e there are rows of handsome
women with decollete gowns and shining black hair and colored silk
scarfs selling fruit and down the one street which faces the bay are a
double row of palms and the store where two American boys have a
phonograph. They are the only Americans I have met who have or are
taking a dollar out of this country. They play the guitar and banjo
very well. One of them was on the Princeton glee club and their
stories of how they have toured Central America are very amusing. Lots
of Love.

DICK.

S. S. Barracouta--Off San Juan

February 21, 1895.

DEAR MOTHER:

Today I believe is the 21st. We are out two days from Corinto off San
Juan on the boundary of Costa Rica and lie here some hours. Then we go
on without stopping to Panama arriving there about the 25th. On the
28th we take the steamer to Caracas. We will be at Caracas a week and
then go straight home. But in the meanwhile we will have got one mail
at Colon when we go there to take the boat for Caracas and glad I will
be to get it. We have had a summary of the news in the Panama Star and
a bundle of Worlds telling all about the trolley strike and that is all
except Dad's cable at Tegucigalpa that we have heard in nearly two
months. I am very sorry that the distances have turned out so much
longer than we expected and that we had that unfortunate ten days wait
for the steamer. I know you want me home and I would like to be there
but I do not think I ought to go without seeing Caracas. It helps the
book so much too if one runs it into South America for no one in the
States thinks much of Central and does not want to read about it. At
least I know I never did. We have had a most amusing time with the two
phonograph chaps. One of them has been an advertising agent and a
deputy sheriff and chased stage coach robbers and kept a hard-ware
store and is only twenty-five and the other has not had quite as much
experience but has been to Princeton, he is 23. The mixture of
narratives which change from tricks of the hard-ware trade to dances at
Buckingham Palace and anecdotes of Cliff House supper parties at San
Francisco are very interesting. I am going to write a book for them
and call it "Through Central America with a Phonograph" or "Who We Did,
and How We Done Them." We sing the most beautiful medleys and
contribute to the phonograph. I had to protest against them announcing
"Her Golden Hair was Hanging Down her Back" by Richar