The Indians are obliged by law to do carrying work across the country when desired and paid for their services. If the traveller is unable to get a cargador, an appeal to the proper official will secure one within a reasonable time. That official will, if necessary, arrest a man and lock him up over night in the _cabildo_, in order to have him on hand when wanted. They can only be obliged to go about a two days’ journey from home and carry a hundred pounds. Their wages are only a few cents per day in gold, so that their services do not come very high. In case of attempted overcharge the _Jefe_ (local governor) will settle all disputes, and he is generally very fair in his conclusions. Many of the cargadors use a framework called a _carcaste_ in which to carry their loads.
If one desires to engage a cargador it is necessary to give him enough time to prepare _tortillas_ for the journey. With a basket of these, a plenteous supply of coffee, a cup, and a few twigs for fire, the Indian is ready for the journey. He will not need to buy anything on the road except some fruit or a little “white-eye,” the native brandy. Their excuse for this extra would be like the old Guatemalan, who said: “One wants to get rid of his memory once in a while.” At night they light their fires either in the public hall, or out-of-doors under the brilliant starlit canopy, where they make their coffee and warm their _tortillas_. Embers of these fires may be seen on every hand as one journeys across the country. The men are unobtrusive, and even when gathered together in considerable numbers they are quiet if any strangers are present. Among themselves, however, they are gay and light-hearted and seem to enjoy life.
These cargadors are an ancient and honourable institution in Central America. From time immemorial they have transported baggage and produce from one part of the country to another, and they rather look upon the encroachment of railroads with disfavour, for it will curtail their business. They will carry a mule’s load of one hundred and fifty pounds at even a greater speed, averaging five or six miles an hour, for they travel at a sort of jog trot. Some of the couriers in olden times were very fleet of foot for they used to be kept busy in time of war before the introduction of the telegraph. President Rufino Barrios had a runner in his employ of whom it is said that he carried a dispatch thirty-five leagues into the interior and returned an answer in thirty-six hours, making the two hundred and ten miles over mountains at the rate of six miles an hour, including stops and delays for food and sleep. When equipped for the road these men wear a costume consisting of short trousers, like bathing-trunks, a white cotton shirt and sandals made of cowhide.