A GLIMPSE AT GUATEMALA,
AND SOME NOTES ON THE
ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF CENTRAL AMERICA.

By ANNE CARY MAUDSLAY
AND
ALFRED PERCIVAL MAUDSLAY

With Maps, Plans, Photographs, and other Illustrations

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1899.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

DEDICATED
TO
FREDERICK DUCANE GODMAN, D.C.L., F.R.S.,
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
OSBERT SALVIN, F.R.S.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The errata have been corrected as part of the process of producing this e-text. Spelling, hyphenation, punctuation etc have also been standardised.

On [page 264], "(marked with a dashed border)" read "(marked with a circle)" in the original; it was not possible to represent the circle in this e-text.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

The Archæological results of my seven expeditions to Central America are in course of publication in the ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana,’ and eight parts containing about 200 plates have already been issued to the public; this is necessarily a costly work which is not likely to find its way into many private libraries. It has therefore frequently been suggested to me that I should publish a less ambitious and less expensive volume giving a general account of my travels as well as some description of the ruins visited; but, alas! I have to confess a hopeless inability to keep a regular journal, and my note-books are for the most part full of measurements and compass and sextant observations, and would furnish but a poor basis of a book of travels. When, in 1894, my wife accompanied me to Central America, a splendid opportunity offered of avoiding all responsibility in the matter. She should keep a diary and write the book, and I would add some archæological notes! It was to be a small book with a few illustrations, and was of course to be published within six months of our return home. However, when we did get back to England there were other matters which called for our attention, and the notes had perforce to be laid aside. During the following winter a fair start was made, and some experimental illustrations were prepared; but each of us discovered in the other a deeply-rooted objection to process-blocks and shiny paper, so we began to dabble in photogravure and typo-etching. Then the archæological notes began to expand, and as we had then no publisher to put a proper curb on our whims and fancies, the book continued to grow on a soil of hand-made paper and to blossom with coloured plans, chromolithographs, and photogravures. It may fairly be described as a growth, for the pages and illustrations were printed off as they were finished, a few at a time, and the text broken up. If the errors and repetitions are numerous they may in charity be ascribed to this unorthodox procedure, and such errors would have doubtless been altogether avoided if we could have submitted the proofs in their entirety to any of the numerous friends who have from time to time given us advice and assistance. From Sir Clements Markham and Dr. Keltie of the Royal Geographical Society wise counsel and kindly help to travellers seems to flow in a perennial stream; and in this connection I would gladly pay my tribute to the memory of one who was beloved by all travellers, the late Secretary of the Society, Henry Bates, who, after my return from my earlier journeys, was almost alone in offering encouragement, pointing out to me the importance of the work which seemed to have fallen to my lot to undertake. My friend, Mr. Francis Sarg, for many years Imperial German Consul at Guatemala City, to whose ready help and never-failing hospitality the success of my earlier journeys was largely due, has added to the long list of his thoughtful acts of kindness by making many valuable suggestions and by saving us from many errors, especially in our descriptions of the Indians and their customs. Of my obligation to Mr. F. DuCane Godman, the editor of the ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana,’ it is not easy for me to speak in measured terms; and as he would be the first to deprecate the only expressions by means of which adequate thanks could be tendered to him, I must here content myself with assuring him of my gratitude for allowing me to reproduce the reduced copies of certain maps, plans, photographs, and drawings which have already appeared, or are about to be issued, in the Archæological section of the ‘Biologia.’

The greatest pleasure which the completion of this volume could have afforded to my wife and myself has, alas! been denied to us: we cannot place a copy of it in the hands of Osbert Salvin. What loss science has suffered by his death it is not for me to say; but how great the loss is to his friends I have good reason to know, for to his enduring patience, his never-failing sympathy, his sound advice, and affectionate friendship I owe more than I can here express. In the preparation of this volume, about the land he knew so well and with which his name must ever be associated, he took such a kindly and helpful interest that his connection with it will always remain amongst the happiest of our memories.

I cannot close this preface without offering my sincere thanks to Miss Annie Hunter and her sisters, and to all those who have been concerned in the preparation of the drawings and the reproduction of the illustrations, for the interest they have taken in the work entrusted to them and the carefulness with which it has been carried out. In conclusion, I am glad to express my acknowledgments for the good services rendered to me by the companions in my travels, the men of the Lopez family, and especially my friend Gorgonio, whose gentle manners and sweet disposition helped to smooth over many a bad half-hour during my earlier expeditions, and whose ceaseless vigilance over the welfare of my wife during our last journey did so much to lessen for her the discomforts of camp-life.

A. P. M.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS.

The Maps and Plans are reduced copies of those already published, or in course of publication in the ‘Biologia Centrali-Americana’ (Archæology).

End Papers. Drawn from ancient American originals by Miss Annie Hunter.

Photogravures. By the Swan Electric Engraving Company.

Chromolithographs. By W. Griggs & Sons, Ltd.

Etchings on Tissue. By the Typographic Etching Company.

Index. By Miss M. H. James.

ERRATA.

CHAPTER I. THE VOYAGE.

We left England early in October, 1893, and on the 13th November found ourselves in San Francisco. Our passages were taken in a steamer advertised to sail from that Port on the 18th of the month for San José de Guatemala, but no sooner had we set foot in the Palace Hotel, than the Influenza fiend seized us both; so we were obliged to give up our cabins in the steamer, and, as soon as we were well enough to travel, were ordered by the doctor to leave San Francisco and its cold winds for the more agreeable climate of Monterey. The railroad took us in four hours through the fruitful plain of San Joaquin, and landed us almost at the door of the Hotel del Monte, a huge low wooden building standing in the midst of a grove of magnificent evergreen oak trees, and surrounded by beautiful flower-gardens and exquisite green grass. The many porticos and verandahs were bowers of roses and heliotrope and every variety of creeper, and the garden beds were brilliant with magnificent dahlias and chrysanthemums and numberless smaller flowers.

Chinese gardeners could be seen in all directions tending the plants, and watering the lawn-grass to keep it fresh and green, in striking contrast to the yellow stubble which during the dry season covers the face of the surrounding country.

The Hotel del Monte is a favourite winter resort of people from the Eastern States as well as from California, and it would be difficult to imagine a more attractive place in which to seek health, warmth, or pleasure. Everything possible seems to be provided for the amusement and comfort of the guests; but in the late autumn it is almost deserted, and the dozen of us who sat down to dinner were lost in the huge dining-room built to accommodate nearly two thousand guests. We found many attractive walks in the neighbourhood, either across the great sand-dunes down to the fine hard sea-beach, or up amongst the beautiful groves of immense live-oaks and cedars with which the place abounds.

One morning on coming down to breakfast we were told that we were wanted at the telephone, and found that an old friend, Professor Holden, was speaking to us from the top of Mount Hamilton and bidding us to visit him at the great Lick Observatory, of which he has the charge. It was with regret that we left the enchanting land of flowers and green grass; but our time was short and the prospect of seeing the stars through the biggest telescope in the world was too attractive to be missed. So, following the directions conveyed by telephone, we took the train to the town of San José, where we passed the night, and on the following morning, in a pouring rain, packed away in a two-horse wagon with a high top and heavy leather curtains buttoned down to keep out the wet, we began the six hours’ journey up the mountain.

There was nothing to be seen but fog and smoking horses, and although, as usual, we were assured that the weather was most exceptional, no one attempted to predict anything better; and, indeed, it grew worse and worse until our arrival at the top of the mountain, when it was difficult to see more than a few yards around us, and we seemed to be standing on a small point of rock while the world below was filled with cold whirling mist, which penetrated to the marrow of our bones.

During our three days’ visit, once only, for a brief hour, did the clouds break and show us to the east the great mountains rising to the height of the Sierra Nevada, and to the west the broad plain we had crossed, which, protected by a low range of hills from the cold sea winds, yields that abundance of fruits which, fresh or preserved, yearly finds its way to foreign markets. Towards the north we could see the smoke of San Francisco, and even in the partial clearness make out the ships lying in the harbour.

Despite the bad weather our visit was made most enjoyable, but it was a real disappointment not to get so much as a peep through the great telescope. However, we could not afford to miss another steamer, as that would have meant losing too much of the dry season in Guatemala. So reluctantly bidding our host good-bye we went to San Francisco, still followed by clouds and fog, which not only detained the steamer for twenty hours in the harbour, but clung to us tenaciously until we had been at sea five days and had run over a thousand miles.

Our ship, the ‘San Juan,’ belongs to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and runs between San Francisco and Panama in connection with the steamers sailing from Colon to New York. The accommodation was fairly good, but she carried too much deck cargo for comfort or safety, and one felt that she might labour dangerously in a heavy sea. Since our return the news has reached us of the wreck of the steamship ’Colima’ of the same line, occasioned by the shifting of the deck cargo, and we feel thankful to have been spared the dreadful fate which befell her passengers.

Our fellow voyagers in the ‘San Juan’ were mostly men, Americans and Spanish Americans, and they were distinctly dull. Indeed life on board was monotonous enough to all of us. The Spaniards took their boredom quietly, but it became well nigh intolerable to one Western American, whose talk was of twenty-storied houses and other boasted signs of progress at his own home, and who was now bound for Guatemala, where he apparently hoped to make a rapid fortune by running trolley-cars on the streets of the capital and generally electrifying the city.

The first few days of the voyage were certainly dull enough to tax anyone’s spirits; but when we were about 200 miles north of Cape St. Lucas the dark pall of clouds broke away, and the sun burst out in all his glory, changing the sea from a leaden grey to a wonderful blue; awnings were stretched over the decks, and we lay languidly in our chairs watching the changing shadows, while the great rollers of the Pacific gently rocked the ship, and soft warm winds blew over us. So soothing and delicious a motion I had never before experienced at sea, and in spite of my rooted objection to a ship I fell a victim to the lazy charm that seemed to hold sea and vessel in a sort of magic spell, and for the first time in my life I thoroughly enjoyed a sea voyage.

Soon we came in sight of the black-looking foothills of the Mexican coast. As we slowly sailed into the tropics, they lost their bareness, and became clothed with a rich vegetation, and then fringed with bananas and cocoanut-palms. Gradually rising higher, the hills grew into mountainous masses broken by volcanic peaks, and from one lofty cone a wreath of smoke drifted languidly on the breeze.

As the temperature of air and water grew warmer the sea became alive with flying-fish, and shoals of dolphins, four or five hundred together, played round our bows or dashed across our course, leaping and throwing up the water in fountains of spray. Large turtles floated past lying asleep on the surface of the water, their shining backs catching the sunlight and reflecting it like mirrors. The sea-birds regarded them as convenient resting-places, and almost every sleeping turtle carried on his back a dozing bird which flapped lazily away, apparently shocked at the behaviour of the turtle when the approach of our ship caused him to take a sudden dive below.

All day the sea and its inhabitants yielded us endless amusement; the evenings were gorgeous with tropical sunsets and the nights revealed a brilliancy and glory in moon and stars that surpassed all my imaginings. We sat up late watching the north star sinking lower and lower, and marking the rise of strange constellations towards the south.

It must be remembered that I am a very bad sailor, that my experience of sea voyages had been confined to many rough and wintry passages across the North Atlantic, and that all the softness and colour and beauty of a tropical ocean broke on me like a revelation.

Our first port was San Blas, on the Mexican side of the Gulf of California. It boasts no harbour, so that we dropped anchor in the open roadstead, and lay as near shore as safety permitted, rocked by the big rollers of the restless Pacific as they passed to break on the sandy beaches and rugged cliffs of the coast. A few thatched cottages were clustered round the Custom House, and others were dotted along the beach half-hidden amongst cocoanut-palms and bananas and a tangle of tropical vegetation, whilst behind them rose a fine mass of mountains clothed in the softest imaginable shades of green with lovely blue distances stretching for miles into the interior. Big picturesque boats, rowed by Mexicans in huge broad hats and clean white shirts and trousers, came to deliver and take back cargo, and to supply us with fruits and vegetables. With our glasses we watched the great dexterity with which the boats were handled and guided safely through the heavy surf.

It was rather late in the day when we weighed anchor, and sailing close in shore we could entertain ourselves until dark marking the varied play of light and shade on the rocky shore as the sun sank, and watching the pelicans perched on every point and ledge of rock, some idly sunning themselves out of reach of the spray, but the majority choosing to stand where the surging waves could just wash over their feet, whilst others wheeled overhead in slow heavy flight searching for their food. It was an exciting moment when a great bird high up in the air would suddenly fold his wings together and fall with a splash on the water, whilst his long neck and beak were shot out to catch an unwary fish just under the surface; then having secured his supper he would fly away to enjoy it in a safe retreat amongst the rocks.

Sailing under cloudless skies and lovely stars through another night, we arrived at Manzanillo, the port of Colima, proud in the possession of a railway and a weekly train from the port to the city. Here we landed, to enjoy an hour’s walk through the little town, and resting under the trees of the Alameda I had my first glimpse of a tropical garden.

Whilst waiting for the boat to carry us back to the ship we enjoyed the excitement of watching the natives trying to spear a great skate, or devil-fish, as the sailors call it. As soon as the harpoon struck, the cord was attached to a boat, and the fish swam rapidly away towing the boat after him with the greatest ease. The struggle must have already lasted half an hour when we sailed out of the bay and the fish was not yet vanquished. Later in the day we saw one of these monsters jump right out of the sea and with a great flop strike the water again, spreading out his flat proportions like a table, and making a sound like the report of a cannon.

On the evening of December 7th we arrived at the Port of Acapulco, and sailed into the beautiful bay, through a tortuous channel between high cliffs, guided by a feeble light perched on the rocks above us. The sea was a marvel of beauty, glowing with phosphorus, and alive with illuminated fish and dolphins darting about and leaving long streams of light behind them. Through this molten silver sea we glided to our anchorage near the town. As we neared the shore long narrow dug-out canoes lighted by great flaring pitch-pine torches carried by mahogany-coloured boys swarmed out of the darkness, and before the anchor was cast the ship was surrounded by a fringe of bum-boats, filled with fruit, vegetables, and pottery, and presided over by swarthy Mexican men and women.

