eighty men, and we sat down with him under the corridor of the quartel. He was several years younger than Figoroa, more intelligent, and seemed very amiable except on political matters, and there he was savage against the Morazan party. He was gentlemanly in his manners, but his coat was out at the elbows, and his pantaloons were torn. He said he had a new frockcoat, for which he had paid sixteen dollars, but which did not fit him, and he wished to sell it. I afterward spoke of him to one of Morazan's officers, whom I would believe implicitly except in regard to political opponents, who told me that this same secretary stole a pair of pantaloons from him, and he had no doubt the coat was stolen from somebody else.

There was no order or discipline among the men; the soldiers lay about the quartel, joined in the conversation, or strolled through the town, as they pleased. The inhabitants had fortunately carried away everything portable; two or three times a foraging party returned with a horse or mule, and once they were all roused by an alarm that Angoula was returning upon the town in another direction. Immediately all snatch

ed up their arms, and at least one half, without a moment's warning, took to their heels. We had a fair chance of having the town again upon our hands, but the alarm proved groundless. We could not, however, but feel uncomfortable at the facility with which our friends abandoned us, and the risk we ran of being identified with them. There were three brothers, the only lancers who did not go out with Figoroa, white men, young and athletic, the best dressed and best armed in the company; swaggering in their manner, and disposed to cultivate an acquaintance with us; they VOL. II.-L

told us that they purposed going to Guatimala; but I shrank from them instinctively, eluded their questions as to when we intended to set out, and I afterward heard that they were natives of the town, and had been compelled to leave it on account of their notorious characters as assassins. One of them, as we thought, in a mere spirit of bravado, provoked a quarrel with the aiddecamp, strutted before the quartel, and in the hearing of all said that they were under no man's orders; they only joined General Figoroa to please themselves, and would do as they thought proper. In the mean time, a few of the townsmen who had nothing to lose, among them an alguazil, finding there was no massacring, had returned or emerged from their hiding-places, and we procured a guide to be ready the moment General Figoroa should return, went back to the house, and to our surprise found the widow Padilla there. She had been secreted somewhere in the neighbourhood, and had heard, by means of an old womanservant, of the general's breakfasting with us, and our intimacy with him. We inquired for her daughters' safety, but not where they were, for we had already found that we could answer inquiries better when we knew nothing.

We waited till four o'clock, and hearing nothing of General Figoroa, made up our minds that we should not get off till evening. We therefore strolled up to the extreme end of the street, where Figoroa had entered, and where stood the ruins of an old church. We sat on the foundation walls and looked through the long and desolate street to the plaza, where were a few stacks of muskets and some soldiers. All around were mountains, and among them rose the beautiful and verdant Volcano of Chingo. While sitting there two

women ran past, and telling us that the soldiers were returning in that direction, hid themselves among the ruins. We turned down a road and were intercepted on a little eminence, where we were obliged to stop and look down upon them as they passed. We saw that they were irritated by an unsuccessful day's work, and that they had found agua ardiente, for many of them were drunk. A drummer on horseback, and so tipsy that he could hardly sit, stopped the line to glorify General Carrera. Very soon they commenced the old touchstone," Viva Carrera !" and one fellow, with the strap of his knapsack across his naked shoulders, again stopped the whole line, and turning round with a ferocious expression, said, “You are counting us, are you?"

We disappeared, and by another street got back to the house. We waited a moment, and, determined to get out of the town and sleep at the first hacienda on the road, left the house to go again to General Figoroa for his despatches; but before reaching it we saw new confusion in the plaza, a general remounting and rushing to arms. As soon as General Figoroa saw us, he spurred his horse down the street to meet us, and told us, in great haste, that General Morazan was approaching and almost upon the town. He had that moment received the news, and was going out to attack him. He had no time to sign the despatches, and while he was speaking the lancers galloped past. He shook hands, bade us good-by, hasta luego (until presently), asked us to call upon Carrera in case we did not see him again, and dashing down the line, put himself at the head of the lancers. The foot-soldiers followed in single file on a run, carrying their arms as was most convenient. In the hurry and excitement we forgot ourselves till we heard some flattering epithets,

and saw two fellows shaking their muskets at us with the expression of fiends; but, hurried on by those behind, they cried out ferociously, "Estos picaros otro vez," "Those rascals again." The last of the line had hardly disappeared before we heard a volley of musketry, and in a moment fifty or sixty men left in the plaza snatched up their arms and ran down a street opening from the plaza. Very soon a horse without a rider came clattering down the street at full speed; three others followed, and in five minutes we saw thirty or forty horsemen, with our friend Figoroa at their head, dash across the street, all running for their lives; but in a few moments they rallied and returned. We walked toward the church, to ascend the steeple, when a sharp volley of musketry rolled up the street on that side, and before we got back into the house there was firing along the whole length of the street. We knew that a chance shot might kill a non-combatant, and secured the doors and windows; but finally, as the firing was sharp, and the balls went beyond us and struck the houses on the opposite side, with an old servantwoman (what had become of the widow I do not know), we retired into a small room on the courtyard, with delightful walls, and a door three inches thick and bulletproof, shutting which, and in utter darkness, we listened valiantly. Here we considered ourselves out of harm's way, but we had serious apprehensions for the result. The spirit on both sides was to kill; giving quarter was not thought of. Morazan's party was probably small, but they would not be taken without a desperate fight; and from the sharpness of the firing and the time occupied, there was probably a sanguinary affair. Our quondam friends, roused by bloodshed, wounds, and loss of companions, without any one to control them,

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would be very likely to connect "those rascals" with the arrival of Morazan. I will not say that we wished they might all be killed, but we did wish that their bad blood might be let out, and that was almost the same thing. In fact, I did most earnestly hope never to see their faces again. I preferred being taken by any roving band in the country rather than by them, and never felt more relieved than when we heard the sound of a bugle. It was the Morazan blast of victory; and, though sounding fiercely the well-known notes of "degollar, degollar," "cutthroat, cutthroat," it was music to our ears. Very soon we heard the tramp of cavalry, and leaving our hiding-place, returned to the sala, and heard a cry of "Viva la Federacion !" This was a cheering sound. It was now dark. We opened the door an inch or two, but a lancer riding by struck it open with his lance, and asked for water. We gave him a large calabash, which another took from his hands. We threw open the door, and kept two large calabashes on the sill; and the soldiers, as they passed, took a hasty draught. Asking a question of each, we learned that it was General Morazan himself, with the survivers of his expedition against Guatimala. Our house was well known; many of the officers inquired for the family, and an aiddecamp gave notice to the servant-woman that Morazan himself intended stopping there. The soldiers marched into the plaza, stacked their arms, and shouted "Viva Morazan." In the morning the shout was "Viva Carrera!" "Viva Carrera!" ́ None cried

"Viva la Patria !"

There was no end to our troubles. In the morning we surrendered to one party, and in the evening were captured out of their hands by another; probably be. fore daylight Carrera would be upon us. There was