afternoon, he met a gentleman walking alone in the public garden near the Plaza. He asked the oft-repeated question in Spanish, when, to his surprise, the person asked him if he spoke English. This proved to be the Jefe, Don J. M. Galero; and when told who we were and what we wanted, asked us to come to the Jefaturia in the evening. As Señor Galero was high in favor with the Government and beloved by his people, our very agreeable visit was interrupted by a serenade to his Excellency; and after he had promised to send us his own mules that very night for our journey to Totonicapan, we took our leave.

The public garden especially interested me, since all the flowers (except an orange-tree) were such as I might find at home; but times and seasons were sadly mixed. Pinks and gladioli, sunflower and white lily, all blossomed together. The fountain was painted blue and white, the national colors, and sadly disfigured the garden, which otherwise was not laid out with any

taste.

Our apartment in this only hotel in Sololà was completely fire-proof; walls, roof, and floor were brick or tile, and several of the floor-tiles were deeply impressed with dog-tracks (made, of course, before the kiln), — much resembling the fossil footprints in the red sandstone of the

1 Sweet peas and geraniums in abundance, carnations, marigolds, campanula, yarrow, pinks, sweet-williams, chrysanthemums, iris, scabious, abutilon, poppy, princess'-feathers, fuchsia, linaria, Lilium candidum, peach, eveningprimrose, gilliflowers, amaryllis, gladioli, alyssum, larkspur, brugmansia, mignonette, sunflower, adenanthera, willow, balsams, dahlia, spider-lily, canna, hollyhock, eucalyptus, ragged-lady, roses (4), yellow sweet-clover, asparagus, Hydrangea hortensis, blue African lily, lupine, Boston-pink, woolpink, cypress, sedum, agave, chelidonium, euphorbia (long-leaved), and

broom.

Connecticut valley. A low table, one chair, a hard-wood table called a bedstead, furnished this room; and there was one door and a single window, the latter, with its iron grating, suggesting a prison-cell. It was clean and quiet, and good enough. It does not require long travel in the tropics to teach one that the less unnecessary furniture in a house, the fewer lurking-places for cockroaches, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and other disagreeable tenants; and comparative emptiness decidedly reduces the temperature of a room. During the night my hammock broke down; and the sympathy Frank expressed as he was half-awakened by the noise, would have been very soothing had he not fallen asleep again in the midst of it, leaving me sitting on the floor. He continued his sympathy in the morning, when the dreadful jar was almost forgotten.

Early next morning we were on our way, mounted better than we had been; for we left Frank's mare with Santiago to rest for a week, and with the Jefe's mules we rode briskly on to Argueta, a small hamlet with a deserted convent or monastery, in front of which flowed a clear cool brook, and near by was an ingenio moved by water-power. We got our almuerzo here, early as it was, for we were warned that we should find nothing to eat until night. From Argueta the road was very hilly, and we climbed until my barometer said 10,450 feet. Wheat abounded everywhere, and there were fenced threshing-floors of beaten earth. The mozos we met carried packs of woollen blankets and redes (nets) of pottery; several had pine-boards hewn smooth, three feet wide by eight long. In the trees were flocks of bright-green parrots. So many little streams had to be crossed that we

often wondered if they were not, many of them, parts of one rivulet winding in devious way among the foot-hills. Except in the ravines, where we had to zigzag down and up while the toiling mozos patiently climbed the banks too steep for horses, the road was generally over a good country for road-building. In one place, however, we had to climb a stairway paved with stone set on edge and walled with masonry. In places earthen pots were built into the walls to collect water for the wayfarer, and tiles were used to cap the masonry. This extended more than a mile, and took us up just a thousand feet by the barometer. We could not learn its age nor the builders; but it is old, and some of the mozos attributed it to the Jesuit Fathers. It is much out of repair, and I fancy that most of the travel over it is on foot. The views were fine all the way; but we knew our journey was long, and the daylight all too short to permit us to wait for our mozos to come up with the camera. Indeed, I hardly cared to reduce to black and white the glorious colors the light was painting on every side. The greens of the forest faded into the blues of the sky as in the turquoise, gold and silver glittered from the streams, and the very gray of the rocks seemed to be richer and more varied than usual.

On the hill-sides were ancient potato-fields only cultivated by digging the tubers; and this process has gone on for years, the Indios digging at the bottom of the slope as potatoes are wanted, leaving enough for seed, and arriving at the top by the time the rains begin. As the small stems were quite dead and dried up, we could not ascertain the species of this aboriginal potato; but it was certainly not the common potato of cultivation

(Solanum tuberosum). The Indios declared the potatoes had never been planted, but their ancestors had dug them from the remotest time, - en todo tiempo, señor.

Around us on the mountain-top were spruce-trees of immense size, four feet in diameter, and pines two feet larger; and beneath these giants of the forest flocks of black sheep were feeding, watched by shepherdesses not many shades lighter. As black cloth is much worn by the Indios, they cultivate the black sheep rather than pay the dyer. Cactus on pine-trees, crimson sage, and a minute violet not an inch high, were novelties by the roadside. Not a few of the pine-trees had been hacked with machetes until a considerable niche was formed in the stem ; and the pitch dripping into this receptacle was then fired to light a camp. We found no villages on this road, but we were seldom out of sight of some herdsman's hovel. Late in the afternoon we came to the brow of the cliff that bounds the immense valley of Totonicapan on the east. The sun was low on the horizon before us, but I was absorbed in the beauty of this grand view. On our left a waterfall dashed over the rocks; below us were the white walls of the Indian City we had so greatly wished to see; roads and streams traversed the valley; and the whole surface, as well as the slopes far up the hills, was cut into numerous fields of wheat and maiz of many shades of green and brown. Far in the distance smoke rose over Quezaltenango, and the broad highway between was plainly visible for many miles. My mozo was close at hand, and in ten minutes I had two photographs caught in my box; after which we began the very steep descent.

We found lodging at the Hotel de la Concordia. Our little room contained three board bedsteads and one wash

stand. Usually we had no wash-stand, but either performed our ablutions at the courtyard fountain, or else had our valet Santiago pour water over us from a calabash.

As we had a letter to the Jefe, David Camey, I went at once to present it, in order to get our animals for the next stage as soon as possible. We found his house, a fine one, the best in the town, with beautiful roses in the neat courtyard; but the Jefe himself was a dumpy little Indio, stupid and fat, who could say little else than “Si, Señor." After some delay he promised us two mules in the morning. In his parlor I noticed a fine piano, evidently in use; and there was a decided air of comfort about the house, - probably due to the lady rather than the lord.

That night was very cold, and in the morning at seven o'clock the thermometer told forty-five degrees, and the barometer stood at 8,860 feet. As usual, we went to church; this was the largest and cleanest we had yet seen, but the images, including an Indio-colored Christ, were perhaps more hideous than ever. The church has now the old Plaza (north of the new one) all to itself, and in addition a very large paved courtyard, with square chapels in the outer corners. In this courtyard we found a troop of Indian women conducting some mummery which required veils and candles, both of great size. Some of the poor women were so tipsy that they could hardly care for their candles, which were perilously near to setting their neighbors' clothes on fire. After various marches and countermarches, songs and responses, the performance ended in a loud explosion. Of all the Indian towns, Totonicapan is supposed to be the most Indian, and the people are