Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/133

Rh gradual descent through a forest of small trees, followed by a steep dip into the barranca through which the Motagua flows. It is here only a shallow swift-flowing rivulet, easily fordable, and giving little promise of the great volume of water which, after a further course of about 250 miles, it pours into the Gulf of Honduras. We scrambled up the other side of the barranca and soon reached a small tableland on which stands the village of Chiché. Just before arriving at the village we passed through a group of artificial mounds which mark the site of what must in old times have been a town of considerable importance. The original stone-facing of the foundations was probably carried off to serve as building-stone when the Spaniards first occupied Chiché, and the mounds, some of which are 20 to 30 feet in height, are somewhat indefinite in outline owing to the many times they have been worked over by the Indian cultivators of the soil when planting their milpas.

Gorgonio examined the mounds the next day and brought us some fragments of obsidian knives and stone implements which he had picked up, and he told us that on the summits of the higher mounds the Indians had placed rough stone crosses, or heaped together a few stones to form a sort of shrine in which to burn candles or offerings of copal. When in order to examine the surface of the mounds Gorgonio used his machete to cut away some of the scrubby bushes growing on the summits the Indians were almost ready to go for him—so valuable has anything which can be used as firewood become in this dried-up neighbourhood.

The village itself is an uninteresting collection of houses built of adobes and roofed with tiles. The cabildo was under repair and roofless, and there was no school-house; but we found shelter in a room in a new half-finished house, where, after removing the remains of the building-materials, we made ourselves fairly comfortable. Gorgonio lighted a fire outside in the village street and, gazed at by an admiring crowd of children, I cooked the supper. Luckily there was plenty of good bread to be bought, and a neighbour supplied us with excellent coffee.

We were now going altogether out of the beaten track and should have to take our chance of shelter for the night in cabildo, convento, or schoolhouse, and when these failed we could take refuge in our tent (which last proved to be the most comfortable lodging of them all), but it was to be used only as a last resource, so as to avoid the trouble of setting it up at night, when wearied with a long day's ride, and the extra packing which would delay the start in the morning. Our plan was to travel a short distance to the northward and crossing the Rio Negro to reach Uspantan, an ancient stronghold of the Quichés, then to recross the river lower down and make our way to Cubulco and the Rabinal valley. It was all new ground to L2