Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/102

82 There are many villages in which mass is not said more than once a year.

The population of the five states of the federation, amounting to 2,000,000, is greater than the world supposed; but the census taken by the Spaniards was always incorrect and under the mark, as the tribute or capitation tax, exacted from the Indians, caused them to suppress their number and amount. This tribute was at the rate of three dollars a year on every male from the age of eighteen to fifty. The last census was taken since its abolition, but the number was still considered short of the actual population, who might have been induced to suppress their returns under the apprehension of the renewal of that tax, or of the substitution of another in its stead.

The Englishmen who were residing at Sonsonate were Mr. Banchard, (who had married a young lady of the country, a niece of the Padre Zelaya, superior of the Augustine monastery,) Mr. Freere, Mr.