wood, and most primitive in design. All the worshipping Indios seemed very devout, chanting their prayers in their native tongue to the bare wall or a door-post, and they paid no attention to us as we passed them, although outside they generally bowed respectfully.

In a little shop at a street corner we found our almuerzo (there is no posada); and a very good one it was. Our hostess was a very respectable woman, whose house was well furnished (sewing-machine and rockingchairs among other comforts), being quite a different person from the one who in our own country would occupy her position, -a rumseller. While we were waiting, two half-tipsy Indios came in, drank a small tumbler of aguardiente, and soon settled themselves quietly on the sidewalk for a drunken sleep, undisturbed by the passer-by.

Our way from Chichicastenango1 led out over a narrow ridge or series of ridges, with deep barrancas on either side. The road was good, and hedged part of the way; but our animals were of the poorest kind. My little horse went slowly, and at last his legs seemed to collapse, and he came to the ground, leaving me standing over him. He was not worn out, he was a "trick horse." For miles Frank and I walked on, leading our bestias. It grew very dark and misty; lightning flashed in the distance, and the trees were dripping with dew. With

1 In stumbling over this crooked name, it occurs to me that it would be fair to my readers, who are perhaps less familiar with Indian names, to state briefly how they are pronounced. G is always guttural; ch is like tche; h is strongly aspirate; j is pronounced like h; x is sh; u is the French ou; v is equivalent to w; and the vowels have the Italian values. Of the Indian names the signification is not always known, but there are certain terminations common enough and well understood; as tepec, a mountain or high thing, in Alotepec, Quezaltepec, Coatepeque, Olintepeque, Jilotepeque. Those who are curious in these matters will find another note in the Appendix.

every desire to get on to Sololà, we agreed that in the darkness it was unwise to travel, and we looked anxiously for a camping-place, although the muddy ground, dripping bushes, and threatening sky gave no hope of a comfortable night. Twice we were misled by the gleam of fireflies, whose glow is so steady that we mistook it for light in a distant house. As we could find no safe place for a camp, a high bank on one side and a seemingly deep ravine on the other bordering the narrow cart-road, we walked on in the utter darkness until we almost ran into two ox-carts with a squad of whitecoated soldiers, who told us we had lost our path in the dark, and were on the road to Totonicapan, and a long league beyond Encuentros. We returned with them to the latter place, where we found comfortable lodgings in the house prepared for the expected visit of the President. We occupied his room, which was temporarily furnished with plenty of Vienna bent-wood furniture, and decorated with a full-length, life-size painting of President Barrios and a small portrait of his wife. Two bedsteads of the box variety were quite bare, as His Excellency always carries his bedding, and we did not. After some excellent chocolate, but no other food, we spread our blankets and slept.

How cold that Thursday morning was when we started at daybreak! The thermometer marked 46° at half-past six o'clock, and we were at an elevation of eight thousand feet. We had a fine carriage-road for our travel to-day, on which I used Frank's mare, while he tried his luck with my "trick horse." "trick horse." For a while all went well, and Frank made the little beast go ahead, while I stopped to pick up some lava fragments in one of the cuttings; and

so when Frank's turn came I could see perfectly how odd it looked to have a horse collapse under his rider. Along the road were elder-trees (Sambucus) pollarded like our willows; as, however, they were not shady, but in the way of fine views, we voted them a nuisance. It was down hill all the way, and as we approached Sololà the view of the Lago de Atitlan and the volcano was disappointing. We had surfeited, perhaps, on the glories of landscape, and had expected something finer, with an immense lake, several volcanoes of more than average size, and a town whose white houses and red-tiled roofs were almost concealed in trees and flowers. However critical we might be, we were glad enough to see the town, and not less to find a posada, where we had a room to serve as store-room and bedchamber. We at once sent back our miserable horses; and after reporting to the comandante, as in duty bound,' we strolled through the Plaza, sending Santiago in search of bestias for our next stage. Here we first found the ripe fruit of the sapote (Lucuma mammosa), and did not like it. The outside was brown, rough, and leathery; the meat reddish, surrounding a smooth nut, and the whole flavored with cinnamon. Some sapotes were as large as a coconut, but generally they were not half that size. The Plaza was full of people

1 It is the duty of every person to whose house strangers come to pass the night to report to headquarters the name, where from and whither bound, so that we could be tracked all over the republic from the central telegraph office in Guatemala City, often very useful.

2 There is no little confusion in the nomenclature of the sapotes, or sapodillas. What is usually called sapote in Guatemala does not belong to the genus Sapota, but to an allied genus Lucuma, and is known in the West Indies as the mammeeapple. The true sapote has several seeds; the mammee only one. An allied genus contains the star-apple (Chrysophyllum cainito). The sapoton, or big sapote, does not even belong to the Sapota family, but is a Pachira.

buying and selling. Mule-trains came in and went out, and it seems that this is the great wheat-market. This grain (trigo) is small and round, and the Government officials weighed each bag, which should contain six arrobas, or one hundred and fifty pounds. Fat-pine (ocote) is also an important article of commerce here, as it is the principal source of candle-light among the Indios.

The church is large, but of no architectural pretensions; and among its contents we noticed several strange things. A figure of Christ, with glass eyes and long human hair, wore a crown cocked over his left eye like a drunken man. On the wall of the nave was a watercolor drawing passably done, representing a young man. falling headlong over a precipice, while through a sort of Lutheran window, or peep-hole, in the sky a rather young female is trying to catch him with a long vine. The

legend states at length that the youth, in passing along the edge of the terrible precipice above the Lago one dark night (when he had been to his club), mistook the gleam of the water for the path, and forced his horse over. As he fell, he breathed a prayer to the "Mother of God," and she opened her window and jerked him up again with a grape-vine. In testimony whereof he offers this tablet, etc. Near the main entrance was a large altar-piece, with a deeply sunken cruciform panel containing a very realistic crucifix, — glass eyes, sweat, long hair, and blooddrops, indeed, everything that could make it disgusting to a civilized being; while from the five wounds proceeded skeins of crimson thread, that from the side being much thicker, and all these knotted together in a mass, black with the kisses of the worshippers of the blood of Christ. On one side of this panel were painted, life-size, Roman soldiers mocking the suffering Saviour; while on the other was a Guatemaltecan general, in full uniform, weeping at the sad sight, and using such an embroidered handkerchief as the nuns make at the present day. Just behind him was an attendant who had caught off his wig on the point of his lance. This last feature Frank interprets differently, and thinks the bald head is a shining casque, while what I call a wig is a flowing plume. With all due deference to his younger and brighter eyes, I submit that such a helmet was never a part of the Guatemaltecan uniform; and even if made of such close-fitting shape, would not have been painted flesh-color. Unluckily I did not take a photograph, to settle, if possible, this important dispute.

Frank was busily asking every one he met about mules; and we had not found any when, late in the