Her usual dress was a shift, with a whole sail-room of frills about the sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat (gowns being only worn by those fair ones as you put on a greatcoat—that is, when they go abroad), and a small round apron like a flap of black silk. Over these she wore a Spanish aroba, or 25 lb. weight of gold chains, saints, and crucifixes, and a large black velvet patch, of the size of a wafer, on each temple, which I found, by the by, to be an ornament very much in fashion amongst the fair of Panama. Her hair, or rather the scanty remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down her back. Like many excellent wives, she loved to circulate her spouse’s blood by a little well-timed opposition now and then; but she never tried her strength too far, and she always softened down in proportion as he waxed energetic and began to accelerate his motions, so that by the time he had given one or two hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out. They had no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black creature about four years old, which, being a female, the lady had christened by the familiar diminutive of Diablita.
Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, a little superannuated woman about four feet high if she could have stood erect, but old age had long since bent her nearly double; she was on the verge of eighty-five years of age, and had outlived all her faculties. This poor old creature, in place of being respectably lodged and taken care of, was allowed to go about the house, tame, without any fixed abode, so far as I could learn; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am sorry to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she was entitled to from her extreme helplessness. She had a droll custom of eating all her meals walking, and it was her practice to move round the dinner-table in this her dotage, and to commit pranks that, against my will, made me laugh, and even in despite of the feelings of pity and self-humiliation that arose in my bosom at the sight of such miserable imbecility in a fellow-creature. Thus keeping on the wing as I have described, it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs, occasionally snatching pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly, that the first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her yellow shrivelled bird-like claw in your plate.
The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very like Señor Justo himself. For instance, I always gloried in likening the latter to a dried prune; then, to conceive of his plump brother, imagine him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his skin, and there you have him.
This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like a porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The only time he had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima, the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly. But the continual cause of my annoyance—I fear I must write disgust—was the stepmother of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be; if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she—bah! and, as the devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me. Oh, she was a baloon! I have often expected to see her rise to the roof.
These polished personages may be called Señor Justo’s family, but it was occasionally increased by various others; none of whom, however, can I heave-to to describe at present.
The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar-boxes with wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon the whole forenoon, which drove me forth to look about me; but I returned about half-past two, this being the hour of dinner, and found all the family, excepting mine hostess, assembled, and my appearance was the signal for dinner being ordered in. I may mention here that this worthy family were all firmly impressed with the idea that an Englishman was an ostrich, possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times as much as any other person; and under this belief they were so outrageously kind that I was often literally stuffed to suffocation when I first came amongst them; and when at length I resolutely refused to be immolated after this fashion, they swore I was sick, or did not like my food, which was next door to insulting them. El Señor Justo’s fat dumpling of a brother thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when he was in Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died, and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invariably lost their appetites previous to their dissolution.
But to return. Dinner, being ordered, was promptly placed on the table, and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot thereof, while he sat on my left hand; so the party sat down; but the chair opposite, that ought to have been filled by Madama herself, was still vacant.
“Adonde esta su ama,” quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the black waiting-wenches. The girl said she did not know, but she would go and see. It is necessary to mention here that the worthy Señor’s counting-house was in a back building, separated from the house that fronted the street by a narrow court; and in a small closet off this counting-house my quatre had been rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been deposited. Amongst other articles in my commissariat there was a basket with half-a-dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a bottle of brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove’s care, to comfort us in the wilderness. We all lay back in our chairs to wait for the lady of the house, but neither did she nor Tomassa, the name of the handmaiden who had been despatched in search of her, seem inclined to make their appearance. Don Hombrecillo became impatient.
“Josefa”—to another of the servants—”run and desire your mistress to come here immediately.” Away she flew, but neither did this second pigeon return. Mine host now lost his temper entirely, and spluttered out, as loud as he could roar, “Somos comiendo, Panchita, somos comiendo;” and forthwith, as if in spite, he began to fork up his food, until he had nearly choked himself. Presently a short startled scream was heard from the counting-house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a loud shout, a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black servants came thundering across the wooden gangway or drawbridge that connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, driven onwards by their mistress herself. They flew across the end of the dining-room into the small balcony fronting the lane, and began without ceremony to shout across the narrow street to a Carmelite priest, who was in a gallery of the opposite monastery, “that their mistress was possessed.”
Presently in danced our landlady, in propriâ personâ, jumping and screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and spinning round like a Turkish dervish,—”Mira el fandango, mira el fandango—dexa me baylar, dexa me baylar—See my fandango, see my fandango!—let me dance—let me dance— ha, ha, ha!”
