that time; and also by the general softening of manners as compared with
the epoch of civil wars whence had emerged the iron tyranny of Guzman
Bento of fearful memory. In the contests that broke out at the end of
his rule (which had kept peace in the country for a whole fifteen years)
there was more fatuous imbecility, plenty of cruelty and suffering
still, but much less of the old-time fierce and blindly ferocious
political fanaticism. It was all more vile, more base, more
contemptible, and infinitely more manageable in the very outspoken
cynicism of motives. It was more clearly a brazen-faced scramble for a
constantly diminishing quantity of booty; since all enterprise had been
stupidly killed in the land. Thus it came to pass that the province of
Sulaco, once the field of cruel party vengeances, had become in a way
one of the considerable prizes of political career. The great of the
earth (in Sta. Marta) reserved the posts in the old Occidental State
to those nearest and dearest to them: nephews, brothers, husbands
of favourite sisters, bosom friends, trusty supporters--or prominent
supporters of whom perhaps they were afraid. It was the blessed province
of great opportunities and of largest salaries; for the San Tome mine
had its own unofficial pay list, whose items and amounts, fixed in
consultation by Charles Gould and Senor Avellanos, were known to a
prominent business man in the United States, who for twenty minutes or
so in every month gave his undivided attention to Sulaco affairs. At
the same time the material interests of all sorts, backed up by the
influence of the San Tome mine, were quietly gathering substance in that
part of the Republic. If, for instance, the Sulaco Collectorship was
generally understood, in the political world of the capital, to open the
way to the Ministry of Finance, and so on for every official post, then,
on the other hand, the despondent business circles of the Republic had
come to consider the Occidental Province as the promised land of safety,
especially if a man managed to get on good terms with the administration