Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/337

Rh corps of about 200 "patriot soldiers," uniformed and equipped, at evening drill, which was a guarantee against the turbulence we had seen in Izalco. Colonel Angoula, the commandant, was the same who had broken up the band of Rascon. Every one we met was astonished at our purpose of going on to Guatimala, and it was vexatious and discouraging to have ominous cautions perpetually dinned into our ears. We rode to the house of the widow Padilla, a friend of Don Saturnino, whom we found in great affliction. Her eldest son, on a visit to Guatimala on business, with a regular passport, had been thrown into prison by Carrera, and had then been a month in confinement; and she had just learned, what had been concealed from her, that the other son, a young man just twenty-one, had joined Morazan's expedition. Our purpose of going to Guatimala opened the fountain of her sorrows. She mourned for her sons, but the case of the younger seemed to give her roost distress. She mourned that he had become a soldier; she had seen so much of the horrors of war; and, as if speaking of a truant boy, begged us to urge General Morazan to send him home. She was still in mourning for their father, who was a personal friend of General Morazan, and had, besides, three daughters, all young women, the eldest not more than twenty-three, married to Colonel Molina, the second in command; all were celebrated in that country for their beauty; and though the circumstances of the night prevented my seeing much of them, I looked upon this as one of the most lady-like and interesting family groups I had seen in the country.

Our first inquiry was for mules. Colonel Molina, the son-in-law, after endeavouring to dissuade us from continuing, sent out to make inquiries, and the result was that there were none to hire, but there was a man who had two to sell, and who promised to bring them early in the morning. We had vexations enough without adding any between ourselves; but, unfortunately, the captain and Don Saturnino had an angry quarrel, growing out of the breaking down of the mules. I was appealed to by both, and, in trying to keep the peace, came near having both upon me. The dispute was so violent that none of the female part of the family appeared in the sala, and while it was pending Colonel Molina was called off by a message from the commandant. In half an hour be returned, and told us that two soldiers had just entered the town, who reported that Morazan had been defeated in his attack on Guatimala, and his whole army routed and cut to pieces; that he himself, with fifteen dragoons, was escaping by the way of the coast, and the whole of Carrera's army was in full pursuit. The soldiers were at first supposed to be deserters, but they