“Panchita!” screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, “tu es loco, you are mad— sit down, por amor de Dios—seas decente—be decent.”
She continued gamboling about, “Joven soy y virgin—I am young and a virgin—y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu—and you, old devil, what do you want, eh?—Una virgin por Dios soy—I am young,” and, seizing a boiled fowl from the dish, she let fly at her husband’s head, but missed him fortunately; whereupon she made a regular grab at him with her paw, but he slid under the table in all haste, roaring out,—”Ave Maria, que es esso—manda por el padre— Send for the priest, y trae una puerca, on donde echar el demonio manda, manda—send for a priest, and a pig, into which the demon may be cast,— send—”
“Dexa me, dexa me baylar,” continued the old dame—”tu no vale, bobo viejo,—you are of no use, you old blockhead—you are a forked radish and not a man—let me catch you, let me catch you!” and here she made a second attempt, and got hold of his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from beneath the table, until, fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off in her hand, and the little Señor instantly ran back to his burrow, with the speed of a rabbit, whi
le his wife sang out, “Tu gastas calzones, eh? para que, damelos damelos, yo los quitare?” and if she had caught the worthy man, I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself, as her threat ran. “I am a cat, a dog, and a devil—hoo—hoo—hoo!—let me catch you, you miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don’t peel off your breeches—I shall wear them, I shall wear them—Ave Maria.” Here she threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a gasp or two she started to her legs again, dancing and singing and snapping her fingers as if she had held castanets between them, ‘Venga— Venga—dexa me baylar—Dankee, Dankee la—Dankee, Dankee la—mi guitarra—mi guitarra—Dankee, Dankee la—ha, ha, ha!”—and away she trundled down-stairs again, where she met the priest, who had been sent for, in the lower hall, who happened to be a very handsome young man. Seeing the state she was in, and utterly unable to account for it, he bobbed as she threw herself on him, eluded her embraces, and then bolted up-stairs, followed by Mrs Potiphar at full speed.—”Padre, father!” cried she, “stop till I peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his breeches—Dankee, Dankee la.” All this while Don Hombrecillo was squeaking out from his lair, at the top of his pipe—”Padre, padre, trae la puerca, venga la puerca—echar el demonio— echar el demonio—bring the pig, the pig, and cast out the devil.”—”Mi guitarra, canta, canta y bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo te matarras—Bring my guitar, dance, dance and sing, you little old devil you, or I’ll murder you!— Dankee, Dankee la.”
In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was bodily laid hold of and put to bed, where she soon fell into a profound sleep, and next morning awoke in her sound senses, totally unconscious of all that had passed, excepting that she remembered having taken a glass of the Englishman’s small-beer.
Now the secret was out. The worthy woman, like most South American Spaniards, was distractedly fond of cervesa blanca, or small-beer, and seeing the champagne-bottles with their wired corks (beer requiring to be so secured in hot climates) in my basket, she could not resist making free with a bottle, and, as I charitably concluded, small-beer being a rarity in those countries, she did not find out the difference until it was made evident by the issue; however, I have it from authority that she never afterwards ventured on anything weaker than brandy, and from that hour utterly eschewed that most dangerous liquor, cervesa blanca.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS.
“Now, Massa, pipe belay
Wid your weary, weary Log, O!
Peter sick of him, me say,
Ah! sick more as one dog O!”
The humble Petition of Peter Mangrove, Branch Pilot.
LIKE ALL Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does not realise the idea which a stranger forms of it from the first view, as he descends from the savannah. The houses are generally built of wood, and three storeys high: in the first or ground floor are the shops, in the second the merchants have their warehouses, and in the third they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed, they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty— some old-fashioned, high-backed, hardwood chairs, with a profusion of tarnished gilding; a table or two in the same style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to corner, intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang very low, about six inches only from the floor, it was not once only, that entering a house during the siesta, when the windows were darkened, I have tumbled headlong over a Don or Doña taking his or her forenoon nap. But if movables were scarce, there was no paucity of silver dishes; basins, spitboxes, censers, and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and sizes, of this precious metal, were scattered about without any order or regularity, while some nameless articles, also of silver, were thrust far out of their latitude, and shone conspicuously in the very centre of the rooms. The floors were usually either of hardwood plank, ill kept, or terraced, or tiled; some indeed were flagged with marble, but this was rare; and as for the luxury of a carpet, it was utterly unknown the nearest approach to it being a grass mat, plaited prettily enough, called an estera. Round the walls of the house are usually hung a lot of dingy-faced, worm-eaten pictures of saints, and several crucifixes, which appear to be held in great veneration. The streets are paved, but exceedingly indifferently; and the frequent rains or rather waterspouts (and from the position of the place, between the two vast oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific, they have considerably more than their own share of moisture), washing away the soil and sand from between the stones, render the footing for bestias of all kinds extremely insecure. There are five monasteries of different orders, and a convent of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are but poorly endowed. All these have handsome churches attached to them; that of La Merced is very splendid. The cathedral is also a fine building, with some good pictures, and several lay relics of Pizarro, Almagro, and Vasco Nuñez, that riveted my attention; while their fragments of the Vera Cruz, and arrow-points that had quivered in the muscles of St Sebastian, were passed by as weak inventions of the enemy.
