Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/252

168 than forty-five miles from the Gulf of Honduras, and with four hundred miles of its course to run, the height of the stream above sea-level did not exceed 600 feet, and it is said to fall considerably before the mouth of the Chajmaic is reached.

After its junction with the Chixoy the current of the river slightly increases and it becomes still swifter when joined by the Rio Lacandon. A few miles below the junction with the latter a low range of hills almost bars its course, and for a short distance the water with its surface slowly twisted in great oily-looking swirls, swings through a narrow pass between cliffs not more than forty feet apart. During the heavy autumn rains the flood-water rises rapidly above this narrow passage and tears through it with tremendous force. When I descended the river in a canoe from the Paso Real to the ruins of Menché Tinamit in 1884 I saw huge mahogany logs lying stranded thirty or forty feet up the banks, and my companion Mr. Schulte (who was in the employ of a large mahogany-cutting firm) told me that during one great flood he had tied up his canoe to the posts of a deserted rancho, which, at the time we passed the night in it, stood a good fifty feet above the surface of the water. Below the barrier of hills the river broadens out again. In 1883 Mr. Rockstroh followed down its course for a few miles below Menché; beyond this it is still unmapped, but for some distance it is known through a deep gorge choked with boulders, where it is broken into rapids in which no canoe could live. The gorge ends in two falls a few miles above Tenosique, whence the river is navigable by small steamers to the sea.

But I must go on with my journey. For two days we travelled on over low ground drained by small muddy-banked streamlets, affluents of the Cancuén. The only incident worth recording is that on passing a small recess in the limestone rock, measuring not more than three feet in height and depth and in no way remarkable, each one of the mozos took off his hat as he approached it, crossed himself, and deposited a small dab of copal on the rock. It was, they told me, the "Mouth of the Hill." As one may learn from old records of the journeys of the Dominican monks through this part of the country, the Indians have a curious reverence for localities, and Gorgonio tells me that in some places they will not kill snakes because they belong to "the hill," and "the hill" might do them harm in return.

On the morning of the 27th I sent some of the mozos on ahead to clear the track towards San Luis, and as we were now at a place called Chichajaé, near to the spot where seven years earlier Domingo had seen the three Idols in a cave, we determined to camp there, and have a thorough good search for them. Gorgonio and I set out along the track under Domingo's guidance, until he came to a spot which he seemed to recognize as the place where the