176 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



a Steel puzzle. There was something intensely inter- 

 esting in the kindness with which the padre played with 

 him, and the earnestness with which he hung around his 

 gigantic master. At times the young man became so 

 excited that it seemed as if he would burst in the effort 

 to give utterance to his thoughts ; but all ended in a 

 feeble sound, which grated upon my nerves, and seem- 

 ed to knit him more closely to the good-hearted padre. 

 The latter was continually changing the puzzle, but the 

 ingenuity of the lad could not be defeated. The poor 

 simpleton meanwhile looked on with admiration. The 

 padre offered him half a dollar if he could open it, and 

 both he and the deaf and dumb lad laughed at the awk- 

 ward attempts of the simpleton. The padre finished 

 with a warm panegyric upon the worth of both, which 

 the deaf and dumb boy seemed to understand and 

 thank him for, but which he that had ears seemed not 

 to hear. 



The padre insisted on my taking his own cartaret, 

 which was unusually neat, and had a moscheto-netting. 

 It was my best bed since I left Colonel McDonald's at 

 Balize. Before I was up he stood over me with a flask 

 of agua ardiente. Soon after came chocolate, with a 

 roll of sweet bread ; and finding that it was impossible 

 to get away that day, I became a willing victim to his 

 hospitality. At nine o'clock we had breakfast ; at 

 twelve, fruit ; at two, dinner ; at five, chocolate and 

 sweet bread ; and at eight, supper, with constant inter- 

 mediate invitations to agua ardiente, which the padre, 

 with his hand on that prominent part of his own body, 

 said was good for the stomach. In everything except 

 good feeling he was the complete antipodes of the cura 

 of Esquipulas. I had had some suspicion that my 

 muleteer was not as unwell as he pretended ; but his 



