Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/140

120 flopped it with my handkerchief, and off it popt through a hole in the partition of the room which was composed of matting and broken reed-work, and constituted the head of the bed: whilst imagining what kind of animal it could possibly be, the matting was again slightly raised, and I immediately discovered my mistake:—it was merely the negress's head which had inadvertently borrowed a part of my pillow, placed in close contact with her own on the other side of this moveable partition: I could not be offended with the whimsical tête-à-tête, though it was certainly a very extraordinary intrusion.

We travelled nine leagues without drawing bit, when we stopped at a hamlet, called El Oratorio, to lunch. I confess I was half asleep when I set off, and the servants seemed to be quite so, for they had left the lunch behind them which they had been sitting up all night to dress. We passed through a barrier which appeared like a small turnpike gate, and came on a green