Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/313

Rh bears precisely the same characteristics. At the latter place we arrived towards the evening, and a more inhospitable reception it would have been impossible to have received; the only place in which we were permitted to pass the night, was under a shed, compared with which the most miserable European cow hovel would have been a palace; nothing could be had for money, and hungry and fatigued, we stretched ourselves to pass a restless and a sleepless night. The whole atmosphere seemed alive, the air was loaded with sand flies, mosquitoes and every other kind of the innumerable kinds of insects, which with all their tribes, are the torment of travellers in hot countries. At length day broke and we proceeded to the salinas or salt works, which are situated on the shores of the ocean, and consist of three villages about a mile distant from each other called Manglar, Santa Rosa, and Sapoti, at the latter we arrived by an early hour. These salinas are in a miserable condition, and consist merely of a few huts, under which are coarse wooden vessels half filled with earth; upon this the salt water is poured, it oozes into a vessel below, and is then boiled in earthen vats, till it assumes a consistency, is dried in the sun, and offered for sale without undergoing any farther process.