Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/385

Rh elbow, standing out like a pump-handle, the hand dropping from the wrist, and shaking with the movement of the mule. He rode on a Mexican saddle plated with silver, and carried behind a pair of alforgas with bread and cheese, and atole, a composition of pounded parched corn, cocoa, and sugar, which, mixed with water, was almost his living. His mozo was as fat as he was lean, and wore a bell-crowned straw hat, cotton shirt, and drawers reaching down to his knees. Excepting that instead of Rosinante and the ass, the master rode a mule and the servant went afoot, they were a genuine Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the former of which appellations, very early in our acquaintance, we gave to Don Saturnino.

We set out for Quezaltenango, but intended to turn aside and visit ruins, and that day we went three leagues out of our road to say farewell to our friend Padre Alcantara at Ciudad Vieja.

At five o'clock in the afternoon we reached the convent, where I had the pleasure of meeting again Padre Alcantara, Señor Vidaurre, and Don Pepé, the same party with whom I had passed the day with so much satisfaction before. Mr. Catherwood had in the meantime passed a month at the convent. Padre Alcantara had fled at the approach of the tyrant Morazan; Don Pepé had had a shot at him as he was retreating from the Antigua, and the padre had a musket left at night by a flying soldier against the wall of the convent.

The morning opened with troubles. The grey mule was sick. Don Saturnino bled her on both sides of her neck, but the poor animal was not in a condition to be ridden. Shortly afterwards Mr. Catherwood had one of the mozos by the throat, but Padre Alcantara patched up a peace. Don Saturnino said that the grey mule would be better for exercise, and for the last time we bade farewell to our kind host.

Don Pepé escorted us, and crossing the plain of El Vieja in the direction in which Alvarado entered it, we ascended a high hill, and turning the summit, through a narrow opening looked down upon a beautiful plain, cultivated like a garden, which opened to the left as we advanced, and ran off to the lake of Duenos, between the two great volcanoes of Fire and Water. Descending to the plain, we entered the village of San Antonio, occupied entirely by Indians. The cura's house stood on an open plaza, with a fine fountain in front, and the huts of the Indians were built with stalks of sugarcane. Early in the occupation of Guatimala, the lands around the capital were partitioned out among certain canonigos, and Indians were allotted to cultivate them.

Each village was called by the canonigo's own name. A church was built, and a fine house for himself, and by judicious management the Indians became settled and the artisans for the capital. In the