The week after my arrival was a fast, the men eating only once in the twenty-four hours (as for the women, who the deuce can tell how often a woman eats?), and during this period all the houses were stripped of their pictures, lamps, and ornaments, to dress out the churches, which were beautifully illuminated in the evenings, while a succession of friars performed service in them continually. High mass is, even to the eye of a heretic, a very splendid ceremony; and the music in this outlandish corner was unexpectedly good, everything considered; in the church of La Merced especially, they had a very fine organ, and the congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste. By the way, in this same church, on the right of the high altar, there was a deep and lofty recess, covered with a thick black veil, in which stood concealed a figure of our Saviour, as large as life, hanging on a great cross, with the blood flowing from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible accompaniments. At a certain stage of the service, a drum was beaten by one of the brethren, upon which the veil was withdrawn, when the whole congregation prostrated themselves before the image, with every appearance of the greatest devotion. Even the passengers in the streets within ear-shot of the drum stopped and uncovered themselves, and muttered a prayer; while the inmates of the houses knelt and crossed themselves with all the externals of deep humility; although, very probably, they were at the moment calculating in their minds the profits on the last adventure from Kingston. One custom particularly struck me as being very beautiful. As the night shuts in, after a noisy prelude on all the old pots in the different steeples throughout the city, there is a dead pause; presently the great bell of the cathedral tolls slowly, once or twice, at which every person stops from his employment, whatever that may be, or wherever he may be, uncovers himself, and says a short prayer—all hands remaining still and silent for a minute or more, when the great bell tolls again, and once more everything rolls on as usual.
On the fourth evening of my residence in Panama I had retired early to rest. My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and trustier still, my dog Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the floor, at the foot of my bed—if the piece of machinery on which I lay deserved that name—when in the dead of night I was awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook myself and listened. Presently it opened, and the old woman that I have already described as part and portion of Don Hombrecillo Justo’s family, entered the room in her usual very scanty dress, with a lighted candle in her hand, led by a little naked negro child. I was curious to see what she would do, but I was not certain how the dog might relish the intrusion; so I put my hand over my quatre, and, snapping my finger and thumb, Sneezer immediately rose and came to my bedside. I immediately judged, from the comica
l expression of his face, as seen by the taper of the intruder, that he thought it was some piece of fun, for he walked quietly up, and, confronting the old lady, deliberately took the candlestick out of her hand. The little black urchin thereupon began shouting, “Perro Demonio—Perro Demonio”—and in their struggle to escape, she and the old lady tumbled headlong over the sleeping pilot, whereby the candle was extinguished, and we were left in utter darkness. I had therefore nothing for it but to get out of bed, and go down to the cobbler, who lived in the entresol, to get a light. He had not gone to sleep, and I gave him no small alarm—indeed, he was near absconding at my unseasonable intrusion; but at length I obtained the object of my visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the door, I saw poor Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of the floor, with his legs and arms extended as if he had been on the rack, his eyes set, his mouth open, and every faculty benumbed by fear. At his feet sat the negro child, almost as much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably; while at a little distance sat the spectre of the old woman, scratching its head with the greatest composure, and exclaiming in Spanish, “A little brandy for love of the Holy Virgin.” But the most curious part of it was the conduct of our old friend Sneezer. There he was, sitting on end upon the table, grinning and showing his ivory teeth, his eyes of jet sparkling like diamonds with fun and frolic, and evidently laughing after his fashion, like to split himself, as he every now and then gave a large sweeping whisk of his tail, like a cat watching a mouse. A length I got the cobbler and his sable rib to take charge of the wanderers, and once more fell asleep.