CAPITAL CITY OF HONDURAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1819, 1 October 1886, Page 35

CAPITAL CITY OF HONDURAS.

Ages before the Spanish conquerers learned that such a place as Tegucigalpa existed, an Indian town of no mean size ocenpied the site of the present city, How old the place is, therefore, no one living can even guess. It is one. of the largest, if it is not the oldest, of the Spanish towns ot' Hon"duras. Most of the buildings are of adobe, and covered by roofs ol the heavy red tile made there. Even the poorer classes are, consequently, housed with reasonable comfort, but they cannot boast of many conveniences. In most houses one wjll find bedsteads, on which bull hides are stretched, and a few chairs. TTew are without at least one table, which is usually of Spanish cedar, such as cigar-boxes were made of before some Yankee began adulterating them with whitewood. Not an iron stove or range is in the whole country, so far as I can learn, outside of three or four seaports. The cocks don't want such things. They have cocinas built up of bits of tile, cemented together by clay and smoothly plastered with the same. What more can one ask for the purpose? Have not their ancestors got along for many generations with less ? In some houses these clay ranges are built upon platforms of poles supported by little posts. In others they rest upon the ground. The ovens in which their baking is done so skilfully are very like in shape, if not in size and material, the brick ovens of our grandmother's day. Daily bathing is in this country an almost universal custom. Many of the natives go to the rivers bordering the city for their bath, as they do for the water to* supply the daily needs of the place. The water has, during the last two or three centuries, been carried in red clay jars perched on the heads of women and children, or in the woodenheaded, leathern-sided pouches, slung, one on each side, on burros or on the little mules of the country. It is likely that the fate of this ancient custom is sealed, for President Bogran has ordered the surveys for waterworks that will give to Tegucigalpa what it needs sadly — an ample supply of pure water at small cost. If one would enjoy the bathing he should go early in the morning down to the ancient bridge of heavy masonry spanning the Rio Grande, and connecting Tegucigalpa with its suburb, Comayaguala. There, leaning on the brick parapet, he will look down upon the swift current, where the brown backs of the girls glisten in the sunshine as the water streams from their wealth of hair — long, wavy, and glossy in its blackness— as they rise from a dive into the limpid pools. Skilled swimmers they are, and fearless, as is meet, for they have practised since they were big enough to walk, tfroad of back and round of shoulder, full and round of limb and of body, straight in line from armpit to hip, and supple in every motion, they are fine specimens of humanity, possessing a free and natural grace that no woman of pinched-in waist can hope to nearly equal. Sunday is a day for seeing the wives and daughters at their best, for then they dress themselves in their brightest array, and go to church devoutly. And they are very pretty in their white lawns or bright-coloured dresses of other light material. Many cover their heads with silken shawls having wide fringes and embroidered borders a foot and more in width. After churoh and after dinner they resort to the plazas. Here among the flowers and their friends the ladies chat, listen to the music, and possjbly note what their neighbours do and wear. During the day the men go to the cock-fights, or attend to business in their shops, for although religious duties take up a considerable share of the time of the ladies, Sunday is a very good business day notwithstanding. Church affairs are left very largely to the care of priests and women. Altogether, life in Honduras is by no means so bad as it might be made. It is true that the inhabitants know nothing of embezzlements, of robbery, and of theft, but thenthey never had a Board of Trade— in fact, about the only forms of gambling they know are betting on the result of a cock-fight, putting their money into one of the raffles or the lotteries countenanced by the Government, or staking a few bits of silver on the turn of the cards in the few games they play. For half a century Honduras has offered the most liberal encouragement to all who would bring new enterprises to her, new skill and energy for the development of her rich mines and richer agricultural resources. Towards Americans the people of this country have ever been most friendly. Some leading Honduranian families send their children to Europe, others to the United States, and others still to Guatemala for education. Earnest efforts are being made by the existing Administration to extend and improve the public school system, and the results have been good considering the difficulties in the way. Books, music, paintings, and other evidences of cultivated tastes are in many a house, although the difficulties encountered in bringing to the interior any works of -art were enormous before the completion of the only waggon road in the republic. The task of taking a piano, for example, from the coast; to the capital was one that would have appalled most people, for it was necessary that the instrument should be carried every step of the way on the shoulders of men, along narrow trails leading over high peaks and deep down into narrow valleys. Yet fine pianos are not scarce in Tegucigalpa, and plenty more will doubtless be brought in now that waggons • can come from the Pacific ports to this city. Should the policy of President Bogran be followed during the next 10 years Honduras will show more creditable progress than has been made by her in the last 200 years. — Correspondent Chicago Times. — Mrß Plaindame, after looking long and thoughtfully at a plaster cast of Shakespeare, remarked :—": — " Poor man; how pale he was ! He couldn't have been well when he was taken." "No," replied Fogg:, "he was dead." "Ah, that accounts for it," said Mrs P., drawing a sympathetic breath. The Tidy Housewife.— The careful, tidy hpusewife, when giving her house its spring cleaning should bear in mind that the dear inmates nrs more prec:ou9 t,han houses, their systems need cleansing, by purifying the blood, regulating the stomach and bowels, and she should know thjit there ty nothing that will do It so surely as American Co. 'a Hop Bitters, the purest and t»rt of all medicines. •