Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/54

26 Augustin had forgotten salt, but he had placed in the napkin a large paper of gunpowder, as an adventure of his own. The paper was broken, and the bread, fowls, and eggs were thoroughly seasoned with this new condiment. All the beauty of the scene, all our equanimity, everything except our tremendous appetites, left us in a moment. Country taverns rose up before us; and we, who had been so amiable, abused Augustin, and wished him the whole murderous seasoning in his own body. We could not pick out enough to satisfy hunger. It was, perhaps, the most innocent way of tasting gunpowder, but even so it was a bitter pill. We picked and made excavations for immediate use, but the rest of our stores was lost.

This over, we mounted, and, fording the stream, continued our descent. Passing off by a spur of the mountain, we came out upon an open ridge, commanding a view of an extensive savannah. Very soon we reached a fine table-land, where a large party of muleteers, on their way to Yzabal, were encamped for the night. Bales of indigo, which formed their cargoes, were piled up like a wall: their mules were pasturing quietly near them, and fires were burning to cook their suppers. It was a great satisfaction to be once more in an open country, and to see the mountain, with its dense forest, lighted up by the setting sun, grand and gloomy, and ourselves fairly out of it. With ten hours of the hardest riding I ever went through, we had made only twelve miles.

Descending from this table-land, we entered a plain, thickly wooded, and in a few minutes reached a grove of wild palm-trees of singular beauty. From the top of a tall naked stem grew branches twenty or thirty feet long, spreading from the trunk, and falling outward with a graceful bend, like enormous plumes of feathers. The trees stood so close, that the bending branches met, and formed arches, in some places as regular as if constructed by art; and as we rode among them, there was a solemn stillness, an air of desolation, that reminded us of the columns of an Egyptian temple.

Towards dark we reached the rancho of Mico. It was a small house, built of poles, and plastered with mud. Near it, and connected by a shed thatched with branches, was a larger house, built of the same material, expressly for the use of travellers. This was already occupied by two parties from Guatimala; one of which consisted of the Canonigo Castillo, his clerical companion or secretary, and two of the young Pavons: the other was a French merchant on his way to Paris. Mr. C. and I were picturesque-looking objects, not spattered, but plastered with mud from head to foot; but we were soon known, and received from the whole company a cordial welcome to Central America.