CHAPTER III.

A CANONIGO-HOW TO ROAST A FOWL EXTEMPORE SHOEMAKING-MOTAGUA RIVER-BEAUTIFUL SCENE-CROSSING THE RIVER-THE LUXURY OF WATER-PRIMITIVE COSTUMES-HOW TO MAKE TORTILLAS-COSTLY TIMBER-GUALAN-OPPRESSIVE HEAT-SHOCK OF AN EARTHQUAKE-A STROLL THROUGH THE TOWN-A TROUBLESOME MULETEER-A LAWSUIT-IMPORTANT NEGOTIATIONS-A MODERN BONA DEA-HOW TO GAIN A HUSBAND-A KINGDOM

OF FLORA-ZACAPA-MAKING FREE WITH A HOST.

BEFORE daylight I was out of doors. Twenty or thirty men, muleteers and servants, were asleep on the ground, each lying on his back, with his black chamarro wound round him, covering his head and feet. As the day broke they arose. Very soon the Frenchman got up, took chocolate, and, after an hour's preparation, started. The canonigo set off next. He had crossed the mountain twenty years before, on his first arrival in the country, and still retained a full recollection of its horrors. He set off on the back of an Indian, in a silla, or chair with a high back and top to protect him from the sun. Three other Indians followed as relay carriers, and a noble mule for his relief if he should become tired of the chair. The Indian was bent almost double, but the canonigo was in high spirits, smoking his cigar, and waving his hand till he was out of sight. The Pavons started last, and we were left alone.

Still none of our men came. At about eight o'clock two made their appearance; they had slept at a rancho near by, and the others had gone on with the luggage. We were excessively provoked; but, enduring as we might the discomfort of our clothes stiff with mud, saddled and set off.

We saw no more of our caravan of mules, and our muleteer of the barometer had disappeared without notice, and left us in the hands of two understrappers.

Our road lay over a mountainous country, but generally clear of wood; and in about two hours we reached a collection of ranchos, called El Pozo. One of our men rode up to a hut and dismounted, as if he were at home. The woman of the house chided him for not having come the night before, which he gruffly ascribed to us; and it was evident that we stood a chance of losing him too. But we had a subject of more immediate interest in the want of a breakfast. Our tea and coffee, all that we had left after the destruction of our stores by

EXTEMPORE SHOEMAKING.

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gunpowder, were gone forward, and for some time we could get nothing. And here, in the beginning of our journey, we found a scarcity of provant greater than we had ever met with before in any inhabited country. The people lived exclusively upon tortillas-flat cakes made of crushed Indian corn, and baked on a clay griddle-and black beans. Augustin bought some of these last, but they required several hours' soaking before they could be eaten. At length he succeeded in buying a fowl, through which he ran a stick, and smoked it over a fire, without dressing of any kind, and which, with tortillas, made a good meal for a penitentiary system of diet. As we had expected, our principal muleteer was unable to tear himself away; but, like a dutiful husband, he sent, by the only one that was now left, a loving message to his wife at Gualan.

At the moment of starting, our remaining attendant said he could not go until he had made a pair of shoes, and we were obliged to wait; but it did not take long. Standing on an untanned cowhide, he marked the size of his feet with a piece of coal, cut them out with his machete, made proper holes, and, passing a leather string under the instep, around the heel, and between the great toe, and the one next to it, was shod.

Again our road lay on the ridge of a high mountain, with a valley on each side. At a distance were beautiful hillsides, green, and ornamented with pine-trees, and cattle grazing upon them, that reminded us of park scenery in England. Often points presented themselves, which in other countries would have been selected as sites for dwellings, and embellished by art and taste. And it was a land of perpetual summer; the blasts of winter never reach it; but, with all its softness and beauty, it was dreary and desolate.

At two o'clock it began to rain; in an hour it cleared off, and from the high mountain ridge we saw the Motagua River, one of the noblest in Central America, rolling majestically through the valley on our left. Descending by a wild, precipitous path, at four o'clock we reached the bank directly opposite Encuentros. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld: all around were giant mountains, and the river, broad and deep, rolled through them with the force of a mighty

torrent.

On the opposite bank were a few houses, and two or three canoes lay in the water, but not a person was in sight. By loud shouting we brought a man to the bank, who entered one of the canoes and set her adrift; he was immediately carried far down the stream; but, taking advantage of an eddy, he brought her across to the place where we stood. Our luggage, the saddles, bridles, and other trappings of the

mules were put on board, and we embarked. Augustin sat in the stern, holding the halter of one of the mules, and leading her like a decoy duck; but the rest had no disposition to follow. The muleteer drove them in up to their necks, but they ran back to the shore. Several times, by pelting them with sticks and stones, he drove them in as beAt length he stripped himself, and, wading to the depth of his breast, with a stick ten or twelve feet long, succeeded in getting them all afloat, and on a line within the reach of his stick. Any one that turned toward the shore received a blow on the nose, and at length they all set their faces for the opposite bank; their little heads were all that we could see, aimed directly across, but carried down by the curOne was carried below the rest; and, when she saw her companions landing, she raised a frightened cry, and almost drowned herself in struggling to reach them.

rent.

