Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/296

218 few inside. One of the latter was from 'Hezoos, who returned stronger than before, and, coming to the point, said that he himself was anxious to go with me, but his wife would not consent. I felt that if she had taken the field against me, it was all over; but told him that he had made a contract, and was already overpaid; and sent her a pair of gold earrings, to keep her quiet.

For four days in succession I had a recurrence of chill and fever. Every kindness was shown me in the convent,—friends visited me, and Dr. Bridley came over from Cartage to attend me; but withal I was desponding. The day fixed for setting out with Alvarado arrived. It was impossible to go; Dr. Bridley told me that it would be unwise, while any tendency to the disease remained, to undertake it. There were six days of desert travelling to the port of San Juan, without a house on the road, but mountains to cross and rivers to ford. The whole party was to go on foot except myself; four extra men would be needed to pass my mule over some difficult places, and there was always more or less rain. San Juan was a collection of miserable huts, and from that place it was necessary to embark in a bungo for ten or fifteen days on an unhealthy river. Besides all this, I had the alternative to return by the Cosmopolita to Zonzonate, or to go to Guatimala by land, a journey of 1,200 miles, through a country destitute of accommodations for travellers, and dangerous from the convulsions of civil war. At night, as I lay alone in the convent, and by the light of a small candle saw the bats flying along the roof, I felt gloomy, and would have been glad to be at home.

Still I could not bear the idea of losing all I came for. The land-route lay along the coast of the Pacific, and for three days was the same as to the port. I determined to go by land, but, by the advice of Dr. Bridley, to start in time for the vessel; and, in the hope that I should not have another chill, I bought two of the best mules in San José, one being that on which I had ascended the Volcano of Cartage, and the other a macho, not more than half broke, but the finest animal I ever mounted.

To return to 'Hezoos. The morning after I gave him the earrings he had not come, but sent word that he had the fever and ague. The next day he had it much worse; and, satisfied that I must lose him, I sent him word that if he would procure me a good substitute, I would release him. This raised him from bed, and in the afternoon he came with his substitute, who had very much the air of being the first man he had picked up in the street. His dress was a pair of cotton trousers, with a shirt outside, and a high, bell-crowned, narrow-brimmed black straw hat; and all that he had in the world was on his back.