It was a pretty and amusing scene, and as the bum-boat women and their smuggling propensities were well known to the ship’s crew, a lively fire of chaff and bargaining in a strange jargon of Spanish-English immediately began, and continued, as far as I know, all night. It certainly was a noisy night, and was rendered doubly unpleasant by the arrival of huge coal-barges manned by picturesque little black devils in dirty white garments, carrying flaring torches, who passed the night supplying us with coal and smothering us with dust.

When the sun rose on the next morning the heat was excessive, and as the town itself looked unattractive, and the surrounding country, although beautiful to look at, suggested malaria, we did not attempt to land, but contented ourselves watching the vendors of fruits, who when the day broke were still actively engaged in bargaining. On leaving the harbour before noon we hugged the coast even closer than before; so that besides the entertainment afforded by the ocean and its varied and interesting population, we could rest our eyes on the refreshing green vegetation covering the mountains, which pile themselves up, range after range, and on the rocky headlands and shining sand-beaches of the coast-line.

ACAPULCO: A SNAPSHOT OVER THE BULWARKS.

Sailors fight shy of the heavy seas in the Gulf of Tehuantepec caused by the northerly winds which rush across the isthmus from the Atlantic; and during the winter months, in spite of the increased distance to be travelled, they gain all the shelter they can by hugging the shore. On this occasion there was no exception to the rule. The weather had been hot, cloudless, and calm, but as soon as we entered the gulf we felt a quick fall in temperature and a distinct increase in the motion. When about halfway round the gulf, we dimly discerned on the horizon the beginnings of the long line of mountains and volcanoes which follow the coast almost from Tehuantepec to Panama. Gradually as we sailed nearer individual volcanic peaks rose above the broken mass: first Tacaná and Tajumulco, the highest of them all, and then the crests of Santa Maria and Atitlan, and last of all we could recognize the soft outlines of Agua and Fuego, shaded by fleecy wrappings of cloud, and knew that our voyage was near its end.

In full view of this grand panorama of mountains we cast anchor at the port of Champerico, where for many long hot hours we lay rolling in the heavy ground-swell of the open roadstead, while discharging and taking in cargo and waiting for the passengers to come on board. The town was en fiesta on account of the visit of General Barrios, President of Guatemala, and his staff, who were to be our fellow-passengers to the port of San José. Several ships lying in the roadstead were dressed with flags, and even our dirty old steamer did her best in the way of bunting to do honour to so distinguished a guest. We tried to be duly impressed by the festivities and rejoicings, but the grand blaze of blue lights and showers of rockets which followed us out to sea hardly compensated for loss of time and the general discomfort of an overcrowded ship. The President’s party took entire possession of everything; they sprawled all over the decks, went to sleep in our two deck chairs, and succeeded in breaking both of them. Fortunately, a short night’s sail brought us to the port of San José, and also to the end of our pleasant voyage.

Again we anchored in the open sea, and when the time came to go ashore we were each in turn swung over the ship’s side in a chair and deposited with a bump on the top of the other passengers and piles of baggage in a large lighter which swayed alongside. This operation was reversed when we neared the shore, and a cage was lowered from the iron pier which loomed prodigiously and alarmingly high above us, and we were swung up in safety. Thank goodness there was no sea running, only the long undulations of the swell which beats ceaselessly on the coast. Even so, landing was an unpleasant experience, and what it must be on a rough day my mind refuses to contemplate; but one must remember that even the terror of seizing the right moment to scramble from a surging lighter into a heavy iron cage, which at one moment strikes against the bottom of the boat and the next moment hangs threateningly overhead, is preferable to that of the older method when the lighter was dragged through the surf, and the unfortunate passengers landed, soaked and terrified, even if they were lucky enough to escape a capsize and the teeth of hungry sharks.

A long glistening hot sand beach facing south, a background of palm-trees and bananas, a few houses, and an illimitable ocean describes the port of San José. There is not a decent inn in the place, and our condition on seeing the only train for Guatemala leave without us (owing to the delay in getting our belongings past the custom-house) would have been pitiable, but for the kind hospitality of Colonel Stuart, the agent for the steamship line, who took us into his house on the beach and made us most comfortable for the night.

The next morning we took the train for the capital, distant about 70 miles. Our way lay through a thick growth of wild vegetation, varied by banana-plantations and groves of cocoanut-trees laden with fruit. Every small tree supported a wealth of flowering “morning glories” and other creepers, while big patches of sunflowers filled in the open spaces.

The railway soon began to ascend, and making innumerable turns among the mountains opened up charming views of the tropical forest, and gave us glimpses of the sea and the shining sand beach stretching for miles along the coast. Not the least interesting features in the journey were the endless variety of strange fruits offered us for sale, and the glimpses of native life which we caught at the wayside stations. Through ever-changing scenes, always climbing and winding through the mountains, we reached the pretty lake of Amatitlan, at an elevation of about 4000 feet above the sea, and, rising still another 1000 feet, we arrived late in the afternoon at the city of Guatemala, standing on a level plateau seamed with great ravines, or barrancas as they are here called. Two of these big ravines nearly encircle the city, and as they slowly but surely eat their way backwards threaten to curtail its growth.

CHAPTER II. THE CITY.

CITY OF GUATEMALA, FROM THE CERRO DEL CARMEN.

The city of Guatemala occupies a beautiful position in the middle of a broad plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains and volcanoes. Hill after hill rises to the north until the view is shut in by the distant Sierra Madre range. To the south-east is a volcanic group crowned by the peaks of Pacaya, and above the nearer hills to the south rise the giant cone of Agua and the triple craters of Fuego.

The streets of the city are laid out at right angles, and they gain an appearance of breadth from the lowness of the houses. Two-storied houses are as scarce as earthquakes are frequent, and the long low lines of buildings are broken only by the stumpy bell-towers and squat cupolas of the churches.

Churches and houses alike are white-washed, and the general effect is cheerful and even dazzling in the bright sunlight of the tropics. Street tramways, telegraph and telephone wires, and electric lights are there to keep us up to date; but in spite of their intrusion, it is Old Spain—the Spain of the Moors—which comes uppermost in one’s mind when wandering about the city. The deep-set windows, barred with the heavy iron “reja,” and the broad “zaguan” or porch, through which one catches a glimpse of the arches of a colonnade round a patio bright with flowers or chequered with the grateful shade of trees, take one back at once to the sunny plains of Andalusia. Nothing in the whole city was so attractive to both of us as the great market-place, and there we spent many hours. Every morning the broad streets leading to it were thronged with gaily-dressed ladinos (half-castes) and Indians, and we were even driven by frequent collisions to quit the narrow side-walk for the rough cobble-stones of the street.

The Indians are for the most part carriers of vegetables and other produce from the neighbouring villages, or merchants from a distance, who bring all their merchandise on their backs packed in light wooden crates called “cacastes.” The Indian women from the nearer hamlets also come burdened with large bundles of clean linen which has been washed for the townsfolk, or support baskets on their heads full of cakes and “pan dulce” for sale in the market-place, and many carry an additional burden slung in a shawl over the back, from which peeps out the quaint little face of an Indian baby. To judge from the expression of their faces one would say that the Indians are a dull and solemn race; but this impression vanishes when one hears their lively chatter as they trot along under their burdens, for none but the most heavily laden condescend to the slowness of a walk.

The ladino housekeepers and maid-servants with their bright striped aprons and rebosos add to the crowd, and give it a distinct charm when they poise their large flat baskets on their heads and show their shapely bare arms and pretty hands to advantage. One is not long in the city before hearing the wails of the mistresses at the length of time spent by their servants in buying a few vegetables or a dozen eggs, for, indeed, these handmaidens dearly love the loitering and chatter of the market-place.

The market-place itself is divided into two large patios surrounded and crossed by corridors. Small recesses in the walls are used as shops, like those in an eastern bazaar. Here the vendors of the durable articles ply their trade, offering for sale hardware and saddlery and all the innumerable sacks, bags, ropes, and girths needed for the trains of pack-mules; whilst others deck out their stalls with the bright-coloured dress fabrics so much loved by the natives. Towards the middle of the market-place, where the light fell strongest, colour reigned supreme in the rainbow hues of the women’s dresses and the brilliant tints of the tropical fruits. Here are heaped up mountains of golden oranges, red, yellow, and green bananas, cocoanuts, pine-apples, aguacates, anonas, and tomatoes large and small, jocotes, pimientos, limes, and sweet lemons, great bunches of flowers, endless bundles of green vegetables, and baskets piled high with fresh eggs; in fact the produce of every clime, from potatoes grown on the cold slopes of Agua to the sugar-cane from the hot plains of the Pacific coast.

At Christmas time another market is held in the arcades which surround the great Plaza de Armas, where the women display their handiwork in the manufacture of toys, most of them tiny dolls dressed in the Indian costumes and illustrating the occupations and customs of the race. Some of these little groups of figures are so extremely minute that one almost needs a magnifying-glass to examine them, and attest the clearness of vision and neatness of hand of the makers.

The shops and stores of the principal merchants are numerous, and, I suppose, under the circumstances, may be said to be fairly good, but to one coming from Europe or the United States the articles displayed are not very enticing. Most of the foreign goods are of a class which must, I think, be manufactured only for export to a semicivilized country. They do not, however, possess the merit of cheapness, for the exorbitant duties levied at the Custom House would alone more than double their original price. My efforts to buy a good silk veil to wear when travelling, as a protection against the dust, were not crowned with success; and the French modiste from whom I finally purchased a very second-rate article amused me greatly by her description of the difficulties she met with in satisfying the taste of her clients in a country where duties are levied on bonnets and hats by weight, and the boxes and paper in which they are packed are also weighed and charged for at the same rate.

Three-quarters of the foreign trade is in German hands, and many Germans have been wise enough to settle on the rich coffee-lands of the Costa Grande and Costa Cuca on the Pacific slope, and in the province of the Vera Paz, and have made a splendid success of their plantations. Next to the Germans the North Americans are most in evidence, but the English are not to be found.

When the capital was moved to its present site in the year 1774, priests and monks were still a power in the land and the finest buildings in the city were raised by the monastic orders. Now not a monk or friar is to be found in the country, and even the secular clergy are forbidden to wear any distinctive dress. From the time of the rupture with Spain ecclesiastical influence began to decline; it rose again for a time under the rule of the Dictator Carrera, an Indian of pure blood, whom the priests found it worth while to support; but during the wars which followed Carrera’s death it again waned, and in 1872 the last of the great Orders was expelled and its property seized by the government and turned to secular use. The Post Office and Custom House are now lodged in the monastery of San Francisco; the “Instituto Nacional,” a great public school, is well housed in what was once the Jesuit College; the military school is in the Recoletos. The monastery of Santo Domingo harbours the “Direccion general de Licores,” the Capuchinos is utilized for a second theatre, and some of the less important religious houses serve as “mesones” or caravanserais for the muleteers and ladino travellers.

The churches are still left to the secular clergy, and they are as uninteresting as Spanish-American churches are wont to be. Had the conquest occurred but a century earlier America might have been covered with churches worthy of the traditions handed down by the builders of Burgos, Toledo, and Seville, for the supply of labourers was for some time unlimited, the Indians were good craftsmen, and the great monuments of Copan and Quirigua show that curved and drooping feathers may afford a motive for decoration as graceful and beautiful as Gothic foliations; but such art as the Spaniards brought with them was a degraded form of the renaissance, and the innumerable churches which they built are without any architectural merit but mass, the interiors great bare halls, and the façades overloaded with stumpy twisted columns, wavy stucco cornices, and such-like abominations. Not even the ruin into which so many of them have fallen can add a grace to the masses of stucco and rubble. It is only in the villages that they gain a picturesqueness of their own, and that owing more to their surroundings than to any merit in design. However, in their favour it must be said that they are neither dirty nor bad-smelling, partly because they are so little used and partly because in this equable climate doors and windows can be left open all day long.

A few days before Christmas we happened to enter the church of La Merced and chanced upon a vesper service for the Hijas de Maria, sung by a choir of girls and children to the strains of a wheezy harmonium, whilst all did their best to increase the noise by blowing penny whistles, shaking bells and tambourines, and striking triangles. After playing with their penny toys until they were tired, the choir broke into a quaint chant, to which the rest of the congregation responded. During this performance the “Daughters of Mary,” veiled and dressed in white, and each carrying a lighted candle in her hand, knelt at the altar rails, whilst the “Sons of Mary,” with large white ribbon bows tied on their arms, sat in the seats near the choir. This was almost the only ladino church-function which we saw during our stay in the country. In all the other towns and villages the churches seemed to be given over almost exclusively to the Indians.

In our rambles through the suburbs we often found our path barred by the great barrancas which almost surround the town. These big fissures are very beautiful, and we spent many idle and pleasant hours watching the shadows chasing each other across their open green mouths, and enjoying the delicious June temperature which comes to this favoured land at Christmas time. Trees and shrubs loaded with festoons of creeping plants cling to the precipitous sides of these rifts, and now and then one caught a bright gleam where the sunlight struck the rivulet that bubbles through the luxuriant tropical vegetation in the depths. The great Zopilote vulture which seems to haunt every barranca would swoop with a whirr of his outstretched wings close above our heads and sail on over the chasm with hardly a quiver in his wings, but with his ugly black head and restless eyes always in eager movement, whilst from below now and again would well up the strong sweet notes of the “guarda barranca,” a small brown bird, who makes his home in the most inaccessible cliffs and deepest tree-clad gorges.

The usual evening stroll of the Guatemaltecos is to the Cerro del Carmen, a small turf-covered hill rising to the north-east of the city, where stands an old church and the remains of a monastery, perhaps the oldest in the Republic. From this hill the view of the city with its large white churches and conventual buildings, surrounded by walled gardens full of trees and flowers, is very beautiful at any hour of the day, but at sunset the sight is one not easily forgotten. It is difficult to describe the beauty of the amphitheatre of mountains all aglow in the sunset light, or of the majesty of the clouds as they float up from the distant sea, wreathing themselves round Agua and Fuego, filling up the valleys with mists of every possible hue, which take on a deeper colour as they drift away from the setting sun and fill the vault of the heavens. Then the east takes up what light the clouds have left behind and shoots up to the zenith splendid rays of colour, which meet those of the setting sun as it sinks behind the mountain peaks. Too soon the short twilight ends and the volcanoes clothe themselves in a bloom of dark blue, and receding into the night seem to sleep quietly under the brilliant tropical stars.

