e case. One year passed without a revolution is a rarity;
and I have gone through certainly not less than four such outbreaks.
While the trouble exists it is decidedly inconvenient and uncomfortable
for the foreigner, but the real danger is often sadly exaggerated.
During one of these disturbances, nevertheless, I narrowly escaped
coming into serious conflict with the authorities--and all through a
boyish freak, which at any time would have been boyish, but amounted
almost to madness when played in the very heart of a town under martial
law. When I first set foot on Central American soil, however, my
majority was still many months ahead of me, and I had not yet done with
that period of puerile frivolity through which most youths have to pass.
Thus I will offer no other excuse, but will merely relate what took
place.

A pig--a common or garden pig--was at the bottom of it all. The natives
are very fond of pork indeed, and nearly every household boasts of at
least one porker, which is allowed the entire run of the house and
looked upon almost as "one of the family." The air in the town where I
was staying at the time had suddenly thickened with rumours of war; and
it was a well-known fact that some thousands of men were ready to
shoulder their rifles at a given signal and, with a few well-tried
veterans at their head, to make a mad and murderous rush upon anything
and everything belonging to the Government.

In such cases nothing is too bad for either party, excepting perhaps
interference with foreigners, whom, owing to one or two severe lessons
received of late years, the natives have now learned to respect.
Fusillades in the centre of a town, a sudden charge with the bayonet in
a thronged market-place, the unexpected firing of a mine, and similar
proofs of the "patriotism" of one party or the other, may be expected at
any moment; and although pretending to inclusion in the list of
civilised nations, either party will spurn the idea of notice or warning
previous to the bombardment of a town. Every one is on the alert, and
the tension is trying indeed if it happens to be one's first
"revolution."

Bloodthirsty natives, speaking scarcely above a whisper, may be seen in
small groups at almost every street corner, and in such quarters of the
town where reside known sympathisers with the attacking party much
military movement is noticeable. Every few hundred yards are stationed
pickets of gendarmes or barefooted _soldados_