The church is large, but of no architectural pretensions; and among its contents we noticed several strange things. A figure of Christ, with glass eyes and long human hair, wore a crown cocked over his left eye like a drunken man. On the wall of the nave was a water-color drawing passably done, representing a young man falling headlong over a precipice, while through a sort of Lutheran window, or peep-hole, in the sky a rather young female is trying to catch him with a long vine. The legend states at length that the youth, in passing along the edge of the terrible precipice above the Lago one dark night (when he had been to his club), mistook the gleam of the water for the path, and forced his horse over. As he fell, he breathed a prayer to the “Mother of God,” and she opened her window and jerked him up again with a grape-vine. In testimony whereof he offers this tablet, etc. Near the main entrance was a large altar-piece, with a deeply sunken cruciform panel containing a very realistic crucifix,—glass eyes, sweat, long hair, and blood-drops, indeed, everything that could make it disgusting to a civilized being; while from the five wounds proceeded skeins of crimson thread,—that from the side being much thicker,—and all these knotted together in a mass, black with the kisses of the worshippers of the blood of Christ. On one side of this panel were painted, life-size, Roman soldiers mocking the suffering Saviour; while on the other was a Guatemaltecan general, in full uniform, weeping at the sad sight, and using such an embroidered handkerchief as the nuns make at the present day. Just behind him was an attendant who had caught off his wig on the point of his lance. This last feature Frank interprets differently, and thinks the bald head is a shining casque, while what I call a wig is a flowing plume. With all due deference to his younger and brighter eyes, I submit that such a helmet was never a part of the Guatemaltecan uniform; and even if made of such close-fitting shape, would not have been painted flesh-color. Unluckily I did not take a photograph, to settle, if possible, this important dispute.

Frank was busily asking every one he met about mules; and we had not found any when, late in the afternoon, he met a gentleman walking alone in the public garden near the Plaza. He asked the oft-repeated question in Spanish, when, to his surprise, the person asked him if he spoke English. This proved to be the Jefe, Don J. M. Galero; and when told who we were and what we wanted, asked us to come to the Jefaturia in the evening. As Señor Galero was high in favor with the Government and beloved by his people, our very agreeable visit was interrupted by a serenade to his Excellency; and after he had promised to send us his own mules that very night for our journey to Totonicapan, we took our leave.

The public garden especially interested me, since all the flowers (except an orange-tree) were such as I might find at home;[20] but times and seasons were sadly mixed. Pinks and gladioli, sunflower and white lily, all blossomed together. The fountain was painted blue and white,—the national colors,—and sadly disfigured the garden, which otherwise was not laid out with any taste.

Our apartment in this only hotel in Sololà was completely fire-proof; walls, roof, and floor were brick or tile, and several of the floor-tiles were deeply impressed with dog-tracks (made, of course, before the kiln),—much resembling the fossil footprints in the red sandstone of the Connecticut valley. A low table, one chair, a hardwood table called a bedstead, furnished this room; and there was one door and a single window,—the latter, with its iron grating, suggesting a prison-cell. It was clean and quiet, and good enough. It does not require long travel in the tropics to teach one that the less unnecessary furniture in a house, the fewer lurking-places for cockroaches, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and other disagreeable tenants; and comparative emptiness decidedly reduces the temperature of a room. During the night my hammock broke down; and the sympathy Frank expressed as he was half-awakened by the noise, would have been very soothing had he not fallen asleep again in the midst of it, leaving me sitting on the floor. He continued his sympathy in the morning, when the dreadful jar was almost forgotten.

Early next morning we were on our way, mounted better than we had been; for we left Frank’s mare with Santiago to rest for a week, and with the Jefe’s mules we rode briskly on to Argueta,—a small hamlet with a deserted convent or monastery, in front of which flowed a clear cool brook, and near by was an ingenio moved by water-power. We got our almuerzo here, early as it was, for we were warned that we should find nothing to eat until night. From Argueta the road was very hilly, and we climbed until my barometer said 10,450 feet. Wheat abounded everywhere, and there were fenced threshing-floors of beaten earth. The mozos we met carried packs of woollen blankets and redes (nets) of pottery; several had pine-boards hewn smooth, three feet wide by eight long. In the trees were flocks of bright-green parrots. So many little streams had to be crossed that we often wondered if they were not, many of them, parts of one rivulet winding in devious way among the foothills. Except in the ravines, where we had to zigzag down and up while the toiling mozos patiently climbed the banks too steep for horses, the road was generally over a good country for road-building. In one place, however, we had to climb a stairway paved with stone set on edge and walled with masonry. In places earthen pots were built into the walls to collect water for the wayfarer, and tiles were used to cap the masonry. This extended more than a mile, and took us up just a thousand feet by the barometer. We could not learn its age nor the builders; but it is old, and some of the mozos attributed it to the Jesuit Fathers. It is much out of repair, and I fancy that most of the travel over it is on foot. The views were fine all the way; but we knew our journey was long, and the daylight all too short to permit us to wait for our mozos to come up with the camera. Indeed, I hardly cared to reduce to black and white the glorious colors the light was painting on every side. The greens of the forest faded into the blues of the sky as in the turquoise, gold and silver glittered from the streams, and the very gray of the rocks seemed to be richer and more varied than usual.

