capital he had been the guest of the Legation, and had been kept busy
negotiating with the members of Don Vincente's Government--cultured men,
men to whom the conditions of civilized business were not unknown.

What concerned him most at the time was the acquisition of land for the
railway. In the Sta. Marta Valley, where there was already one line in
existence, the people were tractable, and it was only a matter of price.
A commission had been nominated to fix the values, and the difficulty
resolved itself into the judicious influencing of the Commissioners.
But in Sulaco--the Occidental Province for whose very development the
railway was intended--there had been trouble. It had been lying for ages
ensconced behind its natural barriers, repelling modern enterprise by
the precipices of its mountain range, by its shallow harbour opening
into the everlasting calms of a gulf full of clouds, by the benighted
state of mind of the owners of its fertile territory--all these
aristocratic old Spanish families, all those Don Ambrosios this and Don
Fernandos that, who seemed actually to dislike and distrust the coming
of the railway over their lands. It had happened that some of the
surveying parties scattered all over the province had been warned off
with threats of violence. In other cases outrageous pretensions as to
price had been raised. But the man of railways prided himself on being
equal to every emergency. Since he was met by the inimical sentiment of
blind conservatism in Sulaco he would meet it by sentiment, too, before
taking his stand on his right alone. The Government was bound to carry
out its part of the contract with the board of the new railway company,
even if it had to use force for the purpose. But he desired nothing less
than an armed disturbance in the smooth working of his plans. They
were much too vast and far-reaching, and too promising to leave a stone
unturned; and so he imagined to get the President-Dictator over there
on a tour of ceremonies and speeches, culminating in a great function