424 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



nador and challenge him to a trial of strength. The 

 dwarf tried to beg off, but the old woman insisted, and 

 he went. The guard admitted him, and he flung' his 

 challenge at the gobernador. The latter smiled, and 

 told him to lift a stone of three arrobas, or seventy-five 

 pounds, at which the little fellow cried and returned to 

 his mother, who sent him back to say that if the gober- 

 nador lifted it first, he would afterward. The goberna- 

 dor lifted it, and the dwarf immediately did the same. 

 The gobernador then tried him with other feats of 

 strength, and the dwarf regularly did whatever was 

 done by the gobernador. At length, indignant at being 

 matched by a dwarf, the gobernador told him that, un- 

 less he made a house in one night higher than any in 

 the place, he would kill him. The poor dwarf again 

 returned crying to his mother, who bade him not to be 

 disheartened, and the next morning he awoke and found 

 himself in this lofty building. The gobernador, seeing 

 it from the door of his palace, was astonished, and sent 

 for the dwarf, and told him to collect two bundles of 

 cogoiol, a wood of a very hard species, with one of 

 which he, the gobernador, would beat the dwarf over 

 the head, and afterward the dwarf should beat him with 

 the other. The dwarf again returned crying to his 

 mother ; but the latter told him not to be afraid, and 

 put on the crown of his head a tortillita de trigo, a small 

 thin cake of wheat flour. The trial was made in the 

 presence of all the great men in the city. The gober- 

 nador broke the whole of his bundle over the dwarfs 

 head without hurting the little fellow in the least. He 

 then tried to avoid the trial on his own head, but he 

 had given his word in the presence of his officers, and 

 was obliged to submit. The second blow of the dwarf 

 broke his scull in pieces, and all the spectators hailed 