It was a lovely scene, which we always left reluctantly for the comfortless hotel and a bad dinner. But not even our dusty room nor the dark stuffy “comedor,” where we took our meals, could obliterate the vision of that brilliant pageant of marching clouds and magnificent colouring which had surrounded us on the Cerro del Carmen. The less said about Guatemala hotels the better; those in the capital are pretentious and bad. The Grand Hotel, where we put up, is a good-sized house, with patios and broad corridors and good rooms, but the furnishings are old, dirty, and disagreeably stuffy. In the dining-room, which was always overcrowded, we were not permitted to engage one of the many small tables, and had to take our chance of companions and table-cloths; the former not always agreeable and the latter often unbearable. Good food might have done much to soothe our troubled feelings, but it never came, and this was all the more aggravating as the market was full of good things to eat. The bedroom service, carried on by a very dirty man, was uncomfortable beyond expression, and a large part of my day was always passed cleaning and tidying the single room which was all the accommodation we could secure. Appeals to the landlord, a German, who, thanks to the cook whom he had married, had grown rich and proportionately proud, and who was also the owner of the large store attached to the hotel, resulted in nothing but a polite bow, a hand pointing the while to a pile of telegrams, and a suggestion that if the Señora proposed making different arrangements others were more than willing to engage her room. However, we were most fortunate in finding the kindest of friends at the British Legation and amongst the foreign residents, who rescued us from bad dinners and smelling oil-lamps, entertaining us so hospitably as to make us forget the distance from home at Christmas time; and although the atmosphere would have afforded no clue to the season as we know it in the north, there was no mistaking its kindly greetings and its roast turkeys and plum puddings.

CHAPTER III. THE START.

STONE IDOLS ON THE ROAD TO MIXCO.

At the end of three weeks all our outfit for the journey, including numerous cases of provisions, had, by the kindness of the Government, been passed through the Custom House free of duty, and we at once set to work sorting the provisions and repacking them in smaller boxes—some to be carried with us, others to be sent on to various points on the road to await our arrival.

We had already purchased seven cargo-mules and one horse, none of them in very good condition, for sound and well-conditioned animals were not only very expensive, but exceedingly scarce, and we were forced to take what we could find.

No trained riding-mule could be found for me, so I had to make my choice of a steed from amongst the pack-mules, and picked out the smallest, principally because she had a pretty head and held her ears well forward. No doubt these are not all the points I should have attended to; but no choice could have proved more fortunate, and it would have been difficult to find in the whole country a gentler or more sure-footed creature. Her feet were unshod and her power of holding on to slippery rocks was positively astounding. I soon learnt to leave her reins loose and let her pick her own way, which she did with the greatest care, whether scrambling up the rough hillsides, or, with her hind feet kept well together, sliding down perilously steep and slippery mountain-paths. Her temper was above reproach, but it required much prodding to get her out of the steady walk to which her life in a pack-train had accustomed her; however, when once fairly started, she paced easily and comfortably. I cannot say too much in praise of my mule, for she solved the one great question which weighed on my mind: how was I, who had never ridden before, to traverse the difficult country which lay in front of us? Trusting to her superior knowledge and good sense, I was carried in safety for more than five hundred miles, in daylight and in dark, over mountains and across rivers, from the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic, without a stumble and without even the feeling of fear; and when at last I had to part with her at Yzabal, it was with real regret, and the feeling that I was saying good-bye to an old and valued friend.

Our party at the start numbered five—our two selves, Gorgonio Lopes (my husband’s faithful companion during many earlier expeditions), his son Caralampio, and Santos the arriero; our train was made up of the six cargo-mules, three saddle-mules, and a horse, and to this must be added four or five Indian cargadores, bearing loads which could not be conveniently carried on pack-saddles.

My husband rode the horse, which, although not a very magnificent-looking animal, gave a certain air of respectability to the train. Gorgonio’s mule was a wise old beast with a rough and varied experience of life, who seemed to have been brought more out of sentiment than for use, for Gorgonio persistently walked up and down all the hills, and sometimes on the flat, so as to lighten her labours. He had strange stories to tell of her adventures. Once, when on a journey in Honduras, she was stolen from him and he had to return home to Coban and give up all hope of seeing her again; it was not until long afterwards that he learnt that the thief was the Juez de paz (the local Judge). At the end of a year the Governor of the Province, having heard of the shortcomings of his subordinate, took possession of the mule, but, somehow or other, forgot to give any information to her real owner, and had her sent away to a distant rancho; there possibly her existence might have been forgotten and her brand have changed its shape, had it not been that, by the merest chance, a doctor, who was an old friend of Gorgonio, recognized the mule and gave him the information which led to her recovery. Caralampio’s mule was like Mr. Kipling’s Battery mule—a mule; and mine was the excellent creature I have described.

On the 2nd of January we left the capital, mounting our mules just outside the main streets of the town, as a concession to my feelings of bashfulness; for I had no wish to shock the sensibilities of the fashionable society of the capital by riding through the streets in a short walking-dress, or to expose my bad horsemanship to their criticism. We passed to the right of the fort or Castle of San José, which commands the city, and then for about a mile followed the road bordered by straggling houses to the Guarda viejo. On passing through the gate we turned to the right across a narrow strip of land between deep barrancas, and then found ourselves fairly in the country.

On the plain through which our road lay there must have stood in olden times a fair-sized town, if one can judge from the large number of grass-grown mounds scattered over its surface; but it is now the mere ghost of a town, without history and without name, and the two squat figures carved in a hard stone which stand by the roadside at the gate of a small hacienda are all that remains to show the art of the builders, although careful investigation would no doubt reveal much more of interest. The sketch-plan on the next page was made by my husband some years ago.

We had set out late in the afternoon, and our first journey was purposely a short one of eight miles,—just enough to settle down men and mules to their work,—to the small town of Mixco, the home of arrieros, mules, washerwomen, and bakers and purveyors in general to the capital. The short twilight faded away as we crossed the plain, and it was dark before we entered the deep barranca which had to be crossed before the town could be reached. I must confess that my heart was in my mouth as I felt rather than saw the steep rough road that lay before me—for be it remembered that I knew nothing as yet of the surefootedness of my mule,—but I soon felt that she was more at home crawling down the side of a barranca than when shuffling along the dusty high road; then I grew very brave, gave her my full confidence, and never after repented of the gift. My first barranca successfully passed, we clambered into the deserted street, crossed the plaza, and, guided by Gorgonio, groped our way in the pitchy darkness down another paved street, which seemed to be as steep as the roof of a house, and found ourselves in the courtyard of a straggling one-storied building dignified by the name of hotel.

PLAN OF THE RUINED TOWN BETWEEN GUATEMALA AND MIXCO.

After many fruitless efforts to attract some attention, a woman appeared with a candle and led us to a sort of outhouse which had been engaged for us by Caralampio, who had preceded us with the pack animals and cargadores. This apartment was not prepossessing; its furniture consisted of two miserable beds, a table, two infirm chairs, a wooden bench, and a sewing-machine, and in one corner our servants had piled up indiscriminately provision-boxes, mule-trunks, tents, beds, and pack-saddles, so that confusion was added to discomfort.

A STREET IN MIXCO.

My husband and Gorgonio were particularly assiduous in their attentions to me and in their efforts to improve matters, each in his way rather alarmed as to what effect this sudden plunge into semi-civilization might produce on a novice. They were lavish in the use of candles from our store, and Gorgonio went off to forage for supper, whilst the other men were set to work to put the baggage into something like order. Before long the usual food of the country—fried eggs, frijoles (black beans), and tortillas (thin round cakes of Indian corn)—was brought to us, and to this fare we added a tin of good chicken-broth, cooked on our own spirit-lamp. Bread, which I afterwards found to be usually the first thing placed on the table of a Central-American inn, was on this occasion lacking; and we learnt that a company of soldiers, on their way to a distant station, had passed through the town in the morning and eaten up all the bread, so nothing was left for us but a little stale ‘pan dulce.’ However, we made a good supper, and even enjoyed the stale ‘pan dulce’ with the help of a cup of delicious coffee, a luxury which the traveller in Guatemala may usually count on finding even in the poorest posada.

As soon as we were comfortable Gorgonio left us to assure himself that the arriero had attended to the wants of the beasts, and found them safely tied up in the yard outside our door, each with a bundle of “sacate de milpa” (the leaves and stems of the maize-plant) for his supper. In my opinion Gorgonio holds a unique position amongst his countrymen on account of his sympathy with dumb animals, and it is well for the mule-train which falls under his management. The kind soul never thought of refreshing himself until the mules had been attended to, and no beautiful scenery or convenient camping-ground had any charms for him if there was a scarcity of food “para las pobres mulas.” His horror lest the animals should suffer stood out in striking contrast to the callousness and brutality which one noticed every day amongst the half-caste muleteers.

Supper disposed of we turned our attention to the bed question, and after examining those provided for us, determined to open our own camp-cots. But, alas! neither persuasion nor force would induce the swollen plugs to fit into their sockets, and we were obliged to sleep on the beds belonging to the hotel. A message came from the patrona to the effect that clean sheets were to be had if they were needed, and when these arrived we carefully wrapped the suspected mattresses up in them, and rolling ourselves in our blankets, knew nothing more until the sunlight streaming into the room awakened us to a lovely morning.

As we looked from the window across the plain we had traversed the evening before, the scene was an enchanting one. Soft mists coloured by the sunlight, and pierced here and there by dome and tower, hung over the city, and billowy sunlit clouds wreathed themselves round the distant mountains. Even our immediate surroundings, which appeared so squalid the night before, became transformed under the brilliant sunlight: the old courtyard looked quite picturesque with the bustle of preparation for our journey; gaily-dressed washerwomen laden with bundles of clean linen trotted past the open door, and we could watch them and the line of pack-mules and Indian carriers winding down the sides of the barranca on their way to the morning market in the capital. The air was filled with the perfume of flowers, and the atmosphere was soft and delicious.

A MIXCO WASHERWOMAN.

To the native traveller there is not much difficulty in making an early start, for he seems, as a rule, to confine his equipment for the road to a rug rolled up and strapped on the back of his saddle, a Turkish bath towel thrown over his shoulders, and such small articles as he can stow away in his “arganas,” or plaited grass saddle-bags. Possibly he may be followed by a small boy on a second mule, who carries his master’s clothes in front of him wrapped up in a petate or mat. But with us the case was very different, for what with tents, tent-furniture, beds, bedding, photographic cameras and other apparatus, a large store of provisions, a cooking-canteen, and water-tins, as well as our own personal belongings, our baggage-train was a long one, much time was occupied in getting under weigh, and our progress was necessarily slow. We had found it impossible in the city to engage Indian carriers by the month or even by the week, so we had to depend on the village alcaldes to supply us with mozos to carry loads from town to town.

I soon learnt that the alcaldes never hurry themselves to find the mozos, and that the mozos are never in a hurry to come; and when at last they are all assembled, much time is lost in fussing over the size, weight, and general make-up of the cargos. Even when the mules were all saddled and loaded, and we were making a start, one of the mozos was sure to find that the tent-poles were too long, or the camera-legs inconvenient to adjust. This discovery was followed by a demand for more pay, and we had to wait whilst Gorgonio smoothed the ruffled feelings of the mozos to whose lots these awkward burdens had fallen, with the promise of an extra medio apiece if each of them travelled well. As the Indians speak little, if any, Spanish, and our Ladinos, who spoke the Indian dialect, “la lengua” as they called it, of the Alta Vera Paz, could not understand the speech of the Indians of the Altos and the Lake region, we usually found it best to leave to the Alcalde all arrangements with the Indians, and cheerfully ran the risk of an overcharge in order to avoid delay and ensure the proper carriage of cargos.

Our start from Mixco was in no wise different from what experience afterwards showed me to be the rule, and it was rather late before we were under weigh for Antigua; but as we had only twenty miles to travel along one of the best high roads in the country, and were to find an hotel at the end of our journey, the delay was not a matter of much consequence.

The air was fresh and invigorating, and as we wound round the hills along the edge of a great barranca we caught charming glimpses of the capital, with its shining white churches lying in the plain beneath us, and of distant mountains and valleys changing from sunlight to shadow under the passing clouds. The roadside was edged with wild flowers, among them large scarlet salvias, beautiful purple single dahlias, growing to a great height, elder-trees in full bloom, and Wigandia with its magnificent leaves and fine sprays of purple flowers, royal in effect. Besides these were brilliant patches of small sunflowers, and delicate little blossoms of many sorts and colours peeping out between the moss and maidenhair ferns which clothed the rocks and turned the green roadsides into charming rock-gardens.

About midday we arrived at the little hamlet of San Rafael, high up in the hills, but even at an altitude where frost is by no means unknown it was impossible to realize that we were in the midst of winter, for in the well-kept garden of the inn standard roses, banksias, heliotrope, and various other garden plants were blooming, as if it were June and not January. Here we came up with the soldiers, infantry and artillery, who had eaten up all the bread at Mixco, and who were now resting and cooking their food by the roadside, whilst their officers took possession of the hotel. It was rather disquieting to have to follow in the wake of this hungry army, but the innkeeper dispelled our fears and gave us an abundant and well-cooked breakfast.

Soon after leaving San Rafael, a turn in the road revealed the two great volcanoes, Agua and Fuego, towering dark and mysterious above us, and seeming to bar our way. Soft billowy white clouds hovered over and around their summits, now hiding them from view, and now revealing the sharp edges of a crater, then sinking lower and wreathing their slopes in a clinging drapery of mist, sometimes silvery and glowing in the sunlight, then fading to a cold chalky whiteness. Where the afternoon sun touched the beautiful sloping sides of the mountains one could see the great deep furrows ploughed by the rains of centuries, and here and there a yellow patch of maize and the solitary hut of a mountain Indian.

