Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/342

 264 not have been much better pleased at avoiding it than we were. The envoy returned, and in a short time we saw at the extreme end of the street the neck of a horse protruding from the cross-street on the left. A party of cavalry armed with lances followed, formed at the head of the street, looking about them carefully as if still suspecting an ambush. In a few moments General Figoroa, mounted on a fierce little horse, without uniform, but with dark wool saddle-cloth, pistols, and basket-hilted sword, making a warlike appearance, came up, leading the van. We took off our hats as he approached our door, and he returned the salute. About 100 lancers followed him, two abreast, with red flags on the ends of their lances, and pistols in their holsters. In passing, one ferocious-looking fellow looked fiercely at us, and grasping his lance, cried "Viva Carrera!" We did not answer it immediately, and he repeated it in a tone that brought forth the response louder and more satisfactory, from the spite with which it was given; the next man repeated it, and the next; and before we were aware of our position, every lancer that passed, in a tone of voice regulated by the gentleness or the ferocity of his disposition, and sometimes with a most threatening scowl, put to us as a touchstone, "Viva Carrera."

The infantry were worse than the lancers in appearance, being mostly Indians, ragged, half-naked, with old straw hats, and barefooted, armed with muskets and machetes, and many with old-fashioned Spanish blunderbusses. They vied with each other in sharpness and ferocity, and sometimes actually levelling their pieces, cried at us, "Viva Carrera," We were taken completely unawares; there was no escape, and I believe they would have shot us down on the spot if we had refused to echo the cry. I compromised with my dignity by answering no louder than the urgency of the case required, but I never passed through a more trying ordeal. Don Saturnino had had the prudence to keep out of sight; but the captain, who had intended to campaign against these fellows, never flinched, and when the last man passed added an extra "Viva Carrera." I again felt rejoiced that the soldiers had left the town and that there had been no fight. It would have been a fearful thing to fall into the hands of such men, with their passions roused by resistance and bloodshed. Reaching the plaza, they gave a general shout of "Viva Carrera," and stacked their arms. In a few minutes a party of them came down to our house, and asked for breakfast; and when we could not give them that, they begged a medio or sixpence. By degrees others came in, until the room was full. They were really no great gainers by taking the town. They had had no breakfast, and the town was completely stripped of eatables. We inquired the news from Guatimala, and bought from them