Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/302

224 the ground, and my arms were thrown up involuntarily to save myself from falling, I was the last to start, but, once under way, I was the last to stop. Half way across the yard I stumbled over a man on his knees, and fell. I never felt myself so feeble a thing before. At this moment I heard Don Juan calling to me. He was leaning on the shoulder of his servant, with his face to the door, crying to me to come out of the house. It was pitchy dark; within was the table at which we had sat, with a single candle, the light of which extended far enough to show a few of the kneeling figures, with their faces to the door. We looked anxiously in, and waited for the shock which should prostrate the strong walls, and lay the roof on the ground. There was something awful in our position, with our faces to the door, shunning the place which at all other times offers shelter to man. The shocks were continued perhaps two minutes, during which time it required an effort to stand firm. The return of the earth to steadiness was almost as violent as the shock. We waited a few minutes after the last vibration, when Don Juan said it was over, and, assisted by his servant, entered the house. I had been the last to leave it, but I was the last to return; and my chair lying with its back on the floor, gave an intimation of the haste with which I had decamped. The houses in Costa Rica are the best in the country for resisting these shocks, being, like the others, long and low, and built of adobes, or undried bricks, two feet long and one broad, made of clay mixed with straw to give adhesion, and laid when soft, with upright posts between, so that they are dried by the sun into one mass, which moves with the surface of the earth.

Early in the morning two horses were at the door, and two servants in attendance for a ride. Don Juan mounted the same horse which he had ridden in his exile, and was attended by the same servants. Heretofore I; had always heard constant complaints of servants, and, to do them justice, I think they are the worst I ever knew; but Don Juan's were the best in the world, and it was evident that they thought he was the best master.

The estate of Don Juan covered as much ground as a German principality, containing 200,000 acres, and was bounded on one side, for a long distance, by the Pacific Ocean. But a small portion of it was cultivated, not more than enough to raise maize for the workmen, and the rest was a roaming-ground for cattle. More than 10,000 were wandering over it, almost as wild as the deer, and never seen except as they crossed a path in the woods, or at the season of lazoing them, for the purpose of taking an account of the increase.

I had set out on this long journey without any cargo-mule, from the