Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/287

Rh were long and low, with broad piazzas and large windows, having balconies made of wooden bars. It was Sunday, and the inhabitants, cleanly dressed, were sitting on the piazzas, or, with doors wide open, reclining in hammocks, or on high-backed wooden settees inside. The women were dressed like ladies, and some were handsome, and all white. A respectable-looking old man, standing in the door of one of the best houses, called out "Amigo," "friend," and asked us who we were, whence we came, and whither we were going, recommending us to God at parting; and all along the street we were accosted in the same friendly spirit.!

At a distance of three leagues we passed through Heredia without dismounting. I had ridden all day with a feeling of extraordinary satisfaction; and if such were my feelings, what must have been those of 'Hezoos? He was returning to his country, with his love for it increased by absence and hardship away from home. All the way he met old acquaintance and friends. He was a good-looking fellow, dashingly dressed, and wore a basket-hilted Peruvian sword more than six feet long. Behind him was strapped a valise of scarlet cloth, with black borders, part of the uniform of a Peruvian soldier. It would have been curious to remember how many times he told his story; of military service and two battles in Peru; of impressment for the navy and desertion; a voyage to Mexico, and his return to Guatimala by land; and always concluded by inquiring about his wife, from whom he had not heard since he left home, "la pobra" being regularly his last words. As we approached his home, his tenderness for la pobra increased. He could not procure any direct intelligence of her; but one good-natured friend suggested that she had probably married some one else, and that he would only disturb the peace of the family by his return.

On the top of the ravine we came upon a large table-land covered with the rich coffee-plantations of San José. It was laid out into squares of 200 feet, enclosed by living fences of trees bearing flowers, with roads 60 feet wide; and, except the small horsepath, the roads, had a sod of unbroken green. The deep green of the coffee-plantations, the sward of the roads, and the vistas through the trees at all the cross-roads, were lovely; at a distance on each side were mountains, and in front, rising above all, was the great Volcano of Cartago. It was about the same hour as when, the day before, from the top of the mountain of Aguacate, I had looked down into great ravines and over the tops of high mountains, and seen the Pacific Ocean. This was as soft as that was wild; and it addressed itself to other senses than the sight, for it was not, like the rest of Central America, retrograding