Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/350

272 During these scenes the captain and I were not unnoticed. The captain found among the officers several whom he had become acquainted with at the port, and he learned that others had made their last campaign. In the first excitement of meeting them, he determined to turn back and follow their broken fortunes; but, luckily for me, those trunks had gone on. He felt that he had a narrow escape. Among those who had accompanied General Morazan were the former secretary of state and war, and all the principal officers, civil and military, of the shattered general government. They had heard of my arrival in the country. I had been expected at San Salvador, was known to them all by reputation, and very soon personally; particularly I became acquainted with Colonel Saravia, a young man about twenty-eight, handsome, brave, and accomplished in mind and manners, with an enthusiastic attachment for General Morazan, from whom, in referring to one affair in the attack on Guatimala, with tears almost starting from his eyes, he said, Providence seemed to turn the bullets away. I had often heard of this gentleman in Guatimala, and his case shows the unhappy rending of private and social ties produced by these civil wars. His father was banished by the Liberal party eight years before, and was then a general in the Carlist service in Spain. His mother and three sisters lived in Guatimala, and I had visited at their house perhaps oftener than at any other in that city. They lived near the plaza, and while Morazan had possession of it, the colonel had run home to see them; and in the midst of a distracted meeting, rendered more poignant by the circumstance of his being joined in an attack upon his native city, he was called away to go into action; his horse was shot under him, he was wounded, and escaped with the wreck of the army. His mother and sisters knew nothing of his fate. He said, what I was sure was but too true, that they would have dreadful apprehensions about him, and begged me, immediately on my arrival at Guatimala, to visit them and inform them of his safety.

In the meantime. General Morazan, apprehensive of a surprise from Carrera during the night, sent word that he should sleep in the plaza; and escorted by Colonel Saravia, I went to pay my respects to him. From the time of his entry I felt perfectly secure, and never had a moment of apprehension from unruly soldiers. For the first time I saw something like discipline. A sentinel was pacing the street leading from the plaza, to prevent the soldiers straggling into the town; but the poor fellows seemed to have no disposition for straggling. The town was stripped of everything; even the poor horses had no food. Some were gathered at the window of the cabildo,