Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/359

CH. XXIII.] As I was quite alone, I hardly knew my route out of the town, but guessed it by the position of the sun as well as by the appearance of the surrounding country, which I had often contemplated from the azotea, or roof of the house in which I resided. Having never before passed this way, I was agreeably surprised in coming out upon a cheerful little hamlet, consisting of a few cottages, on a lively green skirted on two sides with level but unworn roads, the whole being hemmed in with uncouth gates and fences, and sheltered with fine trees, amongst which the orange offered at once its refreshment and its shade: pigs, children, and geese were squatted upon the sward: a cow and an ass stood under the shade of one of the largest trees, gazing at each other as if in mute admiration or in tranquil enticement of the pencil of a Morland. The scene reminded me of the village greens which, when a boy, I had seen in England in the environs of its metropolis, but which are now involved in