148 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



rio's family ; but during the evening I vras attracted 

 by the tone in which the mother spoke of the daughter, 

 and for the first time noticed in the latter an extreme 

 delicacy of figure and a pretty foot, with a neat shoe 

 and clean stocking. She had a shawl drawn over her 

 head, and on speaking to her she removed the shawl, 

 and turned up a pair of the most soft and dovelike eyes 

 that mine ever met. She was the first of our patients 

 in whom I took any interest, and I could not deny my- 

 self the physician's privilege of taking her hand in 

 mine. While she thought we were consulting in re- 

 gard to her malady, we were speaking of her interesting 

 face ; but the interest whiph we took in her was melan- 

 choly and painful, for we felt that she was a delicate 

 flower, born to bloom but for a season, and, even at the 

 moment of unfolding its beauties, doomed to die. 



The reader is aware that our hut had no partition 

 walls. Don Miguel and his wife gave up their bed to 

 two of the women ; she herself slept on a mat on the 

 ground with the other. Mr. C. slept in his hammock, 

 I on my bed of Indian corn, and Don Miguel and the 

 young men under a shed out of doors. 



I passed two or three days more in making the clear- 

 ings and preparations, and then Mr. Catherwood had 

 occupation for at least a month. When we turned off 

 to visit these ruins, we did not expect to find employ- 

 ment for more than two or three days, and I did not 

 consider myself at liberty to remain longer. I appre- 

 hended a desperate chase after a government ; and fear- 

 ing that among these ruins I might wreck my own po- 

 litical fortunes, and bring reproach upon my political 

 friends, I thought it safer to set out in pursuit. A 

 council was called at the base of an idol, at which Mr. 

 C. and I were both present. It was resumed in Don 



