ed. My engagement with Mr. Catherwood was for a specific time; the rainy season was coming on, and by the loss of a month I should be prevented visiting Palenque. I considered it actually safer to pass through while all was in this state of suspense, than after the floodgates of war were opened. Rascon's band had prevented my passing the road before, and other Rascons might spring up. The captain had not the same inducement to push ahead that I had. I had no idea of incurring any unnecessary risk, and on the road would have had no hesitation at any time in putting spurs to my horse; but, on deliberate consideration, my mind was so fully made up that I determined to procure a guide at any price, and set out alone.

In the midst of my perplexity, a tall, thin, gaunt-looking Spaniard, whose name was Don Saturnino Tinocha, came to see me. He was a merchant from Costa Rica, so far on his way to Guatimala, and, by the advice of his friends rather than his own judgment, had been already waiting a week at Zonzonate. He was exactly in the humour to suit me, very anxious to reach Guatimala; and his views and opinions were just the same as mine. The captain was indifferent, and, at all events, could not go unless he could procure mules. I told Don Saturnino that I would go at all events, and he undertook to provide for the captain. In the evening he returned, with intelligence that he had scoured the town and could not procure a single mule, but he offered to leave two of his own cargoes and take the captain's, or to sell him two of his mules. I offered to lend him my horse or macho, and the matter was arranged.

In the midst of the war-rumours, the next day, which was Sunday, was one of the most quiet I passed in Central America. It was at the hacienda of Dr. Drivin,

NEWS FROM GUATIMALA.

65

about a league from Zonzonate. This was one of the finest haciendas in the country. The doctor had imported a large steam engine, which was not yet set up, and was preparing to manufacture sugar upon a larger scale than any other planter in the country. He was from the island of St. Kitts, and, before sitting down in this out-of-the-way place, had travelled extensively in Europe and all the West India Islands, and knew America from Halifax to Cape Horn; but surprised me by saying that he looked forward to a cottage in Morristown, New-Jersey, as the consummation of his wishes. I learned from him that Jemmy, after his disappearance from Izalco, had straggled to his hacienda in wretched condition and sick of campaigning, and was then at the port on board the Cosmopolita, bound for Peru.

On our return to Zonzonate we were again in the midst of tumult. Two of Captain D'Yriarte's passen. gers for Guayaquil, whom he had given up, arrived that evening direct from Guatimala, and reported that Carrera, with two thousand men, had left the city at the same time with them to march upon San Salvador. Carrera knew nothing of Morazan's approach; his troops were a disorderly and tumultuous mass; and three leagues from the city, when they halted, the horses were already tired. Here our informants slipped away, and three hours afterward met Morazan's army, in good order, marching single file, with Morazan himself at their head, he and all his cavalry dismounted and leading their horses, which were fresh and ready for immediate action. Morazan stopped them, and made them show their passports and letters, and they told him of the sally of Carrera's army, and its condition; and we all formed the conclusion that Morazan had attacked them the same day, defeated them, and was then in VOL. II.-I

possession of Guatimala. Upon the whole, we considered the news favourable to us, as his first business would be to make the roads secure.

At three o'clock the next morning we were again in the saddle. A stream of fire was rolling down the Volcano of Izalco, bright, but paler by the moonlight. The road was good for two leagues, when we reached the Indian village of Aguisalco. Our mules were overloaded, and one of Don Saturnino's gave out entirely. We tried to procure others or Indian carriers, but no one would move from home. Don Saturnino loaded his saddle-mule, and walked; and if it had not been for his indefatigable perseverance, we should have been compelled to stop.

At one o'clock we reached Apeneca, and rode up to one of the best houses, where an old man and his wife undertook to give us breakfast. Our mules presented a piteous spectacle. Mine, which had carried my light luggage like a feather all the way from La Union, had gone on with admirable steadiness up hill and down dale, but when we stopped she trembled in every limb, and before the cargo was removed I expected to see her fall. Nicolas and the muleteer said she would certainly die, and the faithful brute seemed to look at me reproachfully for having suffered so heavy a load to be put upon her back. I tried to buy or hire another, but all were removed one or two days' journey out of the line of march of the soldiers.

It was agreed that I should go on to Aguachapa and endeavour to have other mules ready early the next morning; but in the mean time the captain conceived some suspicions of the old man and woman, and resolved not to remain that night in the village. Fortunately, my mule revived and began to eat. Don Sat

A REGION OF FIRE.

67 urnino repeated his 'sta bueno, with which he had cheered us through all the perplexities of the day, and we determined to set out again. Neither of us had any luggage he was willing to leave, for in all probability he would never see it again. We loaded our saddlebeasts and walked. Immediately on leaving the village we commenced ascending the mountain of Aguachapa, the longest and worst in the whole road, in the wet season requiring two days to cross it. A steep pitch at the beginning made me tremble for the result. The ascent was about three miles, and on the very crest, imbowered among the trees, was a blacksmith's shop, commanding a view of the whole country back to the village, and on the other side, of the slope of the mountain to the plain of Aguachapa. The clink of the hammer and the sight of a smith's grimed face seemed a profanation of the beauties of the scene. Here our difficulties were over; the rest of our road was down hill. The road lay along the ridge of the mountain. On our right we looked down the perpendicular side to a plain two thousand feet below us; and in front, on another part of the same plain, were the lake and town of Aguachapa. Instead of going direct to the town, we turned round the foot of the mountain, and came into a field smoking with hot springs. The ground was incrusted with sulphur, and dried and baked by subterranean fires. In some places were large orifices, from which steam rushed out violently and with noise, and in others large pools or lakes, one of them a hundred and fifty feet in circumference, of dark brown water, boiling with monstrous bubbles three or four feet high, which Homer might have made the head-waters of Acheron. All around, for a great extent, the earth was in a state of combustion, burning our boots and

frightening the horses, and we were obliged to be careful to keep the horses from falling through. At some distance was a stream of sulphur-water, which we followed up to a broad basin, made a dam with stones and bushes, and had a most refreshing warm bath.

It was nearly dark when we entered the town, the frontier of the state and the outpost of danger. All were on the tiptoe of expectation for news from Guatimala. Riding through the plaza, we saw a new corps of about two hundred "patriot soldiers," uniformed and equipped, at evening drill, which was a guarantee against the turbulence we had seen in Izalco. Colonel Angoula, the commandant, was the same who had broken up the band of Rascon. Every one we met was astonished at our purpose of going on to Guatimala, and it was vexatious and discouraging to have ominous cautions perpetually dinned into our ears. We rode to the house of the widow Padilla, a friend of Don Saturnino, whom we found in great affliction. Her eldest son, on a visit to Guatimala on business, with a regular passport, had been thrown into prison by Carrera, and had then been a month in confinement; and she had just learned, what had been concealed from her, that the other son, a young man just twenty-one, had joined Morazan's expedition. Our purpose of going to Guatimala opened the fountain of her sorrows. She mourned for her sons, but the case of the younger seemed to give her most distress. She mourned that he had become a soldier; she had seen so much of the horrors of war; and, as if speaking of a truant boy, begged us to urge General Morazan to send him home. She was still in black for their father, who was a personal friend of General Morazan, and had, besides, three daughters, all young women, the eldest not more than twenty-three, married to Colonel Molina,