Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/210

136 any of his soldiers I had before seen. Along the corridor was a row of muskets, bright and in good order. We entered a small room adjoining the sala, and saw Carrera sitting at a table counting money.

Ever since my arrival in the country this name of terror had been ringing in my ears. Mr. Montgomery, to whom I have before referred, and who arrived in Central America about a year before me, says, "An insurrection, I was told, had taken place among the Indians, who, under the directions of a man called Carrera, were ravaging the country and committing all kinds of excesses. Along the coast, and in some of the departments, tranquillity had not been disturbed; but in the interior there was no safety for the traveller, and every avenue to the capital was beset by parties of brigands, who showed no mercy to their victims, especially if they were foreigners;" and in referring to the posture of affairs at his departure he adds, "It is probable, however, that while this is being written, the active measures of General Morazan for putting down the insurrection have been successful, and that the career of this rebel hero has been brought to a close." But the career of the "rebel hero" was not brought to a close; the "man called Carrera" was now absolute master of Guatimala; and, if I am not deceived, he is destined to become more conspicuous than any other leader who has yet risen in the convulsions of Spanish America.

He is a native of one of the wards of Guatimala. His friends, in compliment, call him a mulatto; I, for the same reason, call him an Indian, considering that the better blood of the two. In 1829 he was a drummer-boy in Colonel Aycinena's regiment. When the Liberal or Democratic party prevailed, and General Morazan entered the city, Carrera broke his drum and retired to the village of Matasquintla. Here he entered into business as a pig-driver, and for several years continued in this respectable occupation, probably as free as one of his own pigs from any dreams of future greatness. The excesses of political parties, severe exactions for the support of government, encroachments upon the property of the Church, and innovations, particularly the introduction of the Livingston Code, establishing trial by jury, and making marriage a civil contract, created discontent throughout the country. The last gave great offence to the clergy, who exercised an unbounded influence over the minds of the Indians. In 1837 the cholera, which, in its destructive march over the habitable world, had hitherto spared this portion of the American continent, made its terrible appearance, and, besides strewing it with dead, proved the immediate cause of political convulsions. The priests persuaded the Indians that the foreigners had poisoned the waters. Galvez, who was at that time the chief of the state, sent medicines into all the villages,