A RIDE FROM THE PACIFIC TO MEXICO CITY 123 



of their own kind lately killed, which was hanging in festoons 

 from the rafters all round us. Soon after three next morning 

 we left our airy beds, and persuaded the landlady, who appeared 

 with but a petticoat, the waist part round her neck, to boil us 

 some coffee. Thus regaled, we loaded the pack animals, bade 

 adieu to our " fair " hostess, and rode for seven hours over a 

 very bad road, up-hill, down-hill, crossing ridge after ridge. 

 The trees and shrubs were all leafless, the mountains bare and 

 yellow, long years ago deprived of the luxuriant timber which 

 once had clothed their nakedness. In the narrow valleys the 

 brushwood was still green, beautiful humming-birds hovered 

 near the bright flowers searching for insects hidden in their 

 honeyed depths ; the blue jays were calling among the trees, 

 noisily following us on the march, and a flock of parrokeets 

 rushed screeching across the valley. We passed a few small 

 villages, where the men lay lazily swinging in hammocks, and 

 naked children played about with pigs, dogs, and numberless 

 fowls. We passed a caravan loaded with fresh cocoanuts, 

 but there was but little life about the country it seemed very 

 bare, dried up, and unproductive very different, indeed, from 

 the well- watered, rich Guatemala, where everything is green, 

 where the soil grows anything abundantly. At noon we arrived 

 at Los Arroyos (I will append a table of distances, &c.), and 

 were soon resting in our hammocks while the horses were fed 

 and our own meal was preparing. In the afternoon we covered 

 three hours more of road as far as Los Altos, where we 

 stayed until 4 a.m. There was nothing to be got here but 

 eggs and tortillas, which, with the addition of stewed beans 

 and an occasional feast on dried, leathery beef, formed the 

 never- changing menu of our two daily repasts. No wonder, 

 then, that we hated the very sight of all these things at the 

 end of our journey. 



We soon got used to our hammocks. Always very tired, we 

 minded not at what angle our wearied bodies lay; we slept 

 soundly, in spite of draughts, pigs, fowls, tough tortillas, and 

 tougher beef. Our ablutions were generally performed at some 

 roadside stream, water being scarce at the halting-places and 

 all our time taken up by eating and sleeping. 



The travelling was very bad indeed during the entire journey ; 

 very rarely were we able to trot even for a short distance. The 