During all this time we sat in the canoe, with the hot sun beating upon our heads. For the last two hours we had suffered excessively from heat; our clothes were saturated with perspiration and stiff with mud, and we looked forward almost with rapture to a bath in the Motagua and a change of linen. We landed, and walked up to the house in which we were to pass the night. It was plastered and whitewashed, and adorned with streaks of red in the shape of festoons; and in front was a fence made of long reeds, six inches in diameter, split into two; altogether the appearance was favourable. To our great vexation, our luggage had gone on to a rancho three leagues beyond. Our muleteers refused to go any farther. We were unpleasantly situated, but we did not care to leave so soon the Motagua river. Our host told us that his house and all that he had were at our disposal; but he could give us nothing to eat; and, telling Augustin to ransack the village, we returned to the river. Everywhere the current was too rapid for a quiet bath. Calling our canoe man, we returned to the opposite side, and in a few minutes were enjoying an ablution, the luxury of which can only be appreciated by those who, like us, had crossed the Mico Mountain without throwing away their clothes.

There was an enjoyment in this bath greater even than that of cooling our heated bodies. It was the moment of a golden sunset. We stood up to our necks in water clear as crystal, and calm as that of some diminutive lake, at the margin of a channel along which the stream was rushing with arrowy speed. On each side were mountains several thousand feet high, with their tops illuminated by the setting sun; on a point above us was a palm-leafed hut, and before it a naked Indian sat looking at us; while flocks of parrots with brilliant plumage, almost in thousands, were flying over our heads, catching up our words, and

filling the air with their noisy mockings. It was one of those beautiful scenes that so rarely occur in human life, almost realizing dreams. Old as we were, we might have become poetic, but that Augustin came down to the opposite bank, and, with a cry that rose above the chattering of parrots and the loud murmur of the river, called us to supper.

We had one moment of agony when we returned to our clothes. They lay extended upon the bank, emblems of men who had seen better days. The setting sun, which shed over all a soft and mellow lustre, laid bare the seams of mud and dirt, and made them hideous. We had but one alternative, and that was to go without them. But, as this seemed to be trenching upon the proprieties of life, we picked them up and put them on reluctant. I am not sure, however, but that we made an unnecessary sacrifice of personal comfort. The proprieties of life are matters of conventional usage. Our host was a don; and when we presented our letter he received us with great dignity in a single garment, loose, white, and very laconic, not quite reaching his knees. The dress of his wife was no less easy; somewhat in the style of the old-fashioned short-gown and petticoat, only the short-gown, and whatever else is usually worn under it, were wanting, and their place supplied by a string of beads, with a large cross at the end. A dozen men and half-grown boys, naked, except the small covering formed by rolling the trowsers up and down in the manner I have mentioned, were lounging about the house; and women and girls in such extremes of undress, that a string of beads seemed quite a covering for modesty.

Mr. C. and I were in a rather awkward predicament for the night. The general reception-room contained three beds, made of strips of cowhide interlaced. The don occupied one; he had not much undressing to do, but what little he had, he did by pulling off his shirt. Another bed was at the foot of my hammock. I was dozing, when I opened my eyes, and saw a girl about seventeen sitting sideways upon it, smoking a cigar. She had a piece of striped cotton cloth tied around her waist, and falling below her knees; the rest of her dress was the same which Nature bestows alike upon the belle of fashionable life and the poorest girl; in other words, it was the same as that of the don's wife, with the exception of the string of beads. At first I thought it was something I had conjured up in a dream; and as I waked up perhaps I raised my head, for she gave a few quick puffs of her cigar, drew a cotton sheet over her head and shoulders, and lay down to sleep. I endeavoured to do the same. I called to mind the proverb, that "travelling makes strange bedfellows." I had slept pellmell with Greeks, Turks, and Arabs. I was beginning a journey in a new country; it was my duty to conform to the customs of the people; to

be prepared for the worst, and submit with resignation to whatever might befall me.

As guests, it was pleasant to feel that the family made no strangers of us. The wife of the don retired with the same ceremonies. Several times during the night we were waked by the clicking of flint and steel, and saw one of our neighbours lighting a cigar. At daylight the wife of the don was enjoying her morning slumber. While I was dressing she bade me good-morning, removed the cotton covering from her shoulders, and arose dressed for the day.

We started early, and for some distance our road lay along the banks of the Motagua, almost as beautiful by morning as by evening light. In an hour we commenced ascending the spur of a mountain; and, reaching the top, followed the ridge. It was high and narrow, commanding on both sides an almost boundless view, and seemed selected for picturesque effect. The scenery was grand, but the land wild and uncultivated, without fences, enclosures, or habitations. A few cattle were wandering wild over the great expanse, but without imparting that domestic aspect which in other countries attends the presence of cattle. We met a few Indians, with their machetes, going to their morning's work, and a man riding a mule, with a woman before him, his arm encircling her waist.

I was riding ahead of my companions, and on the summit of the ridge, a little aside from the road, saw a little white girl, perfectly naked, playing before a rancho. As most of the people we met were Indians or Ladinos, I was attracted by her appearance, and rode up to the rancho. The proprietor, in the easy costume of our host of Encuentros, was swinging in a hammock under the portico, and smoking a cigar. At a little distance was a shed thatched with stalks and leaves of Indian corn, and called the cocina, or kitchen. As usual, while the don was lolling in his hammock, the women were at work.

I rode on to the cocina, and dismounted. The party consisted of the mother and a pretty daughter-in-law of about nineteen, and two daughters of about fifteen and seventeen. The reader is perhaps curious about costumes; but having given him an insight into those of this country, he will not require any farther descriptions. In honour of my visit, the mother snatched up the little girl who had attracted me to the rancho, carried her inside, and slipped over her head a garment which, I believe, is generally worn by little girls; but in a few minutes my young friend disencumbered herself of her finery, and was toddling about with it under her arm.

The whole family was engaged in making tortillas. This is the bread of Central and of all Spanish America, and the only species to be