PALLS OF SAN PEDRO. 



291 



journey. Toward sundown I met drunken Indians 

 coming out from Escuintla, and, looking back over the 

 great plain, saw the sun fast sinking into the Pacific. 

 Some time after dark I rode up to the house of the cor- 

 xegidor, having performed in the two days a hundred 

 and ten miles. Unfortunately, there was no sacate for 

 my mule. This article is brought into the towns by 

 the Indians daily, and every person buys just enough 

 for the night, and no more. There was not a spare 

 lock of grass in the place. With a servant of the cor- 

 regidor's I made an exploring expedition through the 

 town, and by an affecting appeal to an old woman, en- 

 forced by treble price, bought from under their very 

 noses the portion of two mules, and left them supperless. 



I waited till two o'clock the next day for Romaldi 

 and the mule, and, after a vain endeavour to procure a 

 guide to the falls of San Pedro Martyr, set out alone 

 direct for Guatimala. At the distance of two leagues, 

 ascending a steep hill, I passed a trapiche or sugar- 

 mill, in a magnificent situation, commanding a full 

 view of the plain I had crossed and the ocean beyond. 

 Two oxen were grinding sugarcane, and under a shed 

 was a large boiling caldron for making panela, a brown 

 sugar, in lumps of about two pounds each, an enor- 

 mous quantity of which is consumed in the country. 

 Here the humour seized me to make some inquiries 

 about the falls of San Pedro Martyr. A man out at el- 

 bows, and every other mentionable and unmentionable 

 part of his body, glad to get rid of regular work, offered 

 to conduct me. I had passed, a league back, the place 

 where I ought to have turned off ; and proceeding on- 

 ward to the village of San Pedro, he turned off to the 

 right, and went back almost in the same direction by a 

 narrow path descending through thick woods choked 



