Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1894)
THE BATTALION. « which we only partially succeeded. After much quarreling and fussing with the landlord we succeeded in having our trunks brought ujc, which like every thing else is generally put off for the morning in that “dolce far niente” land. We then proceeded to introduce ourselves to the American consul, who proved to be a very amiable, cordial gentleman of good intellect, who takes great care that the United States flag should be protect ed. He is the same gentleman that re cently subdued the Nicaraguan govern ment, when that government fired on one of our merchant vessels. We spent a delightful evening at his house and were made to believe that on Washing ton’s birthday something extra would transpire. The next day we spent in roaming about the city and viewing its curiosi ties. There was, right opposite our win dows the ruins of an old cathedral, shat tered by the great earthquake in 1884, which followed by an eruption of the Traquez, devasted a great portion of the country. In the city park another great cathedral stoo 1 joined by the mansion of the bishop of the district, who, we were told was a thorn in the govern ment’s side, which did not surprise us, as Catholic priesthood and Catholic govern ment have for all times agreed to disa gree sadly. The park isabe 'utiful bit of ground, enclosed by great bread fruit trees and dotted everywhere with flower beds of exotic beauty, enlivened by the prattle of the parrot and children, alike. A band plays in this park three days in the week and every morning guard mounting is gone through with on its spacious walks. On the days of the con cert the park presents an ever varying ialaidesoope of bright colors, originat ing from the various shawls of the- senoras and senoretas, without which none of them would venture out into- the streets. Another interesting feature of this city of 20,000 inhabitants is its museum,,., which we visited in due time. It con tains an innumerable number of stuffed birds and animals, among which the parrot, monkey, catamount and panther were most conspicuous. They have an old Egyptian mummy there, the son of the Pharos. There is a fine collection of old gold coin§ and figures, amulets and idols recently discovered by a lucky fellow who received $80,000 for them from the government. Those of my readers who went to Chi cago probably saw the collection there,, as they were being gotten ready for shipment when we saw them. The cu rios we saw are too numerous to be men tioned, so I hasten hence only naming a ferocious looking living wild cat that tried to shake hands with us through its cage, but naturally we did not accom modate him. We spent several days ex ploring the sights of the adjoining coun try, visited Allahuela, the terminus of the railroad and made several excursions into the mountains, of which it will be interesting to describe only one. A party of ten started one morning on a back track to Carthago, there we hired necessary donkeys and guides to conduct us up the Traque. We left Carthago at. noon and traveled fifteen miles that eve ning to a little hamlet where we rested for the night. At four in the morning we were up and off to complete the- hardest part of the journey before Sol. would be able to spoil tire pleasure of it for us. We ascended steep inclines and sometimes followed the course of a