The road led us down through passes wilder than we had seen before, with rugged hillsides covered with forest trees and a cheerful stream bubbling along the bottom of the narrow gully. We passed long mule-trains toiling over the hills on their way to the capital, and then the silence of the valleys was broken and the rocks echoed with the loud harsh voices of the arrieros calling to their beasts by every name in the calendar, with a refrain of “Macho, Mula arré, anda pues”—a useless expenditure of breath and energy, which never seems to affect the pace of the mule-train in the slightest degree, but which is an unfailing and annoying habit of every Spanish-American muleteer. The prettiest party we met on the road was a company of young girls clad in embroidered huipils and bright-coloured enaguas (their upper and lower garments), each with a big flat basket on her head, and a bare well-shaped brown arm raised to support it. They fluttered up the hill towards us laughing and chattering, their well-poised erect figures swaying with a fine freedom of motion. Surely no prettier sight was ever seen, with its sylvan surroundings and the sunlight glistening through the trees.

On nearing Antigua the valley opened out, and we passed some coffee-plantations, the trees loaded with berries in various stages of ripening, and the beautiful leaves shining in the sunlight. Alternating with the rows of coffee-bushes were rows of plantains and bananas, their straight unbending stems supporting a wealth of mellowing fruit and their glorious crowns of leaves giving the grateful shade which the young coffee-tree requires. The open road then merged into a roughly-paved street bordered by walls covered with flowering creepers, and overtopped here and there by flaming heads of poinsettia, which here grows almost a tree in size. Just before entering the half-ruined city we passed a group of women filling their great earthen “tinajas” with water at a picturesque old fountain, and lingering in the sweet evening light to gossip with their neighbours and stare at us as we passed.

Gorgonio led us to our hotel through long streets paved with cobble-stones, and between high walls, which, of old, enclosed well-kept convent gardens, now in ruins and unkempt, but still sweet with the scent of orange-blossom and other flowers. Sometimes through a gateway one caught a glimpse of palm-trees and bananas, bowers of yellow and white roses, peach-trees in full bloom, great bunches of crimson hibiscus, and over all a tangle of yellow jasmine and bignonia. I must own that a great longing came over me to rest here in this dilapidated old town, with its balmy delicious climate and lovely skies, its exquisite views and charming wildernesses of gardens, and here, far from the noise and bustle of steamships and railways, to live the life of Arcady!

CHAPTER IV. ANTIGUA.

My dreams faded away for a time when we reached the Hotel Rojas, which had been recommended to us as the best in Antigua. Probably it is the best, but it certainly is very bad. The rooms are small and ill-kept, and the dreadfully dirty maids seemed to consider their duty done when they had swept the dust from our room into the corridor on which all the bedrooms opened, and thrown the bath-water across the corridor into the courtyard beyond.

The table was provided with an abundance of beef, poultry, fresh eggs, vegetables, and fruits; but it was untidy beyond description, and almost all the food was ruined in the cooking by a too free use of greasy lard. However, it was evidently the style of cooking most appreciated in Antigua, for numbers of townspeople as well as travellers took their meals at the hotel, the “comedor” was seldom deserted, and the dirty attendants were kept at work from before six in the morning until after ten o’clock at night. Our tempers were not improved by being obliged to eat with, or after, so many people, whose methods of feeding were not the nicest. However, the Hotel Rojas, with all its drawbacks, was the best we came across during our travels in the Republic.

When once outside the house, the charm of the surroundings banished all thoughts of discomfort from our minds. The climate seemed to be absolutely perfect, and the brilliant blue sky, the bright sun, shaded now and again by the fleecy clouds one associates with a trade wind, the temperature never too hot or too cold, and the delicious freshness in the air stirred by gentle breezes, all together produced in me a feeling of exhilaration I never thought to experience in a tropical country. It all sounds too good to be true, but it is no exaggerated description of the climate as we found it. The situation of the city, too, is beautiful. It stands over 5000 feet above the sea-level on the north side of a plain surrounded by bold hills and towering volcanoes, and there appears to the eye to be only one gap in this circle of hills, where the slopes of Agua and Fuego overlap, and through this gap the road passes down to the Pacific coast. A few miles distant along this road are the remains of the Ciudad Vieja, once the capital of the country, for the city of Santiago, as the capital of Guatemala has always been named, has passed through many vicissitudes and changes of location.

ANTIGUA AND THE VOLCAN DE AGUA.

Early in the year 1524 Pedro de Alvarado entered the country from Mexico, and after subduing the Quichés and other powerful Indian tribes, led his conquering army of Spaniards and Mexican auxiliaries to Patinamit or Iximché, the stronghold of the Cachiquels; and here, on St. James’s day, 25th July, 1524, the solemn ceremony of founding a city and dedicating it to Santiago, the patron saint of Spain, took place, and the first municipal officers were nominated.

On this first site, however, the city can hardly be said to have had any real existence, for Alvarado and his captains were too much occupied with expeditions against Indian tribes in distant parts of the country to be able to give any attention to the building of a city, and the Cachiquels themselves rose again and again in revolt.

In the year 1527 the Cabildo, or Municipality of Santiago, met in the plain of Almolonga to decide on a permanent location for the city, and chose a site on the edge of the plain at the foot of the south-west slope of the Volcan de Agua. During the following year this new Santiago (now the Ciudad Vieja) was declared to be the capital of the province, and began rapidly to rise in importance.

Meanwhile the restless Alvarado had journeyed to Mexico and Spain, and the government of the province was left to others. In 1530 he returned to Guatemala with the full powers and title of Adelantado, and again took the direction of affairs; but the government of an already-conquered province did not satisfy his ambition, and with his mind bent on new and greater exploits he built a fleet with the intention of setting sail for the Spice Islands. From this project he was turned by the news of the marvellous successes of Pizarro in the south, and in 1534 he sailed on his ill-fated expedition to Peru. Within a year he was back again in Guatemala, and then, after another visit to Spain, he finally met his death on the 4th July, 1541, through an accident, whilst endeavouring to quell a local revolt in Mexico.

When the news of his death reached Guatemala (at the end of August) mourning was universal, and his widow Doña Beatriz de la Cueva was beside herself with grief. At the meeting of the Cabildo, the unusual step was taken of electing Doña Beatriz as governor in her late husband’s place, and the unfortunate lady signed her name in the books of the Cabildo on Friday the 9th September, with the prophetic additions of “la sin ventura,” the hapless one. It had been an unusually wet season, and from Thursday the 8th the rain fell without ceasing, and the gale was violent until Saturday the 10th, when soon after dark a flood of water and liquid mud, carrying with it huge boulders and uprooted trees, rushed down the mountain side and overwhelmed the town. The hapless one and her maidens were buried under the ruins of the chapel where they had taken refuge, and thirty or forty Spaniards and some hundreds of Indians shared a like fate.

The cause of this catastrophe is usually said to have been the bursting of the side of a lake which had been formed in the crater of the extinct Volcan de Agua; but an examination of the crater shows this explanation to be improbable, as the break in the crater-wall is in an opposite direction, and no water flowing from it could have reached the town. Moreover, there is no evidence to show that the deeper portion of the crater, which is still intact, has held water since the reported outbreak. Indeed, an accumulation of water during the exceptionally heavy rain, through some temporary obstruction in one of the deep worn gullies which indent the beautiful slope of that great mountain, and a subsequent landslip would probably account for the damage done without the aid of either an eruption of water from the crater or the supernatural appearances which are duly noted by the old chroniclers.

Again the Cabildo of the Ciudad de Santiago had to meet and decide on a more suitable position for their city, and the choice fell on the site of the present city of Antigua, on the other side of the plain and a few miles distant from the base of the treacherous mountain. There the town grew and flourished, and the half-ruined churches, convents, and public buildings still attest its former magnificence.

In this volcanic region a year seldom or never passes without the shocks of earthquake being felt, and eruptions are not of rare occurrence, but in the beginning of the eighteenth century the great peak of Fuego, which forms such a beautiful feature in the view from the city, was more than usually active. Eruptions and earthquakes followed in quick succession, and in the year 1717 the continual shocks laid the city in ruins. However, the damage was repaired again, and the city increased in prosperity; but from 1751 to 1773 earthquakes again wrought terrible havoc, and in July of the last year the Cathedral was shattered and every church and house in the city damaged or destroyed.

Then in 1774 the Cabildo finally moved its home to the present site of the city of Guatemala. This last change was not altogether a popular measure, and the Archbishop and the clergy strongly opposed the removal; but the principal laymen were in its favour, partly influenced, so says tradition, by the heavy liens which the numerous ecclesiastical bodies held on their property in the old city. The poorer people, when they had once recovered from their fright, were content to stay until oppressive laws were enacted to compel them to leave their old homes. Backed by official influence the new city rose in dignity and wealth; but Antigua, as the old town is now called, was never altogether deserted, and although now not more than half alive, is increasing somewhat both in wealth and importance. Religious services continue to be held in the one or two churches which have escaped the wreck, but the greater number of churches and nearly all the monastic buildings are roofless and crumbling into ruin. Others which still afford some shelter are used as cartsheds or blacksmiths’ shops, and one has been converted into a large furniture factory.

ANTIGUA.

The destruction which began by the convulsions of nature is being completed by her slower processes. Trees are growing inside the buildings, and smaller plants find foothold in every crack and cranny, whilst into the surfaces of the rubble and adobe walls innumerable bees bore holes in which to deposit their eggs and thus prepare the way for further destruction from the heavy rains. The best place to see the bees at work is on the sunny side of one of the high “tapias” or mud walls which enclose the gardens and coffee fincas, where they may be sometimes seen poising on their rapidly moving wings and darting in and out of their holes in such numbers as to give the appearance of a mist over the surface of the wall.

These walls, I am told, were of greater use formerly than they are now, for it is only of late years that coffee has been cultivated on this plain; in earlier times the preparation of cochineal was the chief industry, and where coffee-trees are now growing there formerly stood rows of nopal cactus on which the cochineal insect lived. This white fluffy-looking creature, which exudes a drop of crimson fluid when crushed, could not survive the wet season without protection, so a framework of rough sticks, divided into many compartments like a plate-rack, was arranged under shelter all along the garden walls, and in each of these compartments one of the flat branches of the nopal cactus was lodged before the rains began, bearing a number of cochineal insects sufficient to repopulate the whole plant as soon as the dry weather came round again. The value of this crop disappeared with the introduction of aniline dyes and the successful cultivation of cochineal in the Canary Islands, and the coffee-plant then took the place of the cactus and has again brought some measure of prosperity to the planters. But even now the situation is not altogether satisfactory, for the trees on the plain have more than once been cut down to the roots by frost, although, curiously enough, those planted on the hillsides have escaped damage.

There is little to remind one of the modern world in Antigua, it is in all respects a charming old-world place, with long narrow streets, low white houses, charming patios, and a fine plaza. The view across the plaza with its background of mountains is always attractive, and during market-time on Saturday it is brilliant and picturesque.

We were fortunately in the town during the celebration of the “fiesta de Reyes,” which commemorates the visit of the three kings from the East to the cradle at Bethlehem. We saw nothing of any function in the churches, although such no doubt took place, but contented ourselves by watching the streams of people in the streets and the great market in the plaza, which was crowded with Indians and ladinos. The Indian women were seated on the ground shaded by big square umbrellas made of matting tilted at every angle, and their wares were heaped up in big baskets or spread on mats around them.

Pottery, mats, fruits, and vegetables of wonderful variety and colour, in fact everything that is made or grows in the land was offered for sale. New arrivals continually added to the store of produce, and heavily burdened Indians picked their way through the crowd until they could find a clear space where to deposit their loads of black charcoal and golden maize; whilst in the stalls at one end of the plaza the ladinos offered for sale cutlery, saddlery, and dress materials, both native and imported. To this festival all the Indians in the neighbourhood come dressed in the costume peculiar to their village or clan, and each village sends a deputation, headed by a very solemn-looking alcalde, to offer prayers at some favourite shrine and to pay a visit of ceremony to the Jefe Político, or Chief Magistrate.

The Alcaldes were dressed in white trousers and round jackets of coarse coloured home-spun cloth, and they wore white or more often black straw hats with black velvet bands adorned with small black spangles.

AN ALCALDE.

The costumes of the different villages varied considerably. Those who came from the slopes of Agua wore the smallest amount of clothing, consisting only of a loose cotton shirt and drawers of black woollen cloth reaching halfway down the thigh, whilst the men from the Lake region were quite elaborately dressed, with the bands of their black straw hats sparkling with spangles—always, I believe, a sign of wealth and importance—and beneath their hats they wore red and white cotton handkerchiefs wound round their heads. Their black or striped woollen jackets were woven or embroidered down the front in pretty designs, a striped cotton belt or sash was wound round the waist, and the short black woollen trousers, which reached just below the knee, were embroidered on the seams with coloured threads, and left open halfway up the sides to show the white cotton drawers beneath. All, of course, wore leather sandals.

THE PLAZA, ANTIGUA.

The “huipils,” or loose cotton blouses worn by the Indian women, were much more richly embroidered than any we had seen at the Capital, and with their bright-coloured “enaguas” make up an effective costume. This enagua or skirt is usually a cotton cloth about a yard in width wrapped round the body and reaching from the waist to below the knee, but its simplicity has given way in some Indian villages to a more Europeanized form of skirt pleated at the top.

The ladino women of the poorer class were dressed in full skirts of printed cotton or coarse muslin, which just cleared the ground, aprons woven in the country, with stripes of brilliant colour, white bodices cut low in the neck and leaving their pretty brown arms bare, and most of them carried a long striped shawl, also a native product, thrown over the head or flung loosely round the shoulders. The ladino women higher in the social scale add nothing to the picturesqueness of the groups, for they affect trailing skirts, ill-cut bodices, or any other bad imitations of the fashion of the day.