On the hill-sides were ancient potato-fields only cultivated by digging the tubers; and this process has gone on for years,—the Indios digging at the bottom of the slope as potatoes are wanted, leaving enough for seed, and arriving at the top by the time the rains begin. As the small stems were quite dead and dried up, we could not ascertain the species of this aboriginal potato; but it was certainly not the common potato of cultivation (Solanum tuberosum). The Indios declared the potatoes had never been planted, but their ancestors had dug them from the remotest time,—en todo tiempo, señor.

Around us on the mountain-top were spruce-trees of immense size, four feet in diameter, and pines two feet larger; and beneath these giants of the forest flocks of black sheep were feeding, watched by shepherdesses not many shades lighter. As black cloth is much worn by the Indios, they cultivate the black sheep rather than pay the dyer. Cactus on pine-trees, crimson sage, and a minute violet not an inch high, were novelties by the roadside. Not a few of the pine-trees had been hacked with machetes until a considerable niche was formed in the stem; and the pitch dripping into this receptacle was then fired to light a camp. We found no villages on this road, but we were seldom out of sight of some herdsman’s hovel. Late in the afternoon we came to the brow of the cliff that bounds the immense valley of Totonicapan on the east. The sun was low on the horizon before us, but I was absorbed in the beauty of this grand view. On our left a waterfall dashed over the rocks; below us were the white walls of the Indian City we had so greatly wished to see; roads and streams traversed the valley; and the whole surface, as well as the slopes far up the hills, was cut into numerous fields of wheat and maiz of many shades of green and brown. Far in the distance smoke rose over Quezaltenango, and the broad highway between was plainly visible for many miles. My mozo was close at hand, and in ten minutes I had two photographs caught in my box; after which we began the very steep descent.

We found lodging at the Hotel de la Concordia. Our little room contained three board bedsteads and one wash-stand. Usually we had no wash-stand, but either performed our ablutions at the courtyard fountain, or else had our valet Santiago pour water over us from a calabash.

As we had a letter to the Jefe, David Carney, I went at once to present it, in order to get our animals for the next stage as soon as possible. We found his house,—a fine one, the best in the town, with beautiful roses in the neat courtyard; but the Jefe himself was a dumpy little Indio, stupid and fat, who could say little else than “Si, Señor.” After some delay he promised us two mules in the morning. In his parlor I noticed a fine piano, evidently in use; and there was a decided air of comfort about the house,—probably due to the lady rather than the lord.

That night was very cold, and in the morning at seven o’clock the thermometer told forty-five degrees, and the barometer stood at 8,860 feet. As usual, we went to church; this was the largest and cleanest we had yet seen, but the images, including an Indio-colored Christ, were perhaps more hideous than ever. The church has now the old Plaza (north of the new one) all to itself, and in addition a very large paved courtyard, with square chapels in the outer corners. In this courtyard we found a troop of Indian women conducting some mummery which required veils and candles, both of great size. Some of the poor women were so tipsy that they could hardly care for their candles, which were perilously near to setting their neighbors’ clothes on fire. After various marches and counter-marches, songs and responses, the performance ended in a loud explosion. Of all the Indian towns, Totonicapan is supposed to be the most Indian, and the people are thorough idolaters still, with hardly the dimmest idea of the Christian religion. They moreover dislike foreigners, as we found to our cost. The fountain and sun-dial in the old Plaza were both much out of repair, and in the Plaza Nueva the fountain supported a traditional Indian fresh from the shield of Massachusetts. Made originally, as other men are, without clothes, he had been girt with stucco,—doubtless because of the cool weather and his damp station.

