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132 During the early months of 1885 the difficulty in engaging labourers to work at the ruins was even greater than usual, owing to two causes: first, an epidemic of smallpox, which devastated the neighbouring villages, although Copan itself luckily escaped its ravages, and, secondly, the war which broke out between Guatemala and Honduras on the one side, and Salvador and Nicaragua on the other. On our way to Copan we had ridden through some villages which had been so completely devastated by smallpox that every house stood empty, and the few survivors from the disease had fled, leaving the long row of mounds and hastily-made crosses by the roadside to tell their own tale. Then, when the war came, the few labourers I had been able to engage were drafted off as soldiers, and I was left with none but cripples and those who were past the fighting age.

At one time matters really began to look serious. I had made arrangements when in the capital for a supply of silver coin to be sent me from time to time with which to pay the labourers; but at the end of a few weeks the supply suddenly ceased, and my correspondents sent a telegram to Zacapa, which was forwarded on to me, to say that owing to the disturbed state of the country it was unsafe to send a messenger with the money, that the tide of war was surging my way, and it was advisable that I should make a speedy retreat to the coast.

I walked about for an hour with that telegram in my pocket, trying to think out the chances of our being left unmolested; I knew by this time that we had won the goodwill of the villagers, and I was loth to leave the work which was daily growing more interesting, so finally I tore up the telegram and said not a word about its contents to anyone. But my silver was nearly at an end, and some of the workmen who had come from a distance, and were naturally perturbed at the rumours of war, wanted to get back to look after their own homes, and they had to be paid off. It was then that the Niña Chica came to the front. "When she was boiling my kettle for me that evening I told her some of the difficulties I was in, to which she listened attentively and then left the hut without expressing any opinion. An hour or so later she returned and placed a small bag of silver on the table. It seemed that she had gone the round of the village and had borrowed every cent she could scrape together, and to this she had added her own little store of dollars, and then handed it over to me. It was done with such perfectly good grace that it was impossible to refuse her help, but I had to explain that she had not altogether caught my meaning. I had enough silver to pay all the workmen up to date, but if I stayed on there was not enough left to pay such labourers as I might be able to engage in the weeks to come. "Don't you trouble yourself, Don Alfredo," she replied, "those that are left in the village will go on working for you just