They risk nothing but their money, and if their man fails to get in, their money is all they lose; but the Central-American politician has to show the faith that is in him by going out on the mountain-side and hacking his way to office with a naked machete in his hand, and if _his_ leader fails, he loses his life, with his back to a church wall, and looking into the eyes of a firing squad, or he digs his own grave by the side of the road, and stands at one end of it, covered with clay and sweat, and with the fear of death upon him, and takes his last look at the hot sun and the palms and the blue mountains, with the buzzards wheeling about him, and then shuts his eyes, and is toppled over into the grave, with a half-dozen bullets in his chest and stomach. That is what I should like to see happen to about half of our professional politicians at home. Then the other half might understand that holding a public office is a very serious business, and is not merely meant to furnish them with a livelihood and with places for their wives’ relations. [Illustration: GENERAL LUIS BOGRAN, EX-PRESIDENT] I saw several churches and cathedrals in Honduras with a row of bullet-holes in the front wall, about as high from the ground as a man’s chest, and an open grave by the road-side, which had been dug by the man who was to have occupied it. The sight gave us a vivid impression of the uncertainties of government in Central America. The man who dug this particular grave had been captured, with two companions, while they were hastening to rejoin their friends of the government party. His companions in misery were faint-hearted creatures, and thought it mattered but little, so long as they had to die, in what fashion they were buried. So they scooped out a few feet of earth with the tools their captors gave them, and stood up in the hollows they had made, and were shot back into them, dead; but the third man declared that he was not going to let his body lie so near the surface of the earth that the mules could kick his bones and the next heavy freshet wash them away. He accordingly dug leisurely and carefully to the depth of six feet, smoothing the sides and sharpening the corners, and while he was thus engaged at the bottom of the hole he heard yells and shots above him, and when he poked his head up over the edge of the grave he saw his own troops running down the mountain-side, and his enemies disappearing before them. He is still alive, and frequently rides by the hole in the road-side on his way to the capital. The story illustrates the advisability of doing what every one has to do in this world, even up to the very last minute, in a thorough and painstaking manner.