Part 7

We departed through the fields again, past the barb-wire boundary line, across the river, and up among the foot-hills, leading to the mountain close at hand. When the topmost crest was reached I stopped for a last look at the Yegnare Valley, at San Francisco lying below, at San Morano farther in the distance, at the mountain looming up in the background, beyond which lies Tegacigalpa, and then I turned with strengthened spirit to the task before me.

To my surprise, at this height we emerged from the woods, to find ourselves on a most extensive plain, very properly called, in the Spanish, La Mesa--the table. Here we encountered the wagon-road leading from the capital to our destination and for a long distance we followed it. After we left La Mesa it was simply horrible, and all my attention became absorbed in self.

By no means is any one to presume that my mule and I had become reconciled by our lengthened companionship. Discomfort amounting to positive agony had taught me to adopt more attitudes, graceful or ungraceful, than all the combined systems of Delsarte and other physical culturists could possibly suggest.

Every muscle in my body had been so frequently called into requisition that to use any one almost drew forth an involuntary scream. In various places the skin had been worn away by constant friction of the clothing or saddle, leaving highly sensitive sores, even my gauntlets reducing my wrists to such a state.

Words cannot express what I suffered. The torture had been of a less acute kind while we were riding over comparatively level roads, but here we were going "up hill and down dale" again, and how I was to bear it I could not see.

I tried to be brave, and I think rarely, if ever, a complaint passed my lips, but during that last day I more than once nearly committed suicide through sheer physical exhaustion.

My stock of reserved strength proved to be far greater than I had ever reason to believe it, and demand for more endurance was always met.

When my mule had some particularly difficult obstacle to surmount, she had a way of approaching it quietly and then suddenly giving a hump that filled her spine with complex curves and a burden, unless care were exercised, with compound fractures. In order to insure one's safety it is absolutely necessary to preserve an exact equilibrium directly over the said spine in a line running from the point midway between her ears to her tail. This is at times so gigantic a task that it is no wonder a temporary oblivion to bodily sensation is induced.

Poor mule! In moments when I could summon up any spare sympathy, I lavished it upon her. She seemed to be tired too.

Finally, when going down steep ravines, she ceased to lower herself and me gently from one foothold to the next, but acquired a habit of thumping down in a reckless way, giving a sort of grunt, which sometimes, for the life of me, I could not help accompanying with a groan that seemed to come from my very shoes. I had no fear of falling. In fact, I think I should have hailed it as a delightful change could we have rolled down a cliff and finished even life's journey with this one.

Lunch time found us in the midst of a pine forest, but such a sparsely grown one that the shade was a mockery. Heat, hunger, and those delightful insinuating little insects known as woodticks were not conducive to our happiness here, and more than glad were we when the arrival of our food bearer gave promise of an early change of scene.

We ate up everything we could, and then, with every nerve tingling with joy at the speedy home-coming, we mounted our faithful carriers for the last time.

Very soon after this we left the abominable but so-called wagon road, and took a short cut over the mountains. It would be but vain repetition to describe our "ups and downs" for the next few hours. The agony was just as exquisite, the scenery was just as grand and variable, but as far as I know it the English language contains no words of sufficient intensity to express more than I have already iterated and reiterated.

Presently a not far distant peak came in sight, and as we clambered up higher we could see more and more of it until finally, on an elevated plateau at its base, there appeared a collection of houses. Across that intervening space I could gain no idea of what the village would be like, but I remember thinking that, with that glorious mountain to look at, I could never get homesick.

Here a rapidly approaching horseman came in view, who proved to be still another youth whom I had known in the States, and under this double escort I rode past a suburban mining camp, across the great plaza crowded with Sunday idlers, down another street, through a broad doorway into a paved courtyard, and found myself at last at home in Yuscaran.

Kind hands assisted me to dismount, and led me to the gallery-like corridor above, filled with friendly faces, and from there into a spacious parlor that seemed like a palace after my recent experiences.

In consideration of my fatigue I was almost immediately shown to my own room, which I found luxuriously perfect in all its appointments.

In the preceding six days I had learned a good deal that was new, but it remained for the revelation of this moment to teach me what gratitude is. A wave of thankfulness came over me that sent me to my knees, and ever since then I have been content just to be glad I am alive.

Yes, my cousin, that mule was worse than even you knew--infinitely worse than a wheel, thanks to which I lost some twenty-five pounds in six weeks, while in as many days the mule reduced me to a mass of lacerated skin, fractured bones, and maddening flea-bites. Should you and my gracious captain friend ever meet, may the kindly Fates order my presence elsewhere!

But for the others I have no cheering report of fulfilled predictions.

My complexion has been admired for its fairness, a quality it still possesses--by comparison; I have searched long and vainly among the surrounding inhabitants for even one barbarian; I have failed to feel either sea-sickness or home-sickness; I have never been more perfectly healthy, and no dread fever seems to have selected me for a victim; I have found no snake coiled within my shoe of a morning, nor have I discovered one as an unwelcome bedfellow at night. Truth to tell, you are all wrong, but one, and now hear me.

Until railroads, flying machines, balloons, seven-league boots, magic wishing-rings, or some such means of transit are adopted in Honduras, I choose to stay here and grow up with the country, for never, while I have breath to object or heart to consider self, will I spend another six days "on the hurricane deck of a mule."

ALMIRA STILWELL COLE.