154 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



ersed the ravine and ascended on the other side. Our 

 guide put us into the road that avoided the town, and 

 we set off on a gallop. « 



Don Saturnino possessed the extremes of good tem- 

 per, simplicity, uprightness, intelligence, and perseve- 

 rance. Ever since I fell in with him he had been most 

 useful, but this day he surpassed himself ; and he was 

 so well satisfied with us as to declare that if it were not 

 for his wife in Costa Rica, he would bear us company to 

 Palenque. He had an engagement in Guatimala on a 

 particular day ; every day that he lost with us was so 

 much deducted from his visit to his relatives ; and at 

 his earnest request we had consented to pass a day with 

 them, though a little out of our road. We reached the 

 molina in time to walk over the mill. On the side of the 

 hill above was a large building to receive grain, and be- 

 low it an immense reservoir for water in the dry season, 

 but which did not answer the purpose intended. The 

 mill had seven sets of grindstones, and working night 

 and day, ground from seventy to ninety negases of wheat 

 in the twenty-four hours, each negas being six arobas of 

 twenty-five pounds. The Indians bring the wheat, and 

 each one takes a stone and does his own grinding, pay- 

 ing a rial, twelve and a half cents, per negas for the 

 use of the mill. Flour is worth about from three dol- 

 lars and a half to four dollars the barrel. 



Don Saturnino was one of the best men that ever lived, 

 but in undress there was a lankness about him that was 

 ludicrous. In the evening, as he sat on the bed with his 

 thin arms wound around his thin legs, and we reproved 

 him for his sacrilegious act in cutting open the cotton 

 cloth, his little eyes twinkled, and Mr. C. and I laughed 

 as we had not before laughed in Central America. 



But in that country one extreme followed close upon 



