280 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



to time to enjoy the smiling view around, and realize our 

 escape from the dark mountains behind, we rose upon a 

 slight table of land and saw the village before us, consist- 

 ing of one grass-grown street, unbroken even by a mule- 

 path, with a few straggling white houses on each side, 

 on a slight elevation at the farther end a thatched church, 

 with a rude cross and belfry before it. A boy could roll 

 on the grass from the church door out of the village. In 

 fact, it was the most dead-and-alive place I ever saw ; 

 but, coming from villages thronged with wild Indians, 

 its air of repose was most grateful to us. In the suburbs 

 were scattered Indian huts ; and as we rode into the 

 street, eight or ten white people, men and women, came 

 out, more than we had seen since we left Comitan, and 

 the houses had a comfortable and respectable appear- 

 ance. In one of them lived the alcalde, a white man, 

 about sixty, dressed in white cotton drawers, and shirt 

 outside, respectable in his appearance, with a stoop in 

 his shoulders, but the expression of his face was very 

 doubtful. With what I intended as a most captivating 

 manner, I offered him my passport ; but we had dis- 

 turbed him at his siesta ; he had risen wrong side first ; 

 and, looking me steadily in the face, he asked me what 

 he had to do with my passport. This I could not an- 

 swer ; and he went on to say that he had nothing to do 

 with it, and did not want to have ; we must go to the 

 prefeto. Then he turned round two or three times in a 

 circle, to show he did not care what we thought of him ; 

 and, as if conscious of what was passing in our minds, 

 volunteered to add that complaints had been made 

 against him before, but it was of no use ; they couldn't 

 remove him, and if they did he didn't care. 



This greeting at the end of our severe journey was 

 rather discouraging, but it was important for us not to 



