Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/289

Rh dozen of his friends, he again led the way. As we advanced his friends increased. It was rather vexatious, but I could not disturb him in the sweetest pleasures in life,—the welcome of friends after a long absence. Crossing the plaza, two or three soldiers of his old company, leaning on the railing of the quartel, cried out "companero," and, with the sergeant at their head, passed over and joined us. We crossed the plaza with fifteen or twenty in our suite, or rather in his suite, some of whom, particularly the sergeant, in compliment to him, were civil to me.

While he had so many friends to welcome him, I had none. In fact, I did not know where I should sleep that night 'Hezoos had told me that there was an old chapiton, i.e. a person from Spain, in whose house I could have a room to myself, and pay for it; but, unfortunately, time had made its changes, and the old Spaniard had been gone so long that the occupants of his house did not know what had become of him. I had counted upon him with so much certainty that I had not taken out my letters of recommendation, and did not even know the names of the persons to whom they were addressed. The cura was at his hacienda, and his house shut up; a padre who had been in the United States was sick, and could not receive any one; my servant's friends all recommended different persons, as if I had the whole town at my disposal; and principally they urged me to honour with my company the chief of the state. In the midst of this street consultation, I longed for a hotel at 100 dollars a-day, and the government for paymaster. 'Hezoos, who was all the time in a terrible hurry, after an animated interlude with some of his friends, spurred his mule and hurried me back, crossed a corner of the plaza, turned down a street to the right, stopped opposite a small house, where he dismounted, and begging me to do the same, in a moment the saddles were whipped off and carried inside. I was ushered into the house, and seated on a low chair in a small room, where a dozen women, friends of 'Hezoos and his wife, were waiting to welcome him to his home. He told me that he did not know where his house was, or that it had an extra room, till he learned it from his friends; and carrying my luggage into a little dark apartment, said that I could have that to myself, and that he, and his wife, and all his friends, would wait upon me, and that I could be more comfortable than in any house in San José. I was excessively tired, having made three days' journey in two, worn out with the worry of searching for a resting-place, and if I had been younger, and had no character to lose, I should not have given myself any further trouble; but, unfortunately, the dignity of office might have been touched by remaining in the house of my