Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/195

CH. XII.] a temporary slight covering hung round the lower part of them, affords, at once, a fresh and convenient bath. The water is very rapid and clear, and well stocked with fish: those of the lake are particularly plentiful and well flavoured: there is one species, like a tench, which is most prized, but, as there are few persons who will take the trouble to catch them, they are by no means cheap. I saw but two small boats on the whole of the lake, and I question whether either of them had ever ventured so far as to round the mountain: in fact, there was nobody that could tell me whether the water ended there, abruptly, whether it narrowed into a creek, or whether, or no, it ended there at all. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," is the axiom by which the South American Indian directs his life: he is a sort of animated vegetation that requires nothing for its support but what the terraqueous globe, in its spontaneous liberality, affords: some maize, some Chili-pepper and the pure