You have doubtless heard something of the revolution which has been going on in Honduras in a half-hearted fashion since last November.  I'm still getting quite a kick out of the thought of Central American "Generals."  We were informed, while in Honduras, by a "general" himself that there are thirty-six of them today in that country.

     Four other marines and myself, together with an interpreter, have been following on the trail of that revolution in both Honduras and Nicaragua for the past month.  A radio from the State Department started it all off; that is, our end of the deal. Quite a number of Marines here volunteered for the trip, as it promised to be quite a novelty for the local detachment.  Most of the Marines in camp would have been glad to have gone, even though everyone knew it meant hard riding, miserable food, not a great amount of even bad water, and sometimes very little sleep, but then look at the fun we'd have, to which some other member of the party would answer, "Oh, yes."

     Break out your little map of Central America and follow the "rosebud" trail that we covered on burros.  Leon, Chinandega, Punte Real, Somotillo., St. Thomas, San Pedro, San Francisco, Cacamuya gold mines, San Marcos de Colon, Oyote, El Tamarindo, Somoto Grande, Macuelizo, Las Limas, Los Manos, Ocotal, back to Cacamuya mines by way of Somoto Grande and San Marcos, back over the same run in the order above named, finally back to Cacamuya and then home again through Chinandega and Leon, a total distance of five hundred or more miles covered, over the roughest trails imaginable.

     At two p.m. the five of us set out under orders on a handcar to Chinandega, a station between Nicaragua and Corinto on the Ferrocarril del Pacifico de Nicaragua.  Chinandega was reached that night and we had to lay over until the following evening getting horses and a guide.  After much difficulty we secured both mounts and an Indian guide and set out that evening for Somotillo, near the Honduran-Nicaraguan border.  All night was spent in the saddle in the worst dust I had ever experienced.  In many places it was several feet deep in the sunken trail, a soft, white pulverized dust.  The air in the vicinity of the road was so filled with this dust that sight was difficult.  We tied handkerchiefs over our noses to keep from suffocating and even then the fine dust sifted through and caused nose-bleed.  Morning found us at Puente Real (Royal Bridge).  He was indeed a euphemist who gave that bridge its name; a rickety bamboo span over a syrupy little stream, bordered on either side with mud flats.  To add insult to injury a toll of 15 cents per person and five cents per animal is charged.  Here we left the dust behind and all hands felt like shouting for glee.  We soon passed into a cactus and thorn forest, quite a novelty, and all day we rode through a blazing sun, stopping only for a few minutes to rest the horses.  We had had no food, water or sleep since leaving Chinandega the night before and some of us were beginning to get a "little hungry."  About five miles out of Somotillo my horse fell over and proceeded to die, and I had the pleasure of hiking the remaining miles, feeling none too pugnacious.  My saddle and equipment was taken care of by another of our party.  Two other members of the party soon had to dismount and lead, or rather drag their horses, the remainder of the way.

     Somotillo was finally reached; how nice.  We chased the nearly naked wash-women out of the only waterhole and drank deep. We still had four or five cans of "willie" and beans and that was reinforced with tortillas (pronounced tor-tee-as).  All this went down as if by magic and everyone admitted we felt better.  Back we went and chased the dusky maidens out of the waterhole again and went swimming.

     The next day three of us made a side trip to the border at St. Thomas, which was garrisoned by Nicaraguan troops.  We were received with friendly demonstration and treated to our first real native dinner of tortillas, stale meat and very old eggs.   Food here in these foothills is not especially appetizing, and particularly now during this revolution.

U. S. Marines with Nicaraguan Soldiers at St. Thomas, Nicaragua, February 1924

     There is very little revolution, but lots of plundering.  The tortillas here are made from the poor, stale, worm earthen corn, ground wet and baked into a thin leathery pancake, without any seasoning whatever.  Meat is hung up in the sun, but doesn't dry, for the flies get to it first and the maggots next.  That little fact doesn't bother the natives though.  They nonchalantly knock the worms off with a stick, throw the meat on a hot coal, and presto, you have a nice juicy barbecue.  The eggs, they're good though!  It sometimes takes several days to find the nest, and then the eggs are buried in straw for a couple of weeks or months maybe.  They come out rather peculiar looking--maybe they are a little "rotten."  The most prized food here is the birdlike, tough, fighting stock chicken.  Once captured, it is sort of cleaned and boiled for about fifteen or twenty minutes.  This culinary process sets the flesh and makes it a little less palatable.  Then it is served in its entirety on a palm leaf.  These people use palm leaves for plates when they aren't too lazy to cut them.  Knives, forks, spoons, cups and saucers are unheard of.  The good old human hand fulfills all those purposes and gourds make ideal cups.  Of course, the menfolk do use knives, the kind they carry around with them and use to chop down trees, kill wild beasts, and other men.  They are about four feet long, with a five-inch blade, weigh about three pounds, and bear the label "Collins" if they are the fashionable kind.  These make fairly good table knives.  I noticed one fellow use one to put a bit of whey on a small cornmeal cake.  In the States the farmers call these things corn knives, but here they are machettes.

     We stayed in St. Thomas only a few hours and returned to Somotillo, having covered about forty miles, a big day's work with poor horses, and our horses were always poor.