An Indian baby slung in a shawl over its mother’s back is a delightfully grotesque mite; but what charmed me most were the little girls about eighteen inches high, just able to toddle by their mothers’ sides, who were miniature copies of their mothers in dress and appearance. They seemed to be contented little things, and we never saw a child roughly treated throughout our journey.

The more I saw of Antigua the greater the longing grew to settle there, and to surround myself with a garden. The picturesque ruin of the buildings and garden walls already garlanded with flowers and ferns fascinated me, and in imagination I revelled in the glories of bower and blossom which taste and care might achieve, and the thought of dreaming away one’s days in such a perfect climate surrounded by so much loveliness was strangely enticing. The rides and walks immediately around the city are delightful, no barrancas bar the way, and the two great volcanoes with their ever-changing colour and fleecy mantles of shifting cloud are a constant source of delight. Alas! we had but little time to spare for sauntering rides and woodland rambles, for with true northern energy we had set our hearts on making the ascent of Agua, and sleeping a night in the crater.

CHAPTER V. THE VOLCANOES.

AGUA FROM SANTA MARIA.

On the afternoon of the 8th of January we started with all our men and mules, carrying bed, tent, canteen, and provisions, for the Indian village of Santa Maria, about three leagues distant on the slope of the volcano.

Our road lay through the streets of the old town, past ruined churches and half-neglected convent-gardens, then through an alameda with a beautiful avenue of ficus trees whose branches met overhead, to a picturesque old fountain at the southern outskirts of the town, where the country people were resting and watering their beasts. Here we, too, came to a halt, more to gratify the social instincts of our mules than for any other reason.

After leaving the fountain we began the very gradual ascent of the lower slope of the mountain, and at each turn in the road our eyes were charmed by lovely glimpses over coffee fincas and gardens full of flowers and flowering trees to the white walls and church towers of the old town below us slightly veiled in a summer mist.

ANTIGUA. A RUINED CHURCH.

We passed a village with a massive white church and stone-flagged plaza, and then on again through Indian gardens of coffee-trees and bananas and great spreading Jocote trees, bare of leaves, but laden with the yellow and crimson fruit with which the Indian flavours his favourite intoxicating chicha.

As we slowly rode into Santa Maria the shadows of evening were falling, and out of the great stillness the sound of bells ringing the “oracion” rose from the distant villages of the plain, bringing with it that indescribably peaceful mood which penetrates the soul of the wanderer in whatever clime, when the labour of the day is done and he hears the call of the faithful to prayer. Passing through a miserably dirty village street, we entered by a pretentious gate into the great bare plaza. A huge ugly church faced us, and to the left stretched the long low cabildo. The other two sides of the plaza were intended to be closed in by high walls, and by the gateway through which we had entered; but these were additions which the Indian mind clearly deemed superfluous, for the gateway was without a gate, half the west wall had fallen down, and the south wall had not been built. Outside this great square the town was almost wholly composed of thatch-roofed native huts.

The life of the village centered round the fountain which stood in the middle of the plaza. Here party after party of women with babies slung on their backs or astride on their hips, and strings of children running at their heels, came to fill their “tinajas” and carry home the water for the night’s consumption. The habit of carrying heavy burdens on their heads gives them a good bearing and a free gait, which is the only attraction they possess, for a dirtier or more hideously ugly female population it would be difficult to find. There is, however, this to be said for them, that they were sober and could attend to their household duties, whilst the men almost without exception were drunk with chicha; and my husband and Gorgonio, both of whom had been here several times before, assured me that they had always found them in the same condition.

The Alcalde at Antigua had kindly recommended us by letter to the ladino “Secretario” of the village (the official appointed by the government to keep the Indian Alcalde and his subordinates in the straight path), who showed us every possible attention, placed the Sala Municipal entirely at our disposal, and, most important of all, promised us that Indian carriers should be ready to accompany us on the morrow.

The Cabildo was really a sound good building, and the apartment allotted to us was sumptuously furnished with two or three large tables, a cupboard containing the Municipal papers, several chairs of doubtful strength, and a strong box holding the public monies. We considered ourselves vastly well accommodated, with plenty of room to stretch out our beds, and a table upon which to eat the supper which our men were preparing for us over a fire they had made in the plaza.

The only person who looked unhappy was the old Indian who had charge of the public treasure; he glanced at us askance and every few minutes would enter the room and walk up to the chest to see that it was all right, until finally he spread his mat right across the doorway, so that no one could enter, and lay down to sleep. We were glad to turn in ourselves and to close the windows and doors, which shielded us from the unpleasantly close proximity of a party of travelling Indian merchants who had taken up their quarters for the night in the verandah.

It was in the early glimmer of dawn when we were awakened by the movements of our neighbours, who shouldered their cacastes and set out thus betimes on their journey. So, following their good example, we folded up our beds and prepared for an early start, hoping to reach the summit of Agua by noon. But, as usual, the cargadores who had been summoned by the public crier the night before failed to appear—some sent excuses, some arrived late, and others did not come at all, and nearly all the precious cool hours of the morning had slipped away before the Secretario had caught the truants, who were already half drunk, and the burdens had been arranged to suit their tastes. The tent-poles were vehemently protested against by the man selected to carry them, and I must own that my sympathies were with him, for he was a diminutive specimen of a race short in stature, and the tent-poles were five feet long. I longed to be able to sketch our cargadores as they shouldered their loads and trotted off up the mountain, each with his head tied up in a dirty red handkerchief, his long knife or machete in hand, and a packet of tortillas and a gourd full of chicha made fast to his cargo.

It is a long gradual ascent of about 5000 feet to the summit. The path has been well made and nowhere are the grades uncomfortably steep. The day was lovely, in the open places a cool breeze fanned us, and in the shelter of the woods no breeze was needed for the temperature was perfect.

At first our path lay through scrubby woods of recent growth, and then through cornfields and through peach-orchards with the trees in full bloom, and higher still we rode through patches of potatoes planted beneath the shade of the forest trees. Elder bushes full of powdery white blossoms reminded us of home; on either side of the way the banks were bordered by masses of flowers and ferns and charming green things of various kinds. There were great natural plantations of sunflowers and scarlet salvias, wild geraniums, fuchsias, and cranes’ bills, and other innumerable small and bright blossoms nestled away amongst the ferns and foliage.

The many windings of the path brought us continually in sight of charming bits of scenery. Sometimes the mass of Fuego loomed up in front of us, framed by branches of trees and exhibiting the usual display of varying cloud effects, then again the eye rested on the glistening white houses of Antigua, and as we rose higher other and more distant towns and villages came into view.

The path would have indeed been good but for the activity of the “taltusas” or gophers (Geomys hispidius), who had so undermined it as to make it positively dangerous. Into the numerous hidden pitfalls horse and mules continually floundered with much discomfort and some danger to the riders. Twice I saw our boy Caralampio pitched right over his mule’s head, the mule losing both his fore legs in a burrow, but luckily both boy and mule escaped unhurt. My mule, with singular cleverness and care, avoided every hole and suspicious-looking place, whilst the horse, with equally exceptional stupidity, floundered into them all. On one occasion, choosing for the performance the steepest and narrowest place in the path, right on the edge of a precipice, he managed, first to lose his fore legs in a burrow, and nearly to crush his rider’s leg against a projecting rock, then in struggling out to lose both his hind legs in another burrow, and to finish up by falling over backwards. My mule, who was following close behind, seeing horse and rider rolling down the hill together, whipped suddenly round, and started off at a more lively pace than I was accustomed to. Luckily Gorgonio, ever on the alert, caught at her bridle as she passed him, and no more damage was done beyond the breaking of the bit. My husband was soon on his feet again unhurt, and so was the horse, and we were all heartily thankful to have escaped what might so easily have been a serious accident.

We next passed through a belt of large velvety-leaved trees (Cheirostemon platanoides); when we were rather more than halfway to the summit, deciduous trees and flowering shrubs came to an end, and we found ourselves amongst rough grass and pine-trees in the region of frost. Here, along the shady side of the path, one could see small cave-like recesses cut in the hillside, which have a curious origin. The sloping surface of the soil is saturated with moisture slowly draining down the mountain-side, continually renewed by the clouds and mist which are ever gathering round the summit; every night this moisture is congealed into myriads of minute elongated crystals, which are so closely mixed with the disintegrated surface of the soil, that they almost escape notice. This mixture of earth and ice the Indians scoop out of these shady nooks and make into packages weighing about 170 lbs. each, neatly wrapped up in the coarse mountain grass, and one of these heavy packages an Indian will carry on his back for sale in Antigua or Escuintla; but now the manufacture of artificial ice is putting an end to his trade, and in another generation it will be extinct. In order to collect a sufficient quantity of this ice the Indians have to begin their work before sunrise, for although the sun does not actually shine on these hidden beds of crystals, the warmth of the day considerably diminishes the supply.

Our road zigzagged up the N.E. side of the mountain, and shortly after entering this region of frost we were enveloped in a cloud of mist, which shrouded us until the sun set. All the beauty went out of the evening; the air grew cold and damp, and as we neared the top, the altitude took effect on my lungs. Although I would have preferred to trust to my own feet on the difficult and almost dangerous path, I was wholly unable to do so, and had to sit my panting mule until we reached the lip of the crater, where I was obliged to dismount and scramble down on foot to the level ground at the bottom. With the exception of the one break in the rim through which we had clambered, the rugged and precipitous sides of the crater rose to a height of 300 feet all around us, and it would be difficult to imagine a gloomier or more inhospitable scene than this great dreary grass-grown bowl presented to our eyes in the waning light.

The Indians soon heaped together a good supply of pine logs and lighted large fires. The tent was hastily put up, and we worked hard to make ourselves comfortable before dark. The task was, however, only half-completed when the sun set, and the great black pall of night covered us, bringing a darkness that could be felt, which the fires seemed only to intensify. However, half an hour later the mist cleared away, and one by one the stars came out, clear and sparkling in the blue-black sky. Venus and a young crescent moon hung for a brief moment very near together on the edge of the crater and then left the black abyss colder and darker than before.

Hoping to divert my thoughts from this heavy darkness, which oppressed me almost to the point of physical pain, I turned my attention to the fire and my duties as cook. But here I met with an unexpected difficulty, for owing to the altitude everything boiled at a ridiculously low temperature, and the curried fowl I put on to cook spluttered and frizzled long before it was half-heated through; and although I put it back time after time, owing to the rapidity with which it boiled on the underside and cooled down on the upperside, we got no more than a comfortless and half-cold supper after all. Supper over, there was nothing left to do but to go to bed, and wrapping ourselves in all the rugs and coats we possessed, we tried to forget the cold and general discomfort in sleep, but our efforts were in vain. The temperature fell lower and lower, icy gusts of wind flew shuddering past the tent, shaking the canvas and stretching every rope, leaving an oppressive stillness behind almost more alarming than the blasts themselves. At such moments one’s nerves, already at full tension, became unmanageable, and one’s mind conjured up fantastical pictures and forebodings of danger from the treacherous nature of the mountain to whose mercies we had confided ourselves: a mountain which I knew well enough, in the daytime, had not been in eruption within the memory of man. But perhaps the most uncomfortable feeling of all was the difficulty in breathing, and the unusual gasping sensation following the least change of position.

The Indians’ habit of early rising was on this occasion a source of joy to me, and long before daylight the terrible freezing monotony of the night was broken by the sound of voices and the heaping together of the smouldering logs; it was a moment of joy when Gorgonio appeared with hot coffee and bread.

We were anxious to lose none of the beauty of the sunrise, and as soon as possible we began to climb the rough sides of the crater, a task involving many pauses and great expenditure of breath; indeed so painful was the effort to expand one’s lungs, that at times one felt inclined to give up all further exertion. Gradually, however, the strain relaxed, and by the time we had reached the ridge we breathed normally, inhaling refreshing draughts of the purest and most invigorating air, and feeling fit for any further amount of scrambling.

Arduous as was the task of ascending to the rim of the crater it was as nothing compared with the difficulty now before me of attempting to describe the beauty of the scene on which we gazed. The world lay still asleep, but just stirring to shake off the blue-grey robe of night which had thrown its soft misty folds over lakes and valleys. A magnificent panorama of mountain-peaks floated out of the mist, east and west and north, whilst to the south a grey hazy plain stretched away until it was lost in the mists of the ocean. Following the line of the coast the great bulwark of volcanic cones stood shoulder to shoulder, and in the far east we could just catch the faint red light from the active crater of Izalco in Salvador reflected on the morning sky. One by one the lofty peaks caught a pink glow from the coming sun, and as the mists rolled away we could see the pretty lake of Amatitlan nestled amongst the hills and the sleeping hamlets dotted over the plains. Very near to us on the west towered the beautiful volcano of Fuego, still clothed in the softest blue mist. As the sun rose clear and bright we beheld a sight so interesting and beautiful that it alone would have repaid us for the miseries of the night, for at that moment a ghost-like shadowy dark blue mountain rose high above all the others, and as we gazed wondering what this spectral visitor might mean, we saw that it was the shadow of Agua itself projected on the atmosphere, which moved as the sun rose higher and gradually sank until it lay a clear-cut black triangle against the slopes of Fuego. It was an entrancingly beautiful sight, and strange as it was beautiful. As the sun rose higher in the heavens and warmed the air we lay resting and basking in its light on soft beds of grass, marvelling in careless fashion over the wonderful changes we had witnessed, the contrast between the profoundly dark and tragic night and the laughing merry day, and we rejoiced that we had come to see the varying moods of nature at such an altitude.

Then we had a glorious scramble right round the edge of the crater, the highest point of which, as measured by Dr. Sapper, is 12,140 feet above sea-level; at last, regretfully tearing ourselves away from scenes of so much loveliness, we plunged down again to where our tent stood in the sunless crater in the middle of a grassy plain about one hundred and fifty yards across. Here we found Gorgonio occupied in thawing the coffee, which had frozen solid in the bottle since our early breakfast time. We were soon en route for Santa Maria, and I noticed a certain readiness amongst the Indians as well as our own men to escape from the crater, where we had passed so gloomy a night. Mindful of the holes and pitfalls in the path, we preferred to risk nothing, and walk the six miles to the village. On our way down we passed some of the Indian ice-gatherers staggering under their heavy burdens. It was past noon when we arrived at Santa Maria, and after a few hours’ rest we mounted our mules and rode on in the cool of the afternoon, and reached Antigua before dark.

