ROADSIDE SKETCHES IN GUATEMALA 97 



the forest in the immediate vicinity of the town. Little enough 

 did we find, however ; nothing hut a large carved stone figure of 

 a woman with her arms crossed over her breast, lying upon the 

 ground, and surrounded by heaps of paving-stones of the same 

 material grey granite, which had only lately been cut, I very 

 much fear, from others of these interesting and valuable remains. 

 If our surmises be true, the desecration is directly against lately 

 passed and most stringent laws for the preservation of these 

 ancient monuments ; but, to say the least, it seemed suspicious 

 to us. Dusk did not allow us to continue our search for other 

 figures which are said to lie more or less hidden in the dense 

 forest around ; on the previous day we had, however, had the 

 opportunity of admiring a number of gigantic busts cut in 

 granite, at a large sugar estate on which they had been found. 

 The calm repose of their stern features was most impressive, and 

 looking at them thus, one's thoughts wandered to the terrible 

 scenes of human sacrifice of which they no doubt were witnesses, 

 when the high priest, with a face as pitiless and unmoved pro- 

 bably as these cut in stone, slaughtered his victims according to 

 the bloody rites of the Aztec religion. On the way back we 

 bought some green cocoanuts and regaled ourselves with the 

 milk, most refreshing and agreeable to the taste. Our dinner 

 consisted, as all dinners consist in all Guatemalan inns, of a 

 stew with tomatoes, black beans and tortillas, and our room 

 contained, as usual, several bedsteads, with sheets and pillows 

 very doubtful in appearance, and suggestive of very small 

 laundry bills. As we carried our own beds and bedding we 

 were independent of those placed at our disposal, but I must 

 say that those insects, creeping and jumping, so well known in 

 most greatly more civilised countries, were noticeable only by 

 their absence, and this we found, to our delight and surprise, 

 to be the case wherever our zig-zag journeys took us, both in 

 Guatemala and Mexico. But something almost more fatal to 

 sleep disturbed us here, for hardly had we put out the light by 

 throwing something at it, when the most unearthly snoring 

 commenced. I may state, but only as a secret, that when the 

 tortillas at dinner had been especially tough, the slumbers of 

 my companion were not always as noiseless as they may have 

 been during his infancy ; so I at first thought that he was the 

 culprit. But no, he presently began to move and utter some- 



8 



