Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/57

Rh gunpowder, were gone forward, and for some time we could get nothing. And here, in the beginning of our journey, we found a scarcity of provant greater than we had ever met with before in any inhabited country. The people lived exclusively upon tortillas—flat cakes made of crushed Indian corn, and baked on a clay griddle—and black beans. Augustin bought some of these last, but they required several hours' soaking before they could be eaten. At length he succeeded in buying a fowl, through which he ran a stick, and smoked it over a fire, without dressing of any kind, and which, with tortillas, made a good meal for a penitentiary system of diet. As we had expected, our principal muleteer was unable to tear himself away; but, like a dutiful husband, he sent, by the only one that was now left, a loving message to his wife at Gualan.

At the moment of starting, our remaining attendant said he could not go until he had made a pair of shoes, and we were obliged to wait; but it did not take long. Standing on an untanned cowhide, he marked the size of his feet with a piece of coal, cut them out with his machete, made proper holes, and, passing a leather string under the instep, around the heel, and between the great toe, and the one next to it, was shod.

Again our road lay on the ridge of a high mountain, with a valley on each side. At a distance were beautiful hillsides, green, and ornamented with pine-trees, and cattle grazing upon them, that reminded of park scenery in England. Often points presented themselves, which in other countries would have been selected as sites for dwellings, and embellished by art and taste. And it was a land of perpetual summer; the blasts of winter never reach it; but, with all its softness and beauty, it was dreary and desolate.

At two o'clock it began to rain; in an hour it cleared off, and from the high mountain ridge we saw the Motagua River, one of the noblest in Central America, rolling majestically through the valley on our left. Descending by a wild, precipitous path, at four o'clock we reached the bank directly opposite Encuentros. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld: all around were giant mountains, and the river, broad and deep, rolled through them with the force of a mighty torrent.

On the opposite bank were a few houses, and two or three canoes lay in the water, but not a person was in sight. By loud shouting we brought a man to the bank, who entered one of the canoes and set her adrift; he was immediately carried far down the stream; but, taking advantage of an eddy, he brought her across to the place where we stood. Our luggage, the saddles, bridles, and other trappings of the