Note (by A. P. M.).—I had made two ascents of Agua previous to the expedition just described by my wife. The first was in January 1881, when I walked from Santa Maria to the crater and back in the day (for the mule-path had not yet been made), arriving at the summit at about 10 o’clock; on the way up I had passed through a belt of cloud which thickened and spread until the whole country seemed to be covered up with it. The sun was shining in a brilliantly blue sky overhead, and the top of the mountain stood out perfectly clear, like an island in a silver sea. It was an exquisitely beautiful sight looking down on the great mass of sunlit billows stretching to the horizon, but it was not what I had come to see, so after waiting for four hours I packed up my camera and compass and marched down again.

On New Year’s day, 1882, I climbed up Agua again, and as it was fortunately a clear day I took a round of angles and some photographs.

During the next few days I made the acquaintance of Dr. Otto Stoll, who was then practicing medicine in Antigua, and collecting the valuable notes on the Indian languages which he has since published, and, to my great delight, I learnt that he wished to make the ascent of Fuego; so we arranged to start the very next day for the village of Alotenango. On the 7th January we left that village about 7 o’clock in the morning with seven Mozos, carrying food, clothing, and my camp-bed, and rode for an hour towards the mountains, when we dismounted and sent back our mules. The first two hours’ climb was not so very steep, but it was tiring work walking over the loose mould and dry leaves under the thick forest. At 10 A.M. we stopped an hour for breakfast. Dr. Stoll was in very bad training, as he had been suffering from fever, and it needed all his pluck to face the hill at all. Then we recommenced our climb under shadow of the forest by a steep path cut through the undergrowth. At the height of about 9500 feet we, for the first time since starting, got a sight of the peak rising on the other side of a deep ravine. The whole of the slope on which we looked was bare of vegetation, and presented to the eye nothing but desolate slopes of ashes and scoriæ broken higher up with patches of burnt rock; we scrambled on through the thick undergrowth, often with loose earth under foot, and by degrees the vegetation changed and we got amongst the pine-trees. At about 11,200 feet we came to a spot where the earth had been levelled for a few yards by the Indians, and there we determined to pass the night. I put up my bed, and the Mozos arranged a fence of pine-boughs to break the force of the wind, and collected wood for a fire. As we were all snug by about half-past four, I scrambled up a little higher to see what sort of view I could get of the Meseta and cone for a photograph, and then returned and watched the reflection of the sunset over the more distant peaks and against the perfect cone of Agua. It was a most beautiful sight, but the cold which followed the sunset soon took all our attention, and when I had turned into bed I had on three jerseys, two flannel shirts, and a loose knitted waistcoat under my cloth clothes, and my rug double all over; yet I felt the cold intensely, and poor Stoll, who was even better wrapped up than I was, was shivering, so we pulled down the waterproof sheet which we had rigged overhead and put it over both of us; still I was frequently awakened by the cold, and Stoll got, I fear, no sleep at all. The Mozos rolled up in their ponchos, with their toes to the fire, seemed to endure the cold much better than we did. We turned out of our shelter at about half-past four in the morning, and felt all the better after drinking hot coffee; we then sat for an hour watching a most beautiful dawn and sunrise. At the opposite side of the valley rose the Volcano of Agua, sloping on one side to the plain of Antigua, and on the other in a long unbroken sweep to the sea, more than forty miles away. Peak after peak stood out against the red light into the far distance, and on the right the low coast-line and the sea showed up very clearly.

As soon as the sun was up we started for the summit. I stopped on the way to get a photograph of the cone, which lay to the left of us as we ascended; but the clouds came over just as I was ready, and I had to give it up. A little over 12,000 feet we left the scraggy pine-trees and arrived at the northern end of a cinder ridge, called the Meseta, which is at the summit of the slope we had been climbing. To the north of us, on the other side of a deep rift, rose the distant cone of Acatenango, the highest of the three peaks of the mountain, covered with sparsely scattered pine-trees almost to the top; to the south, half a mile distant at the other end of the Meseta, rose the active cone of Fuego.

THE FIRE PEAK AND MESETA.

West from the Meseta was a most lovely view over a wooded valley, broken by cultivation, and dotted with villages to the slopes of Atitlan, the nearest to us of the long line of volcanoes which follows the coast-line and sweep in long wooded stretches to the sea. On the land side the slope of Atitlan dipped into the great lake which sparkled below us in the sunlight. Beyond the lake ridge after ridge rose abruptly in the distance. The wind came bitterly cold over us as we stopped to look at the view, and every now and again the clouds shut everything from our sight; the Mozos huddled together under tufts of coarse grass, and, as we had been warned, refused to go any further. So we set out along the cinder ridge of the Meseta alone; it was just broad enough to walk along in safety, but a fall on the east side would have sent one headlong down a precipice, or on the west side sliding down steep cinder slopes, broken by smoking holes like half-formed craters, into the black forest-covered gullies below.

PEAK OF ACATENANGO, FROM THE MESETA.

In a very high wind it would be impassable; as it was I only lost first one and then the other of my (double) Terai felt hats, whirled off my head by the sudden gusts. At the end of this ridge we came to the actual cone, more than 400 feet high, formed of small loose cinders and scoriæ, as steep as the roof of a house. It was a terribly hard pull up. With the help of a strong stick, and often by using my hands and with many rests on the way, I at last reached some lava rocks where there was good foothold. Stoll was so weak from his fever that two or three times he told me that he must give up, but when he saw me getting on in front of him he plucked up courage and came on again. I had thought the ridge of rocks was round the crater itself, but after scrambling up them I found that there was still 40 or 50 feet above me of steep cinder slope, which luckily proved to be harder and gave better foothold than what we had already passed. Up this I climbed, and at the very top of the peak looked over into the crater on the sea-side. It was a hole about a hundred feet deep, almost surrounded by broken jagged and smoking rocks covered with sulphurous deposit and falling away on the further side to greater depths which projecting walls of rock hid from my view. I went back down to the ridge of rocks I had passed and shouted encouragement to Stoll, who was pluckily struggling on. Fortunately for me I suffered from none of the headache and heart-beating which had troubled me on the top of Agua the week before. Perhaps the most curious thing about the mountain is the fact that it rises quite regularly and gradually to a sharp point, on which the two of us could sit and get an uninterrupted view all round.

Once at the top Stoll was more venturesome than I, and induced me to follow him round the smoking edge of the crater to a projecting rock, a few yards to the left, but we did not greatly improve our view. The fumes from the crater were not very pleasant, but luckily the wind was in our favour. After a short rest on the summit we returned to the Meseta, shooting down the cinder slope as if it were snow, somewhat to the damage of our boots.

We got back to our camping-place about 11 o’clock, and after a good breakfast, started for the descent, and reached Alotenango between 4 and 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

CHAPTER VI. THE ROAD TO GODINES.

We left Antigua on the morning of the 12th January. Just as we were ready to ride out of the Patio our landlord approached me, carrying in his hand a hideous toy parrot, sitting in a swing, with staring red eyes and scanty green feathers glued on its back. This he solemnly presented to me with many bows and wishes for a “buen viaje.” I felt bound to show my appreciation by hanging the thing to my saddle, sincerely hoping that it would soon be jolted off; but no such luck attended me, and there the bird hung dangling against the mule as we rode through the town. As soon as we were well out of sight I offered my prize to a group of children playing by the roadside; but they all fled away, and it was some time before I met a child who could be tempted to rid me of the gift.

After riding a mile or two along a road bordered by cottages bosomed in fruit trees we rose to a bleak tableland. It was one of the very few days of unpleasant weather which we experienced during the whole of our journey; a fierce wind raised clouds of dust and rustled through the ugly dry “rastrojos,” or stubbles of Indian corn, which covered the plain. We passed through the little Indian town of Zaragoza, chiefly noted for the manufacture of “aparejos,” the native pack-saddles. I have been told that the Indians here have such a liking for dried alligator meat as a lenten fare that the vendors of that highly-perfumed delicacy have to be locked up in the “cárcel” for protection and sell the meat through the prison bars. The streets were full of gaily-dressed people assembled for a fiesta, and dancing was going on in a shed, to the monotonous sound of a marimba. We were not tempted to loiter for long, and rode on again over the dull plain to the ugly and uninteresting town of Chimaltenango, where we proposed to spend the night. The hotel was dirty and the bedrooms so unpleasant that we would have none of them, and sent Gorgonio to hunt for an empty room in which we could put up our own beds. This he found in a “meson,” or caravanserai, attached to the hotel, where there was a good-sized room and a rough kitchen opening on a patio in which we could turn the beasts loose for the night. A sprinkling with water, a good sweeping, and a free use of Keating’s powder, soon made the room habitable. The supper at the hotel was, however, far above the average, and the only thing to complain of was the poor forage supplied to the mules.

The weather next morning was lovely, and we made an early start. A ride of about five leagues first across the same high tableland, then through the lovely valley of La Sierra, brought us to Patzun, a town of some importance, well placed and rather picturesque. The day had been so charming that we had been tempted to dawdle much on the way in lazy enjoyment of the beauty of the woodland slopes and the views of the volcanoes, so that it was about 4 o’clock when we rode up to the inn. The accommodation offered to us was not attractive, for the bedrooms were like cupboards, airless and dark, and we were about to search in the town for an empty room, when the patrona, after much hesitation, agreed to allow us the use of the “Sala” as a bedroom; so leaving Gorgonio and the boys to clean the room out, and to try and get rid of some of the too numerous fleas, we wandered off to see the sights of the town. Our steps of course gravitated towards the Plaza, which, however, was not in itself attractive; but the groups of Indian wayfarers seated around fires, cooking their suppers or settling themselves for the night, were exceedingly picturesque. The people here are far better looking than those we had seen at Antigua and Santa Maria, and they appear to belong to a finer and stronger race, with faces less grotesque and costumes much more attractive.

The dress of the men is rather Eastern in effect, and consists of a long loose sleeveless garment woven from the undyed wool of the black sheep. It is open at the sides, is longer in the back than in front, and is usually drawn in round the waist with a belt. Loose trousers of the same material reach to the knee, and below them appear the embroidered edges of the loose white cotton drawers.

The huipils of the women are woven in stripes and brightly coloured with native dyes, and the home-made enagua of blue and white striped cotton is fastened round the waist over the huipil by a beautifully embroidered belt with hanging ends. Every woman carries over her arm a small striped cotton shawl to throw over her bare neck and arms in the cool of the evening, and both men and women wear coloured handkerchiefs knotted round their heads. We made many efforts to buy some of the good huipils, but without success, and the women quite frightened Gorgonio by the vehemence of their indignation at being asked to sell their garments. This is hardly to be wondered at, for we learnt that their stock of clothes usually included only one huipil in the wearing and one in the loom, and it must take a long time to work the elaborate patterns in cross-stitch with which they are embroidered.

SPECIMENS OF NATIVE TEXTILES AND EMBROIDERY (No. 1)

SPECIMENS OF NATIVE TEXTILES AND EMBROIDERY (No. 2)

Whilst we were watching the groups in the Plaza our attention was attracted by the sound of music, and three shabby-looking fat ladinos came in sight, playing violin, trombone, and drum, and heralding a procession of gaily-dressed Indians. Some of the men wearing long gowns trimmed with red, with turbans wound round their heads, bore on their shoulders a platform supporting the image of a Saint, which was being carried round the town on its way to the church, there to be deposited for the night in readiness for the fiesta on the morrow. Then followed others who may have been priests or were perhaps only officials of a “cofradia” or brotherhood, for their costumes were not orthodox priestly garments, and then a number of women dressed in clean huipils and enaguas, and wearing long white veils, with the part covering the head thickly embroidered in white silk. Each woman carried a lighted candle in her hand, wrapped round with a green canna-leaf to shade it from the wind. We followed the procession through the streets to the church, where the image was deposited, and the women (still candle in hand, but each with the canna-leaf placed on the top of her shawl, neatly folded by her side) knelt in a circle and sang a hymn before the procession dispersed.

We returned to find our room swept but hardly clean, and after a very bad supper were not sorry to turn into our comfortable camp-beds.

A BARRANCA.

Early next morning we went on our way to Godines, and soon began the descent of a great barranca, where the path was so exceedingly steep and bad that we were glad to dismount and scramble down on foot. It was a beautiful walk, winding down through thick woods, but, alas! nearly all the trees by the roadside, within reach, had had their trunks burnt or scorched by camp-fires or been otherwise maltreated, and many of them had fallen and lay rotting where they fell. Here and there a general clearing, or “roza,” which spares nothing, was in progress, preparatory to planting corn, and it seems as though within a few years all the fine timber will have disappeared from the lake region unless some better mode of cultivation is introduced. At present the Indians merely scratch the surface of the ground with a hoe, or, on the level plains, with a primitive wooden plough, and they abandon a plantation after a few crops have been taken off of it. In the Altos, where the population is large, the cultivators have to return to their fallows after a short interval, but wherever there is woodland near at hand they attack it recklessly, sacrificing all the timber trees without scruple. This system of shifting their cornfields has received the sanction of immemorial usage; and although I am told that the Government has repeatedly attempted to prohibit the wasteful “rozas,” the local authorities are too indifferent or too partial to enforce its commands; and the conservative Indians fail to see that whilst in olden times the forest was protected by the enormous amount of labour which had to be expended in felling a tree with a stone axe, nowadays, with cheap machetes and American axes, the growth of ages disappears in a few hours.

We were three hours riding and walking through this beautiful green barranca, including a halt for breakfast, beside a charmingly clear stream, from which we gathered the freshest and crispest of watercress. Then the path made great sweeping turns up the steep side of the valley, revealing to us as we rose new and lovely views with Agua and Fuego in the distance; and early in the afternoon we arrived at Godines, where we were met by Mr. Audley Gosling, the son of the British Minister, who had ridden from Guatemala to spend a few days with us at the lake.