Generally the streets were paved, and drained in the middle. They intersected at right angles; and as the houses had few outside windows and the courtyard gates were almost always closed, the town had a very dull, deserted look. We did peep into some doors and windows, in a way I should hardly tolerate in any other barbarian; and by one of these window-peeps we discovered a weaver at work, who invited us to enter. The loom had two harnesses worked by the foot of the weaver, and twelve more pulled by a boy at the side; the bobbins were wound on bits of small bambu. It was a long way back in the series of the evolution of a modern carpet-loom, and yet it did its work exceedingly well, if slowly. This art of weaving has been practised in this city from most ancient times, and the Indios declare that the same utensils have been used, without essential modification. All the looms we saw were on one pattern, and they could hardly have been simpler. I bought for four dollars a large woollen bed-cover woven in elaborate design, which kept us warm while we were in these highlands.

We called on the Jefe again as he was marrying several couples, and he repeated his promise to procure mules for us before one o’clock; so we left him for a while and strolled about town and found a potter at work. He used both white and dark clay, and his wheel and kiln were similar to those in use with us. At two the mules had not arrived, and we declared the Jefe a liar. Frank must have called on him twenty times, besides the visits of ceremony we made together three times a day. After a while two alcaldes came to our room and begged us to go to the cabildo and inspect the mules they had captured for us. Another failure; for there was not one fit to carry our burden. Then they brought two to the hotel,—one a pack-mule that refused to be saddled; then a mozo came quite drunk, and wanted a dollar to carry our baggage to Quezaltenango. We told him to go to the diablo, and he went; and so the day wore away.

On Sunday morning we went to the Plaza, captured a mozo without the intervention of the authorities, and started on foot for Quezaltenango. The weather was clear and cool, like a fine October day in New England; and there was white frost on the lowlands. At first we dropped rapidly down, and then came to a fine carriage-road, in some places a hundred feet wide. Except the steep descent at the city limits, and an equally steep ascent about half a league beyond, the road was level, and bordered with agaves, some now in bud.

Just before we came to Salcaja we had a fine view of the plain where Alvarado fought so desperately, was wounded, and finally conquered the brave mountaineers. Though conquered then, they certainly need another Alvarado now. A pale mist covered the distant city, but above it towered the volcano Santa Maria,—a cone as regular as those of Sololà. Northward we saw San Cristobal and San Francisco,—two pleasantly situated towns. We crossed a river which flows into the Pacific at San Luis; so the backbone of the continent was passed, and we were on the slopes of the setting sun. We ordered our almuerzo in a little shop, and as we waited for it we watched the customers,—among them mozos, mostly for aguardiente, women for eggs, spices, chillis, and cord. Beggars came also, and among them an idiot girl (the only one of this class we had seen in the republic); one received a drink, another a handful of red peppers, and others food.

Before one o’clock we were in Quezaltenango, having walked six leagues in four hours and a half, excluding stops. The Hotel de Europe proved very comfortable, and the table was good. The Cerro Quemado (Burned Mountain), just overhanging the city, was a more attractive volcano than the loftier Santa Maria; and I longed for time to climb to the broken crater from whose blackened sides the huge lava-stream had descended towards the city (the ancient Exancul), turned suddenly when almost upon the outer walls, and then stopped forever.

The market-place was very attractive; for besides the bustle of the builders, who were piling up the cut and sculptured stone of the most imposing public edifice I have seen in Guatemala, the many cloth-merchants exhibited their brilliantly colored merchandise to great advantage. This is the centre of the trade in native cloths; and many beautiful and durable fabrics are woven here and in the neighborhood from cotton and wool. The stone generally used in building comes from the volcanoes back of the town, and is a light-brown lava. The Plaza is double,—one half bounded by the church of San Juan de Dios, the stone penitentiary, and shops; and its 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. DE SEÑORITAS

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 church[21] 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;” 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.

We went to the National Institute and saw very good dormitories for the young men who study here. In 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,—in 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 door-jambs 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 Cienega 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, oleander, daisy, wall-flower, pink-catchfly, bachelor’s-buttons, flax, and Canterbury-bells.

A city of nearly twenty-five thousand inhabitants—the 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 resident curate, Padre Felipe Sora, who lowered curtains, opened doors, and did all he could to help us. When we took the exterior we attracted a great deal of attention; and fortunately the chief alcalde, who had assured us that we could get no mozos that day, as it was a fiesta, in honor of the President, noticed our performances, and, being a personable man, was seized with a strong desire to have his ritrato. He offered to get us our mozo if I would only photograph him; so I bade him to the hotel, explaining to him that the portraits could not be seen until I returned to the North, and that I should charge him a dollar for each picture. Honest soul! he agreed to all this; and on his way he joined to himself three of his colleagues. I sent them the result months after, and in due time the silver dollars were scrupulously returned. In the mean time our alcalde Florencio Cortez provided our mozo, and we started to walk back soon after two o’clock. We both hoped to see this pleasant city again.