Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/370

350 course, be suspended there without the approbation of the parish curate, who is, in nine cases out of ten, liable also to be the interpreter of its meaning.

About two leagues before we came to the hacienda, on passing through a beautiful wood of stately trees, I espied, by the road side, a small log, freshly trimmed and rounded with the hatchet, about a yard long, and a foot diameter. Concluding that it had been inadvertently left in this out-of-the-way place, I dismounted to recognize it: the grain was so hard and close as to resist all efforts of my penknife, which might as well have endeavoured to make an impression on iron. It was very dark coloured, but fancifully streaked and variegated, and, considering that it might make very nice despatch boxes, I was determined to bring it home by way of a specimen of the fine wood with which the country abounds, and to present samples of it to the Foreign Office. I told Don Eugenio I should like very much to take