The village consists of a small cabildo and half-a-dozen Indian huts, and stands about two thousand feet above the lake of Atitlan; but as the rising ground to the west cuts off the view of the lake, it did not suit us as a camping-ground, so after consultation with the alcalde, we rode on in search of a more favoured spot by the roadside, where he assured us there was a good supply of water. On turning the hill the sight of the lake burst suddenly upon us, and, stopping by a wayside cross around which the Indians had strewed sweet-smelling pine-needles and floral offerings, we drank in the marvellous beauty of the view, which later on we saw in so many changing moods and learned to love so well. A further climb up the steep path brought us to a small level patch of ground, where there was room enough to pitch our tent beside a spring of water slowly oozing up into a natural basin about two feet across.

A HIGH ROAD.

The land fell away in front of us in steep slopes and precipices to the edge of the lake between two and three thousand feet below, and the view over this beautiful sheet of water, about twenty-two miles long and twelve miles broad, with its background of grand volcanoes, was one of surpassing loveliness. The conical peak of San Pedro, wooded to its summit, rose opposite to us on the far side of the lake, and to the left stood the double cones of Atitlan, the lower peak rounded and forest covered, and the higher rising above the vegetation in a perfect cinder cone. Almost all round the lake the hills rise steeply, but here and there by the water’s edge the Indians have found room for their villages, and have planted their “milpas” wherever corn will grow, often on hillsides as steep as the roof of a house. We rather reluctantly turned our backs on this lovely scene, and gave our attention to pitching the tents and sweeping and clearing the ground round the camp. The tiny pool was half full of dead leaves, rubbish, and mud, and had to be thoroughly cleaned out, when it soon filled again with an abundance of good clear water. Then the site for the kitchen was chosen, tables were unfolded, the canteen opened, and before long a kettle of soup was boiling merrily, and we enjoyed a good supper sitting out in the clear moonlight. Mr. Gosling slept in the small tent on the other side of the roadway, and the men made themselves quite comfortable behind a wall of pack-saddles and boxes, a covering of waterproof sheets, and a good supply of blankets: for at nearly eight thousand feet above the sea the nights are cold and the mornings frosty.

LAKE AND VOLCANO OF ATITLAN.

Next day we set to work to build a rough roof over the kitchen as a shade from the midday sun, to put up tables and shelves made of straight sticks bound together, and generally to make ourselves comfortable for a week’s stay; and never have I enjoyed a week more thoroughly.

CHAPTER VII. THE LAKE OF ATITLAN.

Our tent was pitched so close to the precipice that even from my bed I had a grand view over the lake, and could watch the black masses of the volcanoes looming clear cut and solemn in the moonlight, or changing from black to grey in the early dawn; then a rosy flush would touch the peak of Atitlan and the light creep down its side, revealing for a brief half-hour every detail of cinder ridge and chasm on its scarred and wounded slopes, until with a sudden burst of glory the sun rose above the eastern hills to strike the mirror-like surface of the lake and flood the world with warmth and dazzling light. Every peak and mountain-ridge now stood out clear and sharp against the morning sky, and only in the shadow of the hills would a fleecy mist hang over the surface of the lake far beneath us; then, almost before the sun had power to drink up these lees of the night, from the deep gap between the hills to the south a finger of white cloud, borne up from the seaward slope, would creep round the peak of Atitlan only to be dissipated in the cooler air; but finger followed finger, and the mysterious hand never lost its grasp until, about noon, great billowy clouds rolled up through the gap and the outpost was fairly captured, although the crater itself often stood out clear above the cloudy belt. It was not, however, until the sun began to lose its power that the real attack commenced, and the second column deployed through the gap on the southern flank of San Pedro, and then from 5 o’clock until dark there followed a scene which no pen and no brush could adequately portray. The clouds seemed to be bewitched: they came down on us in alternate black and sunlit masses, terrible in their majesty; then rolled aside to show us all the beauty of a sunset sky, tints of violet that shaded into pink, and pink that melted into the clearest blue, whilst far away beyond the mountains seaward rolled vast billowy masses, first red and yellow, and then pink, fading to the softest green. Again and again would the clouds roll down upon us, the mist at times so thick that we could not see beyond a hundred yards; then just as quickly it would roll away and reveal a completely new phase of this ever-shifting scene of beauty. It is a poor simile, but I can compare it to nothing but the falling and rising gauzes of a Christmas transformation scene, with a wealth of colour and effect that Covent Garden may despair of ever attaining. As the sun sank behind San Pedro, all turned again to dark and angry purple, with contrasts and reflections like the sheen of a shot silk. Slowly the mists melted away with the fading daylight, Venus hung for a while like a splendid jewel in the air, and the mountains turned again to shadowy masses outlined against a crystal sky.

The saucy blue jays had ceased to chatter before the sun went down; but we were not left in silence, for as the moon, then at its full, rose above the eastern hills the whip-poor-will began its plaintive cry, the crickets chirped, bats swooped down on us, fireflies hovered among the trees, and dozens of frogs emerging from their hiding-places took possession of our pool with loud croaks of satisfaction.

Our days were spent in rides and rambles in the neighbourhood; but we always tried to get home early, so as to finish our dinner comfortably and take our seats in good time for a view of the never-failing cloud display. The air was fresh and exhilarating, although the heat at noon was that of an August day at home; but as evening came on we were always glad of extra wraps, and at night we slept under our heaviest blankets.

SUNSET, THE LAKE OF ATITLAN.

All day long travellers would pass along the road, which ran within a few feet of our tent. Sometimes it would be a party of Indian traders or carriers, their cacastes heavily laden with earthen cooking-pots or other merchandise, or carrying on their backs bulky bundles of rugs or mats. A mozo laden with a freight of “Tinajas” (as the large-sized water-jars are called) is indeed a curious sight, for the tinajas are not heavy, and he manages to carry an extraordinary number of them skilfully tied on to the outside of his cacaste, so that a back view shows only a mountain of crockery supported by two small mahogany coloured legs, and suggests a sort of human caddis-worm. Then a party of Ladinos would come by on mule-back, the women, who were almost always smoking cigarettes, sitting on the offside of their mules and wearing long flowing riding-skirts and men’s straw hats tied under the chin with a pocket-handkerchief, the men as often as not dressed in dilapidated uniforms with the inevitable bath-towel thrown over the shoulders. Often they would call out to me to know what I could give them for breakfast, or what we had to sell, for it never entered their heads that we were camping-out for amusement, and our answers were received with visible want of faith. Once a party of men passed by carrying on their backs, or slung on poles between them, the whole paraphernalia of a village fiesta—images, wooden trestles, platforms, and arches studded with tin candle-sockets and adorned with tawdry decorations and fringed edges of coloured paper which fluttered in the wind.

The Indians would put down their loads and stop to rest under the shade of the trees and ask permission to fill their water-jars from the little pool as civilly as though we were its lawful possessors. Then they would light their fires by the roadside to heat their coffee and toast tortillas in the ashes. Sometimes they would pass the night close by our camp, smoking and chatting for awhile after the evening meal, and then roll themselves in their blankets to enjoy a well-earned sleep.

NOONDAY REST.

We made many attempts to photograph the picturesque groups, but seldom with much success, as the sitters were so restless and shy under the ordeal that they would hide their faces or move away as soon as the camera was in position, and they could only be captured by a chance snapshot. But here, as everywhere, there were exceptions to a rule, for two of our Indian visitors were so far advanced in civilization that as soon as they caught sight of the camera they promptly demanded a “medio” apiece for the privilege of taking their portraits, and insisted on payment in advance; but they seemed almost as quickly to repent of their bargain, and could only be induced to sit uneasily for a moment, and hastily made off before a second plate could be exposed. The Indians’ objection to photography is due to the fear of “brujeria,” or witchcraft, in which they are firm believers; and after all a medio was small pay for the risk they ran of being looked at naked through their clothes or having their insides filled full of snakes.

Sometimes we were awakened before dawn by the distant sound of a boy’s shrill voice chanting a few bars of a melody, which was caught up by a chorus of men’s voices a fifth lower, and repeated again and again as the sound rapidly approached our tent, and then died away in the distance. It was the morning hymn of a company of Indian pilgrims returning from the shrine of the Black Christ at Esquipulas, which lies distant many days’ journey towards the frontier of Honduras. The great festival of the year is held in January, and then for a week or more the usually half-deserted little town of Esquipulas swarms with pilgrims. In old days its fame was so great that it attracted worshippers all the way from Mexico and Panama, and the fair which was carried on at the same time was the great commercial event of the year. Thither the English merchants from Belize brought their wares and carried on what was practically the whole of the foreign business of Honduras, Salvador, and Guatemala, taking in exchange the native-grown indigo. For some years the working of the neighbouring mines of Alotepeque helped to keep up business, but now steamships and railways have so changed the course of trade that the fair is of not more than local importance. The custom-loving Indian will, however, still cheerfully make a month’s journey, cacaste on back, to pay his adoration to the Black Christ, and the huge church is still kept in good repair, although not many years ago it was despoiled of its rich treasure of gold and silver votive offerings by a troop of Guatemala cavalry which had been sent to defend the frontier against an attack from Salvador, and repaid itself for its patriotic services by looting one of its own churches on the way home. The Ladino troopers rode back into the capital with handkerchiefs full of little golden arms and legs tied to their saddle-bows, and freely distributed the spoil amongst their friends and admirers, who thronged the streets to give them a welcome home.

ESQUIPULAS.

During this and the following week we met many companies of pilgrims returning from Esquipulas to their villages laden with the goods they had purchased, and with a bundle of rockets tied to each man’s cacaste, to be fired off in celebration of his safe return home. The pilgrims will often stop to deck the roadside crosses with flowers, branches, and green leaves, and to strew the ground around them with fresh pine-needles, and every man will pluck a green branch from a tree and strike his leg sharply with it, so as to ensure good health on his journey. Sometimes the hill Indians when journeying down to the plains will tie a small bundle of sticks together and deposit them by the roadside, if possible near a hot spring, as a charm against fevers; and every man on leaving his home will place a marked stone in a certain position, or put one stone above another, as a test of his wife’s fidelity during his absence. If the stones are untouched on his return he is satisfied; but many a poor woman must get an undeserved thrashing, as the mischievous Ladino boys delight in moving the stones when they can find them, thus ensuring a family squabble.

VOLCANO OF ATITLAN.

On Sunday, the 21st January, to my regret, we broke up our camp. Mr. Gosling said good-bye to us the night before, and started on his return journey to Guatemala before daylight; and we afterwards learned that he rode and walked the whole sixty miles of rough road in a day, arriving at the legation about 10 o’clock in the evening, neither he nor his mule any the worse for the long journey.

We sent on our pack-mules and luggage to the town of Panajachél to await our arrival, and set out ourselves to visit the small village of San Antonio, which lay three thousand feet below us on the border of the lake. The shortest way to the village is by a precipitous path down the cliff, used daily by the Indians, but altogether impossible for mules; so we packed what we needed for the night on the backs of some Indians and sent them off by this route. We rode back ourselves through Godines, and then took the road which leads through the great gap towards the sea-coast. It was a beautiful morning, and we thoroughly enjoyed our ride through pine woods and past fields of maize and flowering aniseed. The clouds had not yet rolled up, and we had a splendid view through the gap to the rich lowlands of the Costa Grande. About six miles from Godines we left the high road and turning sharply to the right came in full view of the lake again. A solitary black storm-cloud had gathered over the surface of the water and threatened us with a drenching should it come over our way; but luckily we escaped it, and its changing tints only added to the beauty of the scene.

The narrow path zigzagged down the hill, and was so steep that we preferred to dismount and lead our mules until we reached the water’s edge; then a ride of a few miles over a path scraped out of the hillside brought us in view of the little Indian town.

The walls of the queer-looking square houses are built of rough stones held together by a framework of undressed sticks, and a grass thatch covers the roof. Each house stands within a small enclosure formed by a rough stone wall or a reed-fence, and some attempt has here and there been made to plant these enclosures with flowers; but usually the hard surface of the earth is swept bare. There are only two or three trees in all the village, and as none of the Indian houses are plastered or white-washed, the prevailing colour is a dusky brown of earth, rock, and thatch, which renders all the more striking the striped huipils of the women and the red-and-white handkerchiefs bound round the men’s heads.

SAN ANTONIO.

We climbed up through the steep narrow lanes to the Cabildo, where we proposed to pass the night, and found the verandah in front of the building closely packed with Indian travellers and their cargoes. There were only two rooms—one used as a prison, which was overcrowded with delinquents, who stretched out their hands through the heavy barred door and begged for alms; the other used as a “Sala Municipal,” which was both small and dirty: however, we were ready to make the best of it as a lodging, when we were informed that, as the Secretario was away, no one could give us leave to make use of it. Somewhat discouraged, we wandered on, in search of a resting-place, past the church, roofless from the shocks of many earthquakes, and arrived at the foot of a high flight of steps, crooked and picturesque, at the top of which stood the school-house. Here was our chance: we hunted up the Ladino schoolmaster; Gorgonio and he were soon fast friends, and the room used as a girl’s school was placed entirely at our disposal. The room had a mud floor and was furnished with a blackboard—very useful to hang clothes on,—a table, and a few wooden benches. There were no windows, and the door had to be kept wide open to admit light and air, greatly to the delight of a few urchins who lingered about the steps and furtively watched our movements.

SAN ANTONIO.

The Ladino inhabitants of San Antonio are the schoolmaster, his wife and children, the Secretario, and two women who keep the estanco or grog-shop; otherwise the town is purely Indian and governed by an Indian municipality. Until quite lately it was difficult of access by land and almost isolated, but since the track along the lake-shore has been improved it is found to be a convenient short cut from the Altos to the coffee-fincas on the Costa Grande, and the sight of strangers is no longer a novelty. Nevertheless we found the women and girls so extremely shy that they ran away from us and from the camera, as though the evil eye were on them.

