68 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



frightening the horses, and we were obliged to be care- 

 ful to keep the horses from falling through. At some 

 distance was a stream of sulphur-water, which we fol- 

 lowed up to a broad basin, made a dam with stones 

 and bushes, and had a most refreshing warm bath. 



It was nearly dark when we entered the town, the 

 frontier of the state and the outpost of danger. All 

 were on the tiptoe of expectation for news from Guati- 

 mala. Riding through the plaza, we saw a new corps 

 of about two hundred " patriot soldiers," uniformed and 

 equipped, at evening drill, which was a guarantee against 

 the turbulence we had seen in Izalco. Colonel Angou- 

 la, the commandant, was the same who had broken up 

 the band of Rascon. Every one we met was astonish- 

 ed at our purpose of going on to Guatimala, and it was 

 vexatious and discouraging to have ominous cautions 

 perpetually dinned into our ears. We rode to the house 

 of the widow Padilla, a friend of Don Saturnino, whom 

 we found in great affliction. Her eldest son, on a visit 

 to Guatimala on business, with a regular passport, had 

 been thrown into prison by Carrera, and had then been 

 a month in confinement ; and she had just learned, what 

 had been concealed from her, that the other son, a young 

 man just twenty-one, had joined Morazan's expedition. 

 Our purpose of going to Guatimala opened the fountain 

 of her sorrows. She mourned for her sons, but the case 

 of the younger seemed to give her most distress. She 

 mourned that he had become a soldier ; she had seen 

 so much of the horrors of war ; and, as if speaking of a 

 truant boy, begged us to urge General Morazan to send 

 him home. She was still in black for their father, who 

 was a personal friend of General Morazan, and had, 

 besides, three daughters, all young women, the eldest 

 not more than twenty- three, married to Colonel Molina, 



