X 



ROADSIDE SKETCHES IN GUATEMALA 



1884 

 PART I. THE " TIERRA CALIENTB," OR HOT ZONE 



AT daybreak we awoke ; the steamer's screw had stopped, 

 and heavy surf was distinctly heard breaking upon the 

 coast. Thus aroused, we were soon out of our berths to have 

 a first look at St. Jose de Guatemala, our destination. There 

 lay the two grandly beautiful volcanoes ; the double-peaked 

 "Fuego," clearly and distinctly defined against the morning 

 sky, little puffs of smoke rising slowly from its ragged crater ; 

 " Agua," still hiding its lofty summit in a white nightcap of 

 cloud, which vanished only at the bidding of the morning sun. 

 There stood the giant mountains in their majestic beauty and 

 solemn grandeur, worth coming very far to see. The lower 

 mountain ranges were still wrapped in gloom and rising mists, 

 and separated from the surf-beaten shore by a belt of dense 

 tropical forest, at the edge of which, built upon the golden 

 sand, are the few wooden houses occupied by those whose duty 

 keeps them at this undesirable spot. The giant chain of the 

 Cordilleras runs through Guatemala from S.E. to N.W., and 

 from it the country gradually slopes down, on the one side to 

 the Atlantic, on the other to the Pacific Ocean. It may thus 

 be divided into three zones, the hot near the coast, merging 

 into the temperate at an altitude of, say, 1,500 feet, while the 

 cold commences at about 5,000 feet. As we entered the country 

 from the coast, we will begin our wanderings in the first, and 

 then gradually ascend to the top of one of the most beautiful 

 of the many magnificent volcanoes which make this country so 



