ACROSS THE CONTINENT, WESTWARD TO COBAN. 101 
represented the Queen of Heaven. The decaying church, 
so painfully out of repair by daylight, was covered with 
respectability, even with sanctity, by the shadows of 
night. One cannot but feel with sadness that the