Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/63

Rh 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 "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 "naguas" 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 everchanging 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.