Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/132

112 eaten with garbanzas, or beans, was savoury and wholesome. This dish is, in fact, to the natives of America, what the curry is to the Asiatics.

In these countries, a man never shaves himself on a journey: he omits the operation, also, when he is, however slightly, indisposed. In travelling, there is an evident advantage in not shaving too often: the moustache is a great protection to the lips, by shading and preventing them from chapping. After dinner, I called for my dressing-case, not having shaved for some days, and commenced the operation, to the evident astonishment of Don Simon, who shewed, by his gestures, that he considered the act as bordering upon madness,—and to the discomfiture of my barber-servant. Henrico, who thought it an encroachment upon his privileges. The fact was that, what with the growth of my beard and the peculiarity of my dress, I hardly knew myself, and resolved, before I put down the glass, to know what manner of man I was.