Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/71

CH. IV.]. I discovered that the Commissary was Don José Barazo, and felt a little ashamed that I had not known, or not attended to, his name before, for he was the very same person who had accompanied me into Acapulco. I was glad to find he experienced but little bad effects from his fall.

The troops at this station are composed of the most abandoned portion of the Mexican population. Most of those we met with on the road, when the officer was so strenuous in defence of their honour, were convicts, who were coming to replenish the ranks of the hopeful band who were on the parade. There was scarcely a man of them, I was told, who had not committed crimes worthy of death: one of them, a fair slight made man, about twenty-three, with light hair, was particularly pointed out to me as known to be one of the greatest desperados that ever had human form; he is said to have bragged that he had committed thirteen murders and assassinations, amongst which his father was one of the victims. These are