Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/315

Rh blocks up the road still. This brought us round by the Cuesta del Relox, so called from a venerable sun-dial which stands on one side of the road, of a dark grey stone, with an inscription in Castilian, but the characters so worn and indistinct that I could not make them out. It has no history, except that it was erected by the conquerors; and it stands as an indication of the works with which the Spaniards began the settlement of the country.

At half-past eleven we left the lake for the last time, and entered an open plain. We rode an hour longer, and reached Nagarotis, a miserable village, its houses partly built of mud, with yards in front, trodden bare by mules, and baked white by the sun. I entered one of the houses for shelter, and found in it a young negro priest, on his way to Carthagena, with orders from the Church at Leon. The house was occupied by an old man alone. It had a bedstead, with a mat over it, upon which I lay down, glad to rest awhile, and to escape the scorching heat. Opposite the bed was a rude frame, about six feet high, on the top of which was a sort of baby-house, with the figure of the Virgin sitting on a chair, and dressed in cheap finery.

At three we started again. The sun had lost some of its force, the road was wooded, and I observed more than the usual number of crosses. The people of Nicaragua are said to be the worst in the republic. The inhabitants of the other States always caution a stranger against them, and they are proportionally devout. Everywhere, in the cities and country, on the tops of mountains, and by the side of rivers, these memorials stared me in the face. I noticed one in a cleared place by the roadside, painted black, with a black board suspended to it, containing an inscription in faded white letters; it had been erected to the memory of a padre, who had been murdered and buried at its foot. I stopped to copy the inscription, and while so engaged saw a travelling party approaching, and, knowing the jealousy of the people, shut my note-book and rode on. The party consisted of two men, with their servants, and a woman. The younger man accosted me, and said that he had seen me at Grenada, and regretted that he had not known of my proposed journey. From the style of his dress and equipments, I supposed him to be a gentleman, and was sure of it from the circumstance of his carrying a gamecock under his arm. As we rode on, the conversation turned upon these interesting birds, and I learned that my new acquaintance was going to Leon to fight a match, of which he offered to give me notice. The bird which he carried had won three matches in Grenada; its fame had reached Leon, and drawn forth a challenge from that place. It was rolled up as carefully as a fractured leg, with nothing but the head and tail