THE LAKE OF ATITAN. 



159 



Riding through a thick forest of fruit and flower trees, 

 we entered the village, and at three o'clock rode up to 

 the convent. The padre was a young man, cura of four 

 or five villages, rich, formal, and polite ; but all over 

 the world women are better than men ; his mother 

 and sister received us cordially. They were in great 

 distress on account of the outrage at Quezaltenango. 

 Carrera's troops had passed through on their return 

 to Guatimala, and they feared that the same bloody 

 scenes were to be enacted all through the country. 

 Part of his outrages were against the person of a cura, 

 and this seemed to break the only chain that was sup- 

 posed % to keep him in subjection. Unfortunately, we 

 learned that there was little or no communication with 

 Santiago Atitan, and no canoe on this side of the lake. 

 Our only chance of seeing Don Saturnino again was 

 that he would learn this fact at Atitan, and if there was 

 a canoe there, send it for us. After dinner, with a ser- 

 vant of the house as guide, we walked down to the 

 lake. The path lay through a tropical garden. The 

 climate was entirely different from the table-land above, 

 and productions which would not grow there flourished 

 here. Sapotes, hocotes, aguacates, manzones, pineap- 

 ples, oranges, and lemons, the best fruits of Central 

 America, grew in profusion, and aloes grew thirty to 

 thirty-five feet high, and twelve or fourteen inches thick, 

 cultivated in rows, to be used for thatching miserable 

 Indian huts. We came down to the lake at some hot 

 springs, so near the edge that the waves ran over the 

 spring, the former being very hot, and the latter very 

 cold. 



According to Huarros, " the Lake of Atitan is one of 

 the most remarkable in the kingdom. It is about twen- 

 ty-four miles from east to west, and ten from north to 