After arranging our camp-beds and ordering our supper from the estanco we strolled about the town to see the sights. Whilst we were enjoying the lovely view and watching the changing lights upon the water, a procession of Indians clad in their black sack-like garments came towards us. It was headed by the alcalde with his staff of office, who was followed by his alguacils and mayores, each carrying a long white stick. They stopped at house after house, apparently giving some directions to the inmates, and as they passed us the alcalde civilly wished us “buenas noches”; then a little further on they halted and an alguacil clambering up a wall stood on the top and in a loud clear voice, which seemed to travel up the hillsides, called out the instructions for the work to be put in hand on the morrow, and repeated the Municipal orders for the week. After a moment’s pause he was answered by a voice far away in the distance, then by another in an opposite quarter of the town, and when all was quiet again the Indians ceremoniously bade one another good night and the procession dispersed. This, we learnt, is the usual custom on a Sunday night, and in the stillness of the fading daylight it was a curious and impressive ceremony.

Next morning we were awakened by the arrival of the school-boys, whose class-room was next door: each little fellow trotted up the steps with a little bundle of wood faggots on his back, which he deposited outside the door, and then took his seat on the wooden bench within. They were the quaintest little creatures imaginable, dressed just like their fathers; but their strange black garments were in indifferent repair, and the red-and-white handkerchiefs round their heads looked as though they might have been handed down from father to son. There they sat on the bench as still as mice, with their thin black legs dangling down, each one with a yellow-covered dog-eared school-book in his hand, in which he buried his face when overcome with bashfulness at the sight of us. About 7 o’clock the schoolmaster came in to call the roll, and as each boy answered his name he shouldered his bundle of faggots and demurely trotted off with it to the schoolmaster’s house and deposited it in the kitchen. Thus having done their duty and given the schoolmaster his week’s supply of firewood, they seated themselves on the bench again, buried their faces in the yellow-covered books, and never stirred for three whole hours! during which time the schoolmaster sat outside the school-room and chatted to Gorgonio and Santos. Perhaps after all the master’s absence or presence did not make much difference, for he owned to us that he could not speak the Indian language, and his pupils knew no Spanish.

As we were in occupation of their school-room the girls were given a holiday, and we saw them only at a distance, for they always took to their heels on our approach.

There is a school-house in every village, and the Government really seems to do its best to give the Indians some education, but the difficulties are great. Sometimes it is the Indian parents who refuse to send their children to school, fearing that if they learn to read and write and speak Spanish they will be employed by the Cabildo at a starvation salary and never find time to plant their milpas; at other times it is the difficulty of finding competent and trustworthy teachers. Indeed, I heard of one case in which it was not until the schoolmaster had been some years in office that the Jefe Político discovered that the man could neither read nor write. The Jefe was for instant dismissal, but the Indian parents begged that the schoolmaster might be allowed to retain his office, because he kept the children so quiet all the morning, and their mothers could make the tortillas in peace.

BOYS IN SCHOOL.

The women of the town are very clean and tidy in their dress, and take especial care of their hair: we saw numbers of them almost standing on their heads in the shallow edge of the lake in their efforts to give their hair a good washing, after which they dried and combed and oiled it and braided it into long tails. It took much coaxing to induce the group of mayores and alguacils on the next page to stand to the camera; however, they at last consented. But when we tried to take a separate portrait of the young man who is standing lowest on the step, really a good-looking and graceful fellow, he blushed and wriggled and hid his face like a shy school-girl, so, after spoiling a plate or two, the attempt had to be abandoned.

AN INDIAN LOOM.

All the garments worn both by men and women are of native manufacture, and some, if not all, of them are woven in the town. The looms on which the handkerchiefs and shawls are made are primitive in their simplicity, and are just the same as those pictured in the aboriginal Mexican manuscripts. My husband managed, after much discussion and bargaining, to buy one with the still unfinished fabric on it, which is now in the Museum of Archæology at Cambridge. A sketch of it is given on this page as well as a copy of the drawing from the ancient Mexican Codex. One end of the loom is usually tied to the post of the house, and the other end steadied by a band round the woman’s body. Custom demands that the hollow reed or stick to which the warp is attached should contain several round seeds or beads, which rattle up and down as it is moved for the shuttle to pass. Whatever the origin of the custom may be, one result of it is that you can always tell by the noise when the women are busy at work.

A WOMAN WEAVING. (From the Codex Mendoza.)

About noon we left the village and followed the rough path along the border of the lake, sometimes scrambling over the steep headlands, at others passing along the margin of the little sheltered bays, where numberless coots and some few duck swam out at our approach from amongst the scanty reeds and sought refuge in deep water. We passed on our way the little village of Santa Catarina; but, to judge from the canoes we saw drawn up on beach, water must be an accident in the life of these Indians and not a natural element as it is with the red men of the North.

INDIANS AT SAN ANTONIO.

The canoes are roughly hollowed logs without shape or beauty, the sides raised in height by planks fastened to the gunwale. The sterns are cut off square, two solid projections from the original log being left as handles by which the amorphous craft may be pushed off the shore. There are two sorts of fish found in the lake—one a “mojarra” (Heros nigrofasciatus) about the size of a sardine, and the other the “triponcito” or “pepesca” (Fundulus pachycephalus), which is peculiar to this lake, and does not exceed two and a half inches in length. I was told that an attempt has been made to introduce a larger fish, but so far it has not met with any success. The conditions may be adverse to fish life, for the water is very cold and at only a short distance from the shore it is said to be profoundly deep.

WATER CARRIERS, SAN ANTONIO.

A ride of three leagues brought us to Panajachél, a little town standing on a rich alluvial plain formed by a swift stream which issues from a narrow cleft in the hills, and has spread out the earth in the shape of an open fan until it forms a mile of frontage to the lake.

The stream is now somewhat diverted from its bed and is led away through many channels to irrigate the vegetable gardens, orchards, and coffee-plantations which cover the delta. But even with so many outlets there are times during the wet season when the sudden increase in the volume of water threatens the safety of the town, and we were told that not many years ago an inundation caused great damage, washing away some of the houses, and cutting off the townspeople from all outside communication. There is nothing especially interesting in the town itself; but its surroundings of lake and mountain, garden and orchard, are charming, and the bright green of the trees seemed all the more brilliant in contrast with the bareness of the surrounding hills, on which so much of the timber has been ruthlessly destroyed.

As we found the Inn to be sufficiently comfortable we stayed for several days to develop the photographs taken near Godines, and to enjoy the fresh greenness of this sheltered nook, where the oranges were in blossom and in fruit, the coffee was in full bearing, and the branches of the jocote trees, although bare of leaves, were weighed down with fruit which glistened red and yellow in the sunlight.

Outside the orchards beautiful flowering creepers and long streamers of what looked to me like a feathery grey moss, called by the natives “barbas de viejo”—which, I am told, is a “bromelia” and not a moss at all,—almost smothered the forest trees, which here and there reared their heads from the thickets; whilst orchids of many colours, and other epiphytes with clusters of green-red leaves and splendid red and purple flower-spikes, clung to every available branch.

The aguacates, or alligator-pears, grown here are celebrated throughout the Republic, but the creamy delicacy of the flesh is beyond my powers of description; and I can only say that I felt myself to be at last in the land of the Swiss family Robinson, when I found a most delicious salad with a perfect mayonnaise dressing slightly flavoured with pistachio-nut hanging ready mixed in the form of a pear-shaped fruit from the branches of a fair-sized tree. However, to the Indian the chief glory of Panajachél is not its aguacates, but its onions, which grow in luxuriant profusion, and which he carries in his cacaste to all the markets of the Altos.

I was constantly regretting my inability to speak with the Indians and learn more of their daily life. To an onlooker that of the women seems hopelessly monotonous and devoid of any recreation or pleasure, and one could only silently sympathize with them in the patient labour of grinding maize for tortillas, and the never-ending task of washing clothes at the fountain or at the river’s edge.

PANAJACHÉL AND THE LAKE OF ATITLAN.

Whilst we were at Panajachél a matter of especial interest presented itself to us in the curious ceremonies of the Indian pilgrims returning from Esquipulas. Our room looked out on the Plaza, which in the morning always afforded a few picturesque groups of market-women, but was almost deserted by noon; then, as evening approached, little companies of pilgrims, bending under their burdens, filed into the town, and as night fell the Plaza was lit up by numerous small fires, around which the pilgrims gathered for their supper. This important meal ended, they began their religious functions by laying down petates (mats) in front of the cacastes, which had already been arranged in a line across the Plaza. Then each man produced from his cargo a small wooden box, usually glazed on one side, containing the image of a saint, and these were arranged in a row against the cacastes, between lighted candles, the place of honour in the middle being assigned to a box containing a figure of the Black Christ. When these arrangements were completed, the Indians, who were dressed in long black woollen garments, with long white veils fastened to their black straw hats, prostrated themselves in turn before each shrine, and crawled along from one to the other on hands and knees, laying the forehead in the dust, offering up their prayers to each saint and kissing the box which contained its image. These acts of devotion were several times repeated, and then grouping themselves on their knees before the shrine of the Black Christ, and led by one of their number, who seemed to have some sort of authority over them, they all chanted the quaint hymn we had so often heard in the early watches of the morning. After singing for nearly half an hour they withdrew to their fires, rolled themselves in their blankets, and were soon fast asleep.

Luckily for us on one occasion this ceremony took place just before dusk, and a hastily snatched-up camera secured the picture given below.

During the whole of our journey I saw no Indian ceremony more picturesquely interesting than this which I have attempted to describe, and none which more strongly impressed me with the feeling, which I cannot attempt to explain, that I was witnessing a Pagan and not a Christian ceremony. It has often been a matter of doubt, even to the priests who have lived among them for many years, whether the Indians really understand Christian doctrine; but they are ceremonious by nature, and formality is congenial to them, so that the ritual and functions of the Church of Rome (however little they may understand their actual meaning) have now become as much a part of their daily life as the carrying of burdens or cultivation of milpas.

PILGRIMS AT EVENING PRAYER.

CHAPTER VIII. THE QUICHÉS AND CACHIQUELS. (BY A. P. M.)

ON THE STEPS OF THE CABILDO, ATITLAN.

It will be as well now to give a slight sketch of the history of the Indians whose country we were passing through. At the time of Alvarado’s entry into Guatemala in February 1524, the tableland round about the modern towns of Santa Cruz del Quiché and Quezaltenango was occupied by the Quiché Indians, who had their capital at Utatlan, close to Santa Cruz. The Cachiquels held the land to the east of the Quichés, and their capital, Patinamit or Iximché, stood near the modern town of Tecpan Guatemala, and is called by Alvarado the “City of Guatemala.” The Tzutuhils, a less powerful tribe, appear to have held the land on the east and south shores of the lake of Atitlan, and probably had their headquarters on the site of the present Indian village of Atitlan. All three tribes spoke languages of (what is now known as) the Maya-Quiché stock, a family of languages which extends over the whole peninsula of Yucatan, through the greater part of Guatemala, and parts of Tabasco and Chiapas. The confederation of these three tribes or nations—Quichés, Cachiquels, and Tzutuhils—is sometimes spoken of as the Quiché-Cachiquel Empire; but whether it was ever a united empire, as we understand the term, is somewhat doubtful, while it is quite certain that at the time of the Spanish invasion all three tribes were at enmity with one another.

It is sometimes assumed that these people had attained a high degree of civilization, and were especially advanced in the art of building; but this assumption I believe to be mainly due to the grossly exaggerated descriptions of their towns given by the early Spanish historians, and unfortunately there are no other written records to which we can refer on these points.

Of the three aboriginal MSS. still extant, not one (so far as I know) has been attributed to the Quichés or Cachiquels, and no carved inscriptions have been found amongst the ruins of their towns; but a few glyphs painted on pottery which is ascribed to them would lead one to suppose that they made use of the Maya script. Of late years two documents have been discovered which have gained for these people some literary reputation—the ‘Popul-Vuh,’ or sacred book of the Quichés, and the ‘Chronicles’ of the Cachiquels: the fact that they are written in Roman characters shows that the transcription at least is of recent date; but whilst they are of undoubted interest with regard to mythology and traditional history, they afford no guide to the then prevailing state of civilization.

After making due allowance for the inaccuracies of the available descriptions, it may undoubtedly be conceded that at the time of the Spanish conquest the Quichés and Cachiquels lived in organized communities and that they were fairly proficient in the arts, without attempting to exalt their culture to the same level with that of the builders of Palenque or Copan, or the great towns in Yucatan. For their history since the Spanish invasion we must turn to the earliest accounts of them left to us by their conquerors.

THE PLAZA, ATITLAN.

Alvarado left Mexico in December 1523, with an army of 120 horsemen, and 40 led horses, 300 infantry, of whom 130 were crossbowmen and arquebusiers, four pieces of artillery, and some thousands of picked Indian warriors. He passed over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and marched on through the province of Soconusco, fighting a battle near Tonalá, and on the 11th April he addressed a despatch from Utatlan to his great Captain Hernando Cortés, who was then in Mexico, as follows:—

“Señor, from Soconusco I wrote to your Highness all that had happened to me as far as that place, and said something of what I looked to find ahead of me. And after I had sent my messengers to this country to inform the people that I was coming to conquer and pacify certain provinces which were unwilling to place themselves under the dominion of his Majesty, I begged help and assistance from them as vassals (for as such they had offered themselves to your Highness begging favour and aid for their country) and said that if they gave their assistance in the way they ought to do as good and loyal vassals of his Majesty, they should be well treated by me and the Spaniards in my company; and if not, I would make war on them as against traitors rebelling and fighting against the dominion of our Lord the Emperor, and as such they would be treated, and in addition to this, that we would make slaves of all taken alive in the war. And having done all this and despatched the messengers, who were men of their own people, I reviewed all my people, both foot and horse, and the next day, on the morning of Saturday, I set out in search of their land, and after marching for three days through uninhabited forest, we pitched our camp, and the scouts whom I had sent out captured three spies from a town in this land named Zapotitlán. I asked them what they came for, and they told me that they were collecting honey, but it was notorious that they were spies....”