Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/303

Rh difficulty of procuring one that could keep pace with the riding-beasts; but we had felt the inconvenience of being encumbered with luggage; and, besides Don Juan's kindness to me at his house, he furnished me with one which he had broken expressly for his own use in rapid journeys between Cartago and the hacienda, and which he warranted me, with a light load, would trot and keep up with mine.

Late in the afternoon I left his hospitable dwelling. Don Juan, with his deaf and dumb boy, accompanied me a league on the way, when we dismounted and took leave of each other. My new mule, like myself, was very reluctant to leave Don Juan, and seemed to have a sentiment that she should never see her old master again. Indeed it was so difficult to get her along, that Nicolas tied her by the halter to his mule's tail, after a manner common in the country, and thus leading her along, I followed at her heels. The deer were more numerous than I have yet seen them, and I now looked at them only as animating a beautiful landscape. At dark we began to have apprehensions about the road. There was a difficult mountain-pass before us, and Nicolas wanted to stop and wait till the moon rose; but as that would derange the journey for the next day, I pushed on for more than an hour through the woods. The mules stumbled along in the dark, and very soon we lost all traces of a path; while trying to find it, we heard the crash of a falling tree, which in the darkness sounded appalling, and made us hesitate to enter the woods. I determined to wait for the moon, and dismounted. Peering into the darkness, I saw a glimmering light on the left. We shouted with all our strength, and were answered by a pack of barking dogs, and moving in that direction, reached a hut where three or four workmen were lying on the ground, who were at first disposed to be merry and impertinent when we asked for a guide to the next hacienda; but one of them recognised my cargo-mule, said that he had known it since he was a child (rather doubtful praise of my new purchase), and was at length induced to make us an offer of his services. A horse was brought, large, wild, and furious, as if never bitted; snorting, rearing, and almost making the ground shake at every tread; and before the rider was fairly on his back he was tearing in the dark across the plain. Making a wide sweep, he returned, and the guide, releasing the cargo-mule from that of Nicolas, tied her to the tail of his horse, and then led the way. Even with the drag of the cargo-mule it was impossible for him to moderate his pace, and we were obliged to follow at a most unhappy rate. It was the first piece of bad road we had met with, having many sharp turns, and ascents and descents, broken and stony. Fortunately, while we were in the woods, the moon rose, touched with a silvery