102 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



whose verandah, however, he was never destined to adorn, for 

 according to the Indian by whom he was carried, the bird died 

 on the road. No doubt he did, for all that remained of the 

 unfortunate macaw on his arrival at his destination were a few 

 cooked pieces in the Indian's stewpot ; but I fear that a foul 

 murder, suggested probably by hunger, will for ever rest upon 

 that Indian's soul. 



PART II. THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 



The "tierra templada " may be said to lie at an altitude 

 of between 1,500 and 5,000 feet on the Pacific slope of the 

 Guatemalan Cordilleras. Its climate is delightful, its scenery 

 beautiful, thanks to the deep green clothing everywhere the 

 picturesque mountains and hills of which it is composed, which 

 gradually rise higher and higher towards the grand central 

 chain of the Sierras, in its turn overlooked by the still loftier 

 volcanoes. These, although they have not lately destroyed 

 either life or property, show by the smoke which here and 

 there issues from some giant peak, and by the shocks of earth- 

 quake which now and then rattle doors and windows, that they 

 do not sleep, but only slumber, and that the hidden power 

 which has of late been satisfied with uncanny noises and 

 mysterious tremblings of the soil and of all that thereon is, 

 may yet once more break forth in all its fury, and enact over 

 again those terrible scenes among which the old capital was 

 laid in ruins. Hence are all the towns composed of one-storied 

 houses, the rooms generally opening on to a verandah running 

 round an inner court open to the sky. Owing to the present 

 apparent security, houses of two stories have now been and 

 are being built here and there in the larger towns, but these 

 are few and far between ; only the churches, with walls generally 

 rent and cracked, rise above the sea of low flat roofs. This, 

 and the regularity with which the streets are laid out in square 

 blocks, form a very noticeable feature of a Guatemalan town. 

 The present capital lies in an extensive valley at an altitude 

 of about 5,000 feet. Mountains are all around ; in a westerly 

 direction stand the volcanoes of Pacaya, Agua, and Fuego, 

 the first two dormant, the other active, raising their mighty 



