Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/90

48 hung for a while like a splendid jewel in the air, and the mountains turned again to shadowy masses outlined against a crystal sky.

The saucy blue jays had ceased to chatter before the sun went down; but we were not left in silence, for as the moon, then at its full, rose above the eastern hills the whip-poor-will began its plaintive cry, the crickets chirped, bats swooped down on us, fire-flies hovered among the trees, and dozens of frogs emerging from their hiding-places took possession of our pool with loud croaks of satisfaction.

Our days were spent in rides and rambles in the neighbourhood; but we always tried to get home early, so as to finish our dinner comfortably and take our seats in good time for a view of the never-failing cloud display. The air was fresh and exhilarating, although the heat at noon was that of an August day at home; but as evening came on we were always glad of extra wraps, and at night we slept under our heaviest blankets.

All day long travellers would pass along the road, which ran within a few feet of our tent. Sometimes it would be a party of Indian traders or carriers, their cacastes heavily laden with earthern cooking-pots or other merchandise, or carrying on their backs bulky bundles of rugs or mats. A mozo laden with a freight of "Tinajas" (as the large-sized water-jars are called) is indeed a curious sight, for the tinajas are not heavy, and he manages to carry an extraordinary number of them skilfully tied on to the outside of his cacaste, so that a back view shows only a mountain of crockery supported by two small mahogany coloured legs, and suggests a sort of human caddis-worm. Then a party of Ladinos would come by on muleback, the women, who were almost always smoking cigarettes, sitting on the offside of their mules and wearing long flowing riding-skirts and men's straw hats tied under the chin with a pocket-handkerchief, the men as often as not dressed in dilapidated uniforms with the inevitable bath-towel thrown over the shoulders. Often they would call out to me to know what I could give them for breakfast, or what we had to sell, for it never entered their heads that we were camping-out for amusement, and our answers were received with visible want of faith. Once a party of men passed by carrying on their backs, or slung on poles between them, the whole paraphernalia of a village fiesta—images, wooden trestles, platforms, and arches studded with tin candle-sockets and adorned with tawdry decorations and fringed edges of coloured paper which fluttered in the wind.

The Indians would put down their loads and stop to rest under the shade of the trees and ask permission to fill their water-jars from the little pool as civilly as though we were its lawful possessors. Then they would light their fires by the roadside to heat their coffee and toast tortillas in the ashes.