Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/61

CH. III.] : this accounts for his making himself so agreeable with the softer sex; who generally prefer a man of maturer years, with a pleasing cheerful address, to an insipid young one. The breakfast proved quite as good as that we had the day before, at Dos Caminos.

Before we had departed, the father of this happy family came home, with one of his sons. He was a master muleteer by profession, and was considered passing rich. Many of the Mexican Creoles owe their fortunes and respectability to the same origin; and, indeed, there is hardly any safer or more certainly lucrative calling that can be followed in the country, particularly when, as in this instance, the proprietor is also the chief conductor of the business.

The family of General Guerrero, to whose military personal prowess the independence of Mexico is, perhaps, more owing than to that of any other individual in the republic, owed their fortunes to the