Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/272

252 Wednesday, 23d June. I called on Don Juan de Barrundia, the gefe politico of the state: it happened to be his saint's day, or, as we should call it in English, his birth-day, it being usual in these countries to take the name of the saint on whose festival any one is born. All the authorities and most respectable inhabitants of the place were paying their court to him: I staid with him about half an hour, during which time the conversation turned principally upon the political organization of the country, and the federative system which was adopted. I had been given to understand, and subsequent events have proved the truth of the assertion, that this person was not so well affected towards the federal system as could be wished for the tranquillity of the republic: as almost all the disturbances which have since occurred in Guatemala have arisen principally from the disposition to impugn the authority of the federal government, it might be as well to give my readers a short sketch of the principles on which that federation is