     Another day was spent in hustling horses again.  In the afternoon we set out for San Pedro, still higher in the hills and toward the Northeast.  We finished the last of our camp provisions and dropped all equipment except a blanket and a saddle bag.  We could not carry either food or more equipment on account of the poor horses and the increasingly bad trails.  We camped in the hills that night and enjoyed a little coffee and also the ticks, fleas, mosquitoes and such little inconveniences.  San Pedro, garrisoned by Nicaraguan troops, was reached by noon of the following day, and another native dinner of tortillas and eggs was enjoyed by us.  In fact, we lived entirely on native grub for over twenty days and none of us died, although the MO. did treat me to a lot of emetin on my return to camp.  Somotillo, St. Thomas and San Pedro were barracks towns with only a few miserable huts, greatly overcrowded.  At San Pedro we obtained burros instead of horses, better fitted for hill work and tougher than horses, even on the rider.  Every time I see a burro now I want to walk up to him and punch him on the nose and pull his ears.  We camped on a ledge that night and by noon next day reached the Cacamuya Gold Mines, managed by an American by the name of Samuelson.  We got real food there and how we made his Mex cook put out the chow, and we got a bath, too, and everyone took his first shave in a week.  We all appeared much less ferocious with the hair off.  We hated to leave Cacamuya a day and a half later, but had to go on to San Marcos de Colon, the headquarters of the Honduran Government troops.  There had been a young battle there a week before and the houses were pretty well sprayed with bullet holes.  We stayed no longer than it was necessary at San Marcos, and proceeded on to El Tamarindo where we met General Funez with his wing of the revolutionary army.

Gunnery Sgt. Bruce, Rene Wallace, Black Chief and Small Detachment, 1924

     The soldiers here on both sides were mostly Indians, barefooted, with no uniforms except a ribbon for the hat to designate their politics.  All the troops wore large straw sombreros, trousers, but no shirts or shoes, and all looked like ancient pirates. They were armed with machettes, old 1884 single-shot Remingtons and old 7 and 11-mm Austrian Mauser rifles, useful as clubs but nothing else. 

     All of the troops were almost starved and have killed off all the live stock in the country.  While we were in the general's hut a bunch of soldiers chased a young heifer right up in front of the hut and hacked its head off with a machette.  They did not trouble to skin it, but just laid it open and each man fought to get a chunk of meat.  Then each man ran off to himself and built a tiny fire to cook his piece.  Some of the meat was eaten raw.  We were glad to get away from the filth of this place.

     Our guide led us astray during the night and lost us in a dry river bed where we were forced to camp until morning, and finally got on the right trail to Somoto Grande.  It will be noted that we were traveling in Northeastward, part of the time in Honduras and part of the time in Nicaragua.  Somoto was reached without further event and three of us left the following day for Honduras again.

     We were again led astray by a poor guide, who led us off the right trail and into a jungle of underbrush and bull nettles.  Macuelizo was reached late that night after a long, hot, tiresome ride on the mules.

     Macuelizo is a tiny village hidden away in a bowl shaped valley well up in the mountain ridge.  The inhabitants are simple, religious folk who seldom venture more than twenty miles from their homes.

     Las Limas, the highest mountain, most inaccessible, and just inside Honduras, was reached by noon of the next day.  Here General Carias, the big chief of the revolutionist cause, and the would-be president of Honduras, had established his headquarters.

     Carias proved to be a man of good education and was surrounded by staff officers of good mentality.  We also met several Americans here, officers in the revolutionist army and soldiers of fortune.  The food here was even worse than previously experienced on account of the large number of soldiers here and all supplies are obtained locally, there being no such thing as a base of supplies.  The next day we reached Las Manos and spent the night.  We nearly froze that night as we were high up and the air was very cold.  It was so cold that we were able to see our breath until about nine o'clock the next morning, before the sun came out bright and warm enough to thaw us out.

     Our southward trip from here to Ocotal and then back to Somoto Grande was made through a beautiful country, pierced by many mountain streams of clear, cold water, and covered with dense pine forests which filled the air with heavy pine fragrance as is sometimes experienced in passing through our own southern pine belt.  One man was left behind in Ocotal and the other two joined us at Somoto Grande, but departed the following day for Managua by way of the high road to Leon, and the remaining three of us returned to San Marcos, where it was rumored another battle was soon to take place.  We stayed here three days awaiting developments and then returned to Cacamuya Mines.

     I remained behind at Cacamuya and the remaining Marine and the interpreter shoved off the next morning for San Marcos again, then to Somoto Grande and return to Cacamuya, which trip was made in three days of hard traveling.  It was while at Cacamuya that news leaked through of the landing of about two hundred sailors and Marines on the North Coast of Honduras and their occupation of Tegucigalpa.

     Orders were received to return to Managua, and we journeyed homeward through San Pedro, Somotillo, Puente Real, Chinandega, and then by train to Managua.  The return trip from Somotillo to Chinandega, a distance of about sixty miles, was again made at night to avoid the heat.  We rode for about an hour out of Puente Real through the thick dust, and then, it started to rain, the first of the season, and how it did rain!  It came down in waves and blasts.  The trail turned into a churned sea of mud and water and the dust on the horses and ourselves turned to muddy streaks, giving us a desperate appearance.  Several of the party had purchased native undergarments, which come in bright blues, reds and stripes.  These garments usually bleach white after a couple of washings, so when the soaking rain hit us they lost color so rapidly that one Marine, dressed in a bright red garment, presented some appearances of being wounded, and the color did not fade nearly so quickly from the skin as from the garment.  The horses became frightened at the unusual amount of swirling water in the sunken trail, which was three feet deep in places, and stumbled and wallowed about throwing one man and covering all of us with mud.

      We presented a most sorry spectacle upon our arrival at Chinandega the next day, but the following afternoon, when we arrived in Managua once more, we were quite ourselves again, and then after the first big chow someone said, "Just look at the fun we had," to which all hands answered, "Uh Huh."