106 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



The men during the day are generally absent from the 

 villages, employed as labourers on the plantations, on the rail- 

 ways, conveying goods on mules, in country carts drawn by 

 oxen, or staggering under heavy burdens to and from the towns. 

 The goods, contained in a wooden framework covered with 

 netting, are carried upon the back, suspended by a band from 

 the forehead. The wives frequently accompany their lords 

 with a load balanced upon the head, often a child slung in a 

 shawl on the back, and walk barefoot. A great deal of drunken- 

 ness exists, and the loads once got rid of, various intoxicating 

 drinks are indulged in, sadly interfering with the homeward 

 journey. The Indians are very superstitious, of which the 

 following are a few examples : When a child is ill the mother 

 takes a drake, singes its tail feathers, and, muttering certain 

 words, passes it over the patient. A woman feeds a parrot 

 with a few pieces of tortilla, and gives the child the crumbs 

 which fall from the beak, as they will make it talk ! Colic is 

 due to the evil eye ; in order to get rid of the disturbing 

 influence, the woman breaks four duck's eggs into a basin, 

 and, having mixed them with rue, places the whole under 

 the child's bed; if the compound be curdled in the morning 

 the spirit has departed. The Church refreshes its hold on 

 the Indians by means of innumerable " festas " religious 

 holidays ; by terrifying their simple minds with the most 

 ghastly figures representing the Virgin and various saints, 

 placed in every conspicuous place in church ; and further by 

 carrying these same saints in procession through the streets, 

 while tiny cannon are fired and rockets let off. These rockets 

 play a great part in the religion of Guatemala and other countries 

 around ; they are let off on all possible occasions, and as almost 

 every other day is a festa, the amount of powder burnt must 

 be great indeed. As we approached the Indian village of Mixco, 

 on the road from the present capital to Antigua, which, until 

 it had been repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, was the first 

 city in the land, rockets hissed through the air in all direc- 

 tions, the pyrotechnic display being, however, marred by the 

 bright daylight in which it took place. The village, of course, 

 was en fete, the main street thickly covered with pine branches ; 

 triumphal arches of the same were erected, and adorned with 

 coloured tissue paper, while tiny flags hung over every door. 



