Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/130

110 was at intervals impenetrable to its rays, the ground was dappled with abrupt variations of light and shade: under the latter, we found a party of travellers bivouacking: they consisted of two or three native gentlemen and their servants, who had made a fire and were cooking some fowls and other edibles for their dinner: the proximity of the river assisted these culinary operations; contributing also, by the purity and freshness of its water, to the invigoration of man and beast; for they all drank freely of it together; verifying the, abstractedly true, but uncourteous, remark, that "a water-drinker drinks like a beast." Two or three other persons had fallen in with, and were accompanying, the party in question; amongst them, was an old seaman: he had been a British sailor, and residing some time at Sonsonate, where he had endeavoured to obtain a livelihood in the capacity of a cook. The poor fellow was suffering under a complication of disorders; the first of which was old age, the