A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY. 



143 



broken by the track of the direct road from Guatimala, 

 and afar off the spires of the town of Chimaltenango. 

 At the foot of the mountain we reached the village of 

 Paramos. We had been three hours and a half making 

 six miles. Don Pepe summoned the alcalde, showed 

 him Carrera's passport, and demanded a guide to the 

 next village. The alcalde called his alguazils, and 

 in a very few minutes a guide was ready. Don Pepe 

 told us that he left us in Europa, and with many 

 thanks we bade him farewell. 



We were now entering upon a region of country which, 

 at the time of the conquest, was the most populous, the 

 most civilized, and best cultivated in Guatimala. The 

 people who occupied it were the descendants of those 

 found there by Alvarado, and perhaps four fifths were In- 

 dians of untainted blood. For three centuries they had 

 submitted quietly to the dominion of the whites, but the 

 rising of Carrera h^d waked them up to a recollection of 

 their fathers, and it was rumoured that their eyes rolled 

 strangely upon the white men as the enemies of their 

 race. For the first time we saw fields of wheat and 

 peach-trees. The country was poetically called Euro- 

 pa ; and though the Volcano de Agua still reared in full 

 sight its stupendous head, it resembled the finest part of 

 England on a magnificent scale. 



But it was not like travelling in England. The 

 young man with whose throat Mr. Catherwood had 

 been so familiar loitered behind with the sick mule and 

 a gun. He had started from Ciudad Vieja with a 

 drawn knife in his hand, the blade about a foot and a 

 half long, and we made up our minds to get rid of him ; 

 but we feared that he had anticipated us, and had gone 

 off with the mule and gun. We waited till he came up, 

 relieved him from the gun, and made him go forward, 



