NEW DANGERS IN PROSPECT. 131 



my search for a government, as he was on the track 

 with his own credentials. The doctor advised me not 

 to undertake the journey to Palenque. In my race 

 from Nicaragua I had cheered myself with the idea 

 that, on reaching Guatimala, all difficulty was over, 

 and that our journey to Palenque would be attended 

 only by the hardships of travelling in a country desti- 

 tute of accommodations ; but, unfortunately, the hori- 

 zon in that direction was lowering. The whole mass 

 of the Indian population of Los Altos was in a state 

 of excitement, and there were whispers of a general 

 rising and massacre of the whites. General Prem, to 

 whom I have before referred, and his wife, while trav- 

 elling toward Mexico, had been attacked by a band of 

 assassins ; he himself was left on the ground for dead , 

 and his wife murdered, her fingers cut off, and the 

 rings torn from them. Lieutenant Nichols, the aidde- 

 camp of Colonel M'Donald, arrived from the Balize 

 with a report that Captain Caddy and Mr. Walker, who 

 had set out for Palenque by the Balize River, had been 

 speared by the Indians ; and there was a rumour of 

 some dreadful atrocity committed by Carrera in Quez- 

 altenango, and that he was hurrying back from that 

 place infuriate, with the intention of bringing all the 

 prisoners out into the plaza and shooting them. Every 

 friend in Guatimala, and Mr. Chatfield particularly, 

 urged us not to undertake the journey. We felt that 

 it was a most inauspicious moment, and almost shrunk ; 

 I have no hesitation in saying that it was a matter of 

 most serious consideration whether we should not aban- 

 don it altogether and go home ; but we had set out with 

 the purpose of going to Palenque, and could not return 

 without seeing it. 



Among the petty difficulties of fitting ourselves I may 



