A CHANGE OF CHARACTER. 127 



made the women whisper " muy valiente," and whose 

 answer to all intimations of danger was, that a man can 

 only die once. To be sure, the soldiers in the corridor 

 seemed to intimate that they had found him out ; the 

 gentlemen in the room surveyed him from head to foot, 

 as if taking notes for an advertisement of his person, 

 and their looks appeared to say they would know him 

 when they met him again. On horseback and with a 

 fair field, the captain would have defied the whole no- 

 blesse of Guatimala ; but he was completely cowed, 

 spoke only when he was spoken to, and walked out 

 with less effrontery than I supposed possible. 



And now I would fain let the reader sit down and 

 enjoy himself quietly in Guatimala, but I cannot. The 

 place did not admit of it. I could not conceal from 

 myself that the Federal Government was broken up ; 

 there was not the least prospect of its ever being re- 

 stored, nor, for a long time to come, of any other being 

 organized in its stead. Under these circumstances I 

 did not consider myself justified in remaining any longer 

 in the country. I was perfectly useless for all the pur- 

 poses of my mission, and made a formal return to the 

 authorities of Washington, in effect, " after diligent 

 search, no government found." 



I was once more my own master, at liberty to go 

 where I pleased, at my own expense, and immediately 

 we commenced making arrangements for our journey 

 to Palenque. We had no time to lose ; it was a thou- 

 sand miles distant, and the rainy season was approach- 

 ing, during which part of the road was impassable. 

 There was no one in the city who had ever made the 

 journey. The archbishop, on his exit from Guatimala 

 eight years before, had fled by that road, and since his 

 time it had not been travelled by any resident of Gua- 



