Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/77

Rh is supported chiefly by a tax upon flour, which produces annually about 16,000 dollars. Before the revolution ten dollars daily were paid to it from the royal treasury, but this has of course, now ceased. It is also occasionally assisted by charitable contributions.

But that which chiefly distinguishes Guatimala from the other cities of the New World is, its numerous and beautiful aqueducts and pilas for the regular distribution of water all over the metropolis. From a fine spring, which rises in the mountains, at about one league and a half S. E. of the city, the stream is conducted by means of pipes into no less than twelve public reservoirs, from which it is again carried into every private house, regularly supplying, sometimes one, and oftentimes two or more pilas or stone baths with excellent water. This aqueduct must have cost an immensity of labour to complete, being brought in some places, over valleys, upon ranges of arches, and in others, carried under ground by means of tunnels.

The public fountains and reservoirs are many of them of very superior workmanship, and ornament the streets in which they are placed. Most of these have rows of troughs connected with them, in which those of the lower classes who have not water in their houses wash their linen. It is amusing to see sometimes thirty or forty