Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/157

Rh the Indian population, although certainly exaggerated by Dr. Robertson, is yet considerable, and accompanied by a pusillanimity of character unusual among savages. The distinguishing characteristic of the creoles, as a whole, may be said to be mildness and inertness, while all the operations of government are marked by a want of energy truly surprising. The females marry early, and are old at forty; and the men at fifty-five exhibit a degree of bodily and mental weakness equal to what we expect at seventy in European countries.

According to the native historian before alluded to, the old city must have been subject to pestilential distempers. The account he gives of one which he says swept away, in three months, one tenth of the inhabitants, is curious, but so vague in its details as to make one almost doubt its authenticity. It happened in the year 1686. He says: “Some of the inhabitants died suddenly, others expired under the most acute pains of the head, heart, and bowels. No remedy was discovered that could check its destructive progress, although many of the deceased were opened to endeavour by that means to come at the cause of the disorder. So great was the number of the infected, that there was not a sufficient number of priests to administer the religious rites—the bells were no longer tolled for the dead