Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/401

Rh Groups of villanous faces were fixed in the bars of the windows. We called for the alcalde, presented Carrera's passport, and demanded sacate, eggs, and frigoles, for ourselves, and a guide to Quiché. While these were got, the alcalde, and as many alguazils as could find a place, seated themselves silently on a bench occupied by us. In front was a new whipping-post. There was not a word spoken; but a man was brought up before it, his feet and wrists tied together, and he was drawn up by a rope which passed through a groove at the top of the post. His back was naked, and an alguazil stood on his left with a heavy cowhide whip. Every stroke made a blue streak, rising into a ridge, from which the blood started and trickled down his back. The poor fellow screamed in agony. After him a boy was stretched up in the same way. At the first lash, with a dreadful scream, he jerked his feet out of the ropes, and seemed to fly up to the top of the post. He was brought back and secured, and whipped till the alcalde was satisfied. This was one of the reforms instituted by the Central government of Guatimala. The Liberal party had abolished this remnant of barbarity; but within the last month, at the wish of the Indians themselves, and in pursuance of the general plan to restore old usages and customs, new whipping posts had been erected in all the villages. Not one of the brutal beings around seemed to have the least feeling for the victims. Among the amateurs were several criminals, whom we had noticed walking in chains about the plaza, and among them a man and woman in rags, bareheaded, with long hair streaming over their eyes, chained together by the hand and foot, with strong bars between them to keep them out of each other's reach. They were husband and wife, who had shocked the moral sense of the community by not living together. The punishment seemed the very refinement of cruelty, but while it lasted it was an effectual way of preventing a repetition of the offence.

At half-past three, with an alguazil running before us and Bobon trotting behind, we set out again, and crossed a gently-rolling plain, with a distant side-hill on the left, handsomely wooded, and reminding us of scenes at home, except that on the left was another immense barranca, with large trees, whose tops were 2,000 feet below us. Leaving a village on the right, we passed a small lake, crossed a ravine, and rose to the plain of Quiche. At a distance on the left were the ruins of the old city, the once large and opulent capital of Utatlan, the court of the native kings of Quiché, and the most sumptuous discovered by the Spaniards in this part of America. It was a site worthy to be the abode of a race of kings. We passed between two small lakes, rode into the village, passed on, as usual, to the convent, which