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NARRATIVE OF A 



baked. This is an invention purely Indian, and has 

 been adopted by the Spaniards in America. The same 

 process is used for making chocolate ; it has been in prac^ 

 tice since the discovery of the country ; and it seems sin- 

 gular, that after so great a lapse of time, no improvement 

 has yet been made in it. 



The village of St. Pablo had nothing in it remarkable. 

 The inhabitants seemed very poor, and almost destitute 

 of the necessaries of life. They were also much afflicted 

 by goitres, a disease very prevalent in Central America, 

 Some cases of this disease I had noticed in other places 

 in the course of our journey, but now they were be- 

 coming more frequent. I have been assured that there 

 are parts of the country where this disease is so common, 

 that one person out of five is afflicted with it. The 

 causes in which it originates I was never able fully to 

 ascertain, though one of them is said to be the quality of 

 the water. 



As we had brought a supply of provisions from Gua- 

 lan, our repast in this village was easily prepared. After 

 a halt of a couple of hours, and sleeping a short siesta, 

 we took our leave of the alcalde, whose services, on ac- 

 count of his filial piety, were remunerated rather more 

 liberally than they otherwise would have been. A ride 

 of five hours more over a dry and barren country, 

 brought us to the plains of Sacapa, where Nature re- 

 appears in a garb of richest verdure. 



The town of Sacapa is situated on an eminence, near 

 the banks of a respectable stream which traverses the 

 plain. It is rather larger and more populous than Gua- 

 lan, and lies ten leagues distant from that place, on the 

 road to Guatemala, Here, too, we found the people amu- 

 sing themselves, and uniting the pursuit of pleasure with 

 the duties of religion. They were celebrating the cross 

 of May, and had erected in the middle of the plaza a high 

 cross, which was decked with every variety of wild flow- 

 ers that the country and season produced. In front of 



