The railroad runs inland a few miles farther, but San Pedro Sula is generally made the starting point for the capital for it is easier to secure good mules and _mozos_ at this point. It is necessary not only to have those but a certain amount of _impedimenta_ in the shape of hammocks, blankets, etc. must be carried along, and it is even advisable to carry such provisions as will not be affected by the climate. The trail to the capital, Tegucigalpa, is nothing but a mule path, narrow and winding, and for the average traveller it is an eight days’ journey. The road passes through forests which comprise an enchanted wilderness where the white-faced monkeys peer at you from the branches of the trees and gaily-plumed parrots screech as they fly overhead; again it winds among the mountains on a narrow ledge which causes the uninitiated traveller to hold his breath when he gazes at the chasm below; at other times it follows the bed of streams which, during the rainy season, are raging torrents.
There are no hotels and few public inns on the route. It is generally necessary to stop with the natives in the villages, or the public _cabildo_, which is always at the service of the wayfarer. Hammocks are used for sleeping on account of the insects. As one writer has put this superabundance of insects:—“There will be sometimes as many as a hundred insects under one leaf; and after they have once laid their claws upon you, your life is a mockery, and you feel at night as though you were sleeping in a bed of red pepper.”
Richard Harding Davis has given us an amusing account of his experience one night as follows: “I took an account of the stock before I turned in, and found there were three dogs, eleven cats, seven children, five men, not including five of us, three women, and a dozen chickens, all sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the same room and under the one roof. And when I gave up attempting to sleep and wandered out into the night, I stepped on the pigs, and startled three or four calves that had been sleeping under the porch and that lunged up out of the darkness.”
The only town of any importance that is passed is Comayagua. This was the former capital and at one time the largest city in the country. This city was selected under direct orders of Cortez who directed one of his lieutenants to lay out a capital midway between the two oceans. If a straight line should be drawn across the country, Comayagua would be in the exact centre. Its one time thirty thousand inhabitants are now reduced to seven thousand who sleep and dream away life in the warm sunlight and surrounded by groves of orange trees. It is a dull and desolate place of one-storied buildings and contains a half dozen or more old churches, some of them with roofless walls overgrown with moss and vines that stand as a silent reminder of the religious fervour of the earlier days. There is a fine old cathedral which stands as a good example of the Spanish-Moorish architecture so prevalent in every land colonized by the Spaniards. This, the second city in the republic, is situated in a broad fertile valley which stretches away for miles, while dim, cloud-crowned mountains surround it like grim sentinels. The elevation is less than two thousand feet. It has gradually lost its former prestige since the seat of government was removed to its rival.