Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/393

CH. XXVII.] at this place was of course very wretched: as we were starting, a drunken woman begged very importunately for a half rial to buy some brandy: so unreasonable a request was of course not complied with; and we had the pleasure of being well on our road by six o'clock, stopping to lunch at a hamlet called Zinzin: the abode at which we put up was tenanted by a very large family, consisting of a mother and six daughters, the youngest of whom was five years old. The mother was engaged in cooking in a separate hut, and the children were sprawling about in the hammocks or on the bedsteads of the chief apartment. They were fine children, and, apparently, as innocent as they were comely, but not likely to continue so, for the mother was very far from being an exemplary character.

We continued our journey through a country richly wooded and highly picturesque, and, after travelling eleven leagues in the course of the day, stopped