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Rh CHAPTER XIX.

CAJABON AND THE NORTHERN FORESTS. (BY A. P. M.)

I passed the last two months of the year 1886 in an interesting journey through the Altos, examining the ruins of Indian towns which were known to have been occupied at the time of the Spanish invasion; then crossing the main range I found myself, in January 1887, in my old and comfortable quarters at Coban in the Alta Vera Paz. I had no settled plan of work before me, but was prepared to do a little amateur map-making about the headwaters of the Rio de la Pasion, and to examine into the truth of some rather vague rumours concerning important Indian ruins which were said to exist in the Northern forests near the frontier of British Honduras. Carlos Lopez was sent ahead to the village of Cajabon to engage Indian carriers for the forest journey, and as it was still early in the season which in these parts is by courtesy called "dry," I decided to spend a fortnight, in mapping the track between Coban and Cajabon, a distance of about sixty miles, and fixing the position of the latter village, which I felt sure was placed too far north on the published maps. I had already spent some days taking angles and counting my steps in the direction of Cajabon when we met Carlos Lopez returning to Coban in company with a deputation of Cajabon Indians who were going to the Jefe Político to protest against the orders they had received from him to accompany me into the forests. Carlos told me that he had met with no success whatever in his mission, and that the reason most frequently given for not accepting service with the expedition was that it was unsafe to go with me, as "Los Ingleses comen gente" (the English were cannibals!). I had never met with this objection before, and as it was urged quite seriously, I can only suggest that it is a strange survival of the stories told to the Indians by the Spanish priests and officials in the days when buccaneers infested the coasts and English smugglers were thorns in the side of Spanish authorities.

The expected dry weather would not arrive, and owing to the prolonged rains the track, which threaded its way between innumerable conical limestone hills from one to two hundred feet in height, was almost ankle deep in mud and was often broken into great mud holes which I had no wish to fathom. Now and then we passed a solitary Indian rancho, and our nightly resting-place was in one of the sheds or "Ermitas" which are to be met with every four or five leagues, and which if not peculiar to this part of the country are certainly more noticeable here than elsewhere.