A COMPATRIOT. 



37 



troop of banditti, a robber and assassin ; his follow- 

 ers were called Cachurecos (meaning false coin), and 

 Mr. Montgomery told me that against him an official 

 passport would be no protection whatever. Now he 

 was the head of the party that ruled Guatimala. Se- 

 nor Peiiol gave us a melancholy picture of the state of 

 the country. A battle had just been fought near San 

 Salvador, between General Morazan and Ferrera, in 

 which the former was wounded, but Ferrera was rout- 

 ed, and his troops were cut to pieces, and he feared 

 Morazan was about to march upon Guatimala. He 

 could only give us a passport to Guatimala, which he 

 said would not be respected by General Morazan. 



We felt interested in the position of Senor Penol ; 

 young, but with a face bearing the marks of care and 

 anxiety, a consciousness of the miserable condition of 

 the present, and fearful forebodings for the future. 

 To our great regret, the intelligence we received indu- 

 ced our friend the padre to abandon, for the present, 

 his intention of going to Guatimala. He had heard 

 all the terrible stories of Morazan' s persecution and 

 proscription of the priests, and thought it dangerous to 

 fall into his hands ; and I have reason to believe it 

 was the apprehension of this which ultimately drove 

 him from the country. 



Toward evening I strolled through the town. The 

 population consists of about fifteen hundred Indians, 

 negroes, mulattoes, Mestitzoes, and mixed blood of 

 every degree, with a few Spaniards. Very soon I was 

 accosted by a man who called himself my countryman, 

 a mulatto from Baltimore, and his name was Philip. 

 He had been eight years in the country, and said that 

 he had once thought of returning home as a servant by 

 way of New-Orleans, but he had left home in such a 



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