space is occupied by a garden surrounded by a wall of carved stone and provided with stone seats. A pond in the midst has a pavilion, or band-stand, on an island. The other half of the Plaza is paved, and used as a market-place; here are the new buildings for the Government.

Near by the hotel I saw a sign, of which I made a note, thinking to profit thereby; but Frank saw it more clearly than I did, and knocked all the romance out of it. To my first glance it read, "Collection of Young Ladies,"

COLEGIO NAL SEÑORITAS

DE

but to the critical eye of my fidus Achates it was simply a National Seminary of Young Ladies; so we did not venture to explore it.

The church of San Juan de Dios was large, and the façade ornate, worthy the principal church in a city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The old organ, of four octaves, had been recently painted; and in the two towers hung seven bells, three bound to the beams with rawhide, as usual, the others on yokes. The cloisters adjoining this church1 were interesting, from the multitude of curious paintings they contained, mostly of Scriptural histories; and in them Christ was always represented as a shaven monk, with the girdle of the Cordeliers. In the old lumber-room of the church were the remains of an ancient organ, and heads, bodies, and arms of saints, not relics, but the membra disjecta of the dolls that are put together and dressed up on holy-days. We had often seen similar places, which Frank called "property-rooms;

1 It was here that the Vice-President, Flores, was torn to pieces by women in the last days of the Confederacy, when the Church was in power.

in one we found boxes of wigs and beards, and in another a figure of Christ with permanently bent legs, and staples

in his ankles to strap him on to the mule on Palm Sunday! It was both amusing and pitiful to see the trash used for religious purposes.

In

—

- in

We went to the National Institute and saw very good dormitories for the young men who study here. preparation for an expected visit of the President. lanterns were hung along the colonnades, and blue and white (the national colors) met the eye on every side. There was something homelike in the narrow, crooked streets, so different from the tasteless rectangles of most other Guatemaltecan cities. Then, too, they were clean, well paved, and provided with sidewalks, some places, where they were very steep, with bridges over the gutters, which in rainy weather must be torrents. Street-lamps and letter-boxes, plenty of fountains (and the water is cold and excellent), gave an air of civilized comfort very agreeable to us. The houses were well built, and usually had the window and doorjambs of sculptured stone. There were plenty of windows, and the gates were often ajar, revealing flowers and fountains in many courtyards. Peach-trees were in blossom, and also bore half-ripe fruit. In the suburb Ciénega is a picturesque washing-place, or lavadero, where an artist has many a chance for sketching the

Indias.

We saw more tokens of Sunday observance than we had yet seen in Guatemala. Towards sunset the military band, of twenty-five instruments, played for some time in the garden; but it was more amusing to me to see the people with their obsolete European costumes and Sunday manners than to listen to the music, which Frank said was good. Especially effeminate boys wore very high heels, to give them a standing in society they could never attain otherwise. The garden was not so good as that at Sololà, but contained, in addition to the list of that place, olean

der, daisy, wall-flower, pink-catchfly, bachelor's-buttons, flax, and Canterbury-bells.

A city of nearly twenty-five thousand inhabitantsthe majority Indios - has grown up gradually on the ruins of the ancient Xelahu, until it is only second in importance to Guatemala City. Its port is Champerico, from

which a railroad extends some distance into the interior (to Retalhuleu, 1884), and will one day enter the city. Abundant water-supply, schools of various grades, — including a night-school for artisans, -a good hospital, female orphan asylum, convenient public buildings and a suitable penitentiary, a bank, public lavatories, and the hot springs of Almolonga, are but some of the

attractions of what was once the capital of the province of Los Altos.

We had letters to the Jefe politico General Manuel Lisandro Barillas; but he was so occupied in preparation for the visit of the President that we thought it best not to add to his occupations by calling on him. On the

death of President Barrios, General Barillas succeeded to the Presidency; and so satisfactory was his administration that at the next election he became President by popular vote.

Monday morning was quite cold and misty; but we photographed the church, with the kind co-operation of the