Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/63

Rh tenanted by an old widow lady and her two daughters. The chairs, doors, and two old fashioned couches, were all of mahogany antiquely carved; three niches in the wall of the largest room contained images of saints, and a large crucifix, while in an inner apartment, an old four-post mahogany bedstead, with a few better articles of furniture indicated some degree of superiority in the owner. It had probably been the residence of a priest in former days, having every appearance of a decayed parsonage. The yard was well stocked with fowls, turkeys, and good milch cows; and under a shed was a loom on which one of the women was weaving coarse cotton.

The ride from this place to Omoyta, the next village, is very agreeable; the first four leagues of the way lies through cultivated fields, chiefly of maize, and watered by the river Platanos, which flows in this direction so circuitously as to oblige the traveller to ford it ten times in the course of a few hours. In some places this stream is four or five feet deep, and has a rapid current, but generally it merits rather the name of a rivulet. In the rainy season however, it augments so much, as to render it necessary, in several places, to have ferry boats, while in others, the post from Gualan to Guatimala is not unfrequently detained several days, owing to the sudden swelling of the waters. The latter four