Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/97

CH. VI.] and cleanliness about their dress and general appearance superior to what I had observed in the same classes in Mexico.

The fair was carried on at a rising ground, at the extremity of a wood of bananas and other tropical plants. It was surrounded by the cocoa-nut tree, which spread its fan-shaped branches, as it were, to protect and shelter this pleasing sequestered spot. In one part of it was a blacksmith's forge, and in another a most indifferent sugar-mill: they seemed to testify that the arts and conveniencies of life, though not unknown, were known only upon a moderate and humble scale. The lanes, which led in different directions to this spot, were narrow and now so overgrown by the rank vegetation, that two persons could not ride abreast along them; and the little children, as you could perceive them in their white mantas, flitting amongst the bushes, put you in mind of rabbits, in the moonlight, sporting amidst the furze.

The next day, at dinner, I remarked two