and we entered the old fort, as the only other sight in the dirty little town.

The plan is rather peculiar, but doubtless well suited to the defensive warfare of those days. The doorless entrance-ports invited us to enter, and we found a courtyard of paved and level surface occupying almost the entire area. At the outer end, commanding the channel, the bastion was higher than the main portion, approached by narrow and winding steps, easily defended; and here was the most curious part of the whole edifice, — the gun-deck. There is a law in the Guatemaltecan code forbidding photographing in military works; but I have since wished that I had broken that law then and there, so that my readers might see for themselves the clumsy guns, the carriages with wooden wheels, the magazine roofed, indeed, but doorless, the whole business as dangerous to the gunners as to any enemy outside. Some fine orange-trees were growing up through the pavement, and their hard green fruit would be suitable ammunition for the ancient guns.

PL

Castillo de San Felipe.

There was nothing whatever to attract the most curious traveller in San Felipe, and we sailed and paddled on with frequent calms and showers. We were completely in the hands of our boatmen, whose knowledge of the lago proved to be very limited; but as ours was even less, we suffered

them to coast the northern shore, when, as we afterwards learned, the law directed our course southward to Izabal, the port of entry, where we should have obtained a permit to proceed on our voyage inland. Our map indicated the course we selected as the shorter to the mouth of the Rio Polochic; but the map was, as usual, wrong.

There was not much to see, as the mist and rain hid the mountains and hung low on the shores, driving us frequently under our rubber roof. Whenever the mist lifted we caught glimpses of the far southern shore, with the grand wall of the Sierra de las Minas catching the fleecy clouds on every black pinnacle; and the clearing sky attracted us still closer to the northern shore, where we could see a low wooded country backed by a high range of mountains, with here and there an opening through which some stream reached the lake. At two o'clock we landed at Sauce, on a beach of black sand, evidently volcanic, scattered with fragments of chalcedony and agatized wood, a formation which puzzled me exceedingly, as all this region is supposed to be non-volcanic. We had no time to follow the beach to ascertain the extent of black sand, but it reached far beyond the few comfortable huts on the shore, as far, indeed, as we could go into the jungle inland. In it grew luxuriantly limes, bananas, mangoes, and other cultivated plants not recognized. Goyavas grew to a large size, but all the fruit was ruined by worms.

Here first we saw the whole process of tortilla-making. The maiz was hulled in lime-water, washed in the lake, and ground laboriously on a stone metatle into a consistent. paste, which is then skilfully patted into cakes from four to six inches in diameter, round and thick as an ordinary

griddle-cake.

These are then baked on an iron plate or comal, but not browned, and should be eaten hot, and then the tortilla tastes like parched corn. The metatles in Guatemala were all of very simple pattern and unornamented, not so well wrought as those in Mexico and farther southward, but serving their purpose equally well. A woman who cannot make good tortillas is in Guatemala not deemed fit to assume the duties of housekeeping; and yet there are few articles of food requiring

Making Tortillas.

more labor in preparation than this unleavened bread. Except the Hawaiian poi (paste of the Colocasium esculentum or Kalo), I can recall no article of diet that demands more physical labor. The inhabitants of the tropics. in both these cases lay aside their proverbial indolence and earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. For our men we procured meat in long strips put on skewers and crisped over the fire, while for ourselves we bought bananas, limes, and tortillas. After this we continued our voyage until dark, when we anchored near shore and enjoyed a very quiet night. At early dawn we were again under way. The showers continued, and far away on the Santa Cruz range the rains were heavy, boding ill for our ascent of the river. The lake water,

usually quite potable, was now full of a small green alga, and the cast skins of ephemera were so thick on the surface that for miles we could with difficulty get a dipper of clear water.

Twice our Caribs thought they had found the mouth of the Polochic; and at last, at high noon, we discovered it, where we least expected, on a marshy promontory or delta. Masses of coarse floating grass were attached to the banks on each side, almost blocking the way; and the rapid current, which we estimated at five miles an hour, made these grass plots wave as if the breezes were playing over their tops. Pelicans were abundant and tame; so were the iguanas. The air was still, and the thermometer marked eighty-five degrees, while the water was much cooler, nine degrees. All the creeks in the lowland flowed from the river, so high was the flood, and we found no comfortable landing-place.

At night we anchored in the stream, and the mosquitoes were very troublesome; unlike those on the Chocon, these were black, and had very long and sharp lancets. At three in the morning we could bear them no longer; Orion was in the zenith, and we struck our toldo, the men slowly rowing on until six, when we anchored for coffee. As we were eating, a cayuco, covered with a neat awning of leaves, came rapidly by us on the way down; its occupants assured us that there were many vueltas (bends) and a great current (mucho corriente) before we should be able to reach Pansos.

Ten miles a day was the utmost limit of our propelling power, and in crossing the bends to escape the current we hardly held our own, so strong were the flood-waters. Our creeping pace gave us ample time to see, but no time to

stop for, the many curious things on either bank. Close on the shore were red abutilons, and over them crept the long-tubed white convolvulus (Ipomoea bona-nox) and the brilliant yellow allamanda; high up on the wild figtrees were black, long-tailed monkeys, common and tame, their wonderfully human faces peering down at the intruders, the mothers clasping their hairy little babies to their breasts with one arm, and with the other scratching their heads in a puzzled manner. One of our Caribs shot a little fellow before I could prevent him, and the creature clung, even in death, by his tail. As I had shot an iguana through the head with my revolver in the morning, I was called upon to cut with my bullet the provoking tail, that the Caribs might have a caribal feast. Regard for my reputation as a marksman, and the memory of a taste of roast monkey in India, forbade the attempt, and the poor monkey, like the Tyburn thief, "is hanging there still." There was foam on the water, but we heard no water-fall, -and indeed the flat nature of the country made falls, cascades, or even rapids, impossible.

We passed another night when the torrents of rain had no effect on the myriads of mosquitoes and black-flies. Still all the brooks ran inland, although, as we afterwards learned, in the dry season these banks are so high above the water that they are hard to climb. All day long we saw monkeys along the banks, though high above us, and the following night we heard the howlers; but in compensation for that evil had no mosquitoes. By Saturday (Nov. 3, 1883) we hoped to be well on our road from Pansos to Coban, but, except the cayuco, we saw no signs of men or the work of men's hands; on that morning, however, we came to a little finca on the river bank, where