Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/173

CH. XI.] surrounding prospects, the agreeable variety of the route through which we passed, rendered the journey to me highly interesting and amusing.

About eleven o'clock we had reached a hamlet called Villa Nueva, a very poor spot: the chief house was used as a general place of refreshment: it consisted, as usual, of only two rooms, which were both occupied, almost to suffocation. The yard, also, was so crowded, with the mules and baggage of the various parties who had stopped to refresh themselves, that many of the travellers had left it to congregate, more at their ease, under the hedges and trees in the lane in which the inn stood. We strolled up the village and made a call at a large farm-house, looking into the church-yard; where we saw a lady who had been bed-ridden for some months, owing to a bad confinement. I did not understand much about the particular causes of her indisposition, but the poor woman looked dreadfully pale and emaciated, and,