370 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



ous syllables, betrayed me ; and my old enemy shook 

 me all the way back to the convent, and into bed. Fe- 

 ver followed, and I lay in bed all next day, receiving 

 many visits at the door, and a few inside. One of the 

 latter was from 'Hezoos, who returned stronger than be- 

 fore, and coming to the point, said that he himself was 

 anxious to go with me, but his wife would not consent. 

 I felt that if she had fairly taken the field against me it 

 was all over, but told him that he had made a contract, 

 and was already overpaid ; and sent her a pair of gold 

 earrings to keep her quiet. 



For four days in succession I had a recurrence of chill 

 and fever. Every kindness was shovm me in the con- 

 vent, friends visited me, and Dr. Brayley came over 

 from Cartago to attend me, but withal I was despond- 

 ing. The day fixed for setting out with Alvarado ar- 

 rived. It was impossible to go ; Dr. Brayley advised 

 me that it would be unwise, while any tendency to the 

 disease remained, to undertake it. There were six days 

 of desert travelling to the port of San Juan, without a 

 house on the road, but mountains to cross and rivers to 

 ford. The whole party was to go on foot except myself ; 

 four extra men would be needed to pass my mule over 

 some difficult places, and there was always more or less 

 rain. San Juan was a collection of miserable shanties, 

 and from that place it was necessary to embark in a 

 bungo for ten or fifteen days on an unhealthy river. 

 Besides all this, I had the alternative to return by the 

 Cosmopolita to Zonzonate, or to go to Guatimala by 

 land, a journey of twelve hundred miles, through a coun- 

 try destitute of accommodations for travellers, and dan- 

 gerous from the convulsions of civil war. At night, as 

 I lay alone in the convent, and by the light of a small 



