240 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Comfortable Lodgings.— Journey continued.— Stony Road.— Beautiful River.— 

 Suspension Bridge. — The Dolores. — Rio Lagertero. — Enthusiasm brought 

 down.— Another Bridge.— Entry into Mexico.— A Bath.— A Solitary Church. 

 — A Scene of Barrenness. — Zapolouta.— Comitan. — Another Countryman. — 

 More Perplexities. — Official Courtesy. — Trade of Comitan. — Smuggling. — 

 Scarcity of Soap. 



The next morning we found the convent was so com- 

 fortable, we were so abundantly served, the alcalde or 

 his major, staff in hand, being in constant attendance, 

 and the situation so beautiful, that we were in no hur- 

 ry to go; but the alcalde told us that all was ready. 

 We did not see our carriers, and found that he and his 

 major were the mozos whom he had consulted. They 

 could not let slip two dollars apiece, and laying down 

 their staves and dignity, bared their backs, placed the 

 straps across their foreheads, took up the loads, and 

 trotted off. 



We started at five minutes before eight. The weath- 

 er was fine, but hazy. From the village we descended 

 a hill to an extensive stony plain, and at about a league's 

 distance reached the brink of a precipice, from which 

 we looked down into a rich oblong valley, two or three 

 thousand feet deep, shut in all around by a mountain 

 wall, and seeming an immense excavation. Toward 

 the other end of the valley was a village with a ruined 

 church, and the road led up a precipitous ascent to a 

 plain on the same level with that on which we stood, 

 undulating and boundless as the sea. Below us it 

 seemed as if we could drop a stone to the bottom. We 

 descended by one of the steepest and most stony paths 

 we had yet encountered in the country, crossing and 



