Oaxaca.

I was doing no good in Mexico, and I should also be able to see something of the Mexican Southern Railway, which ran about half the way to a place called Tehuacan.

We proceeded by train to Puebla, where I left my daughter, and then down the long broad valley of Tehuacan.

Every few miles we came to a magnificent church, which formerly had been the centre of a village or town, for during the Spanish occupation this valley contained a population of 1,000,000, and was very fertile and rich.

We saw now and again the aqueducts and tunnels which had conveyed water through the valley for irrigation.

At Tehuacan we passed through several fine cañons; here we took horses, as the railway was not completed beyond this point, and rode through a very delightful country.

The first night we slept at an Indian village, or tried to sleep, but were disturbed by the barking of dogs.

Every house appeared to possess a dog, which made it its business to howl and make the night hideous.

The village was quite tidy, the houses mostly built of bamboo and thatched with dried palm leaves.

The Indians themselves, in their wide-brimmed hats and white calico clothes, often wearing woollen ponchos, were picturesque and interesting.

On our arrival at Oaxaca we put up at the hotel, which was far from inviting, and then called upon the governor and the archbishop, the latter an Irishman with a decided brogue; he is a very rich and powerful man, and practically rules over his diocese, both in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs.

Oaxaca was a charming little town, prettily situated in a valley; in the centre of the town is a public garden and bandstand.

One of the secrets of President Diaz's popularity is his sympathy with the love of music so general among the Indians, and he has wisely provided every little town with its orchestra.

We were much interested in the market, and saw the country people bring in with their produce little nuggets of gold, which they had washed out of the gravel beds on their farms.

The Indians in these parts consist of two clans or tribes, the "Black" and the "White Hats"; the "Black Hats" were a troublesome people to control, but so far as I could see, the Indians are an industrious and well-conducted people.

On my return to the city of Mexico, the President was greatly surprised and delighted when I told him where I had been.

He was much interested and asked me many questions, and from this moment my mission appeared to make headway; I had made the President my friend.

A bill was introduced into the Legislature authorising the issue of Mexican bonds in exchange for my railway bonds.

Although it met with some opposition, the President was all-powerful, and it passed the Legislature, and in six weeks I received the new Mexican government bonds for £1,000,000. I can well remember the smile of the chief clerk in the Treasury when he handed me the bonds.

I asked him why he laughed; he said such a rapid thing had never been done in Mexico before, and he could not quite see why they should have hurried in this way; nor could I, save that my daily presence at the Treasury acted as a gentle stimulus.

We returned home via El Paso and Denver.

The directors of the Mexican Southern Railway were greatly delighted at my success, and presented me with a cheque for £1,000. I look back upon this journey with much pleasure, not only from recollections of a very beautiful and fascinating country and people, but having enjoyed the friendship of two very remarkable men--President Diaz and Signor Don Limantour, the present finance minister in Mexico.

One day in course of conversation with the President, I mentioned my great admiration for Signor Don Limantour, and I added that he had been educated at Stonyhurst, in England, which I considered a great advantage to him.

It was, therefore, very gratifying to me to learn shortly after I had reached England that he had been made finance minister, with the understanding that he would succeed Diaz as President.

In the hands of two such capable men the future of Mexico is assured.

President Diaz is a man of great commonsense and of strong will.

To consolidate his rule in the early years of his presidency he was obliged to be severe.

The country was infested with banditti, who put a stop to all commerce and travel.

Diaz, when he caught the banditti, made them into rural guards, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, and by this means he quickly restored law and order.

Even when I was in the country gibbets were still to be seen, some having hanging to them the remains of their former victims.

For some years after I returned President Diaz occasionally corresponded with me, and I kept him informed of the condition of things in Europe, and in particular of the position of Mexican finance in London.