Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/360

340 another Babylonian, but splendid and happy, captivity.

Having given the rein to my little Arabian, I came up, in the course of ten minutes, with the stragglers of my party. The first whom I encountered was Don Domingo, the eldest brother of my attaché, Don Eugenio. He had been loitering behind in order to talk to me about his views regarding this young man, who was the cadet (the youngest son) of the family. His father, I knew, had been one of the old Spanish descent, and had married a Guatemalian lady, Doña Vicente, whose relatives had accumulated considerable wealth in haciendas, or farming estates, in which they bred innumerable droves of mules, which, being employed in the carrying trade, had greatly enriched the family, in addition to the fortune which, by his exclusive privileges as a trader, the father, as an old Spaniard, had obtained. Although Don Domingo was the head of the family, yet, owing to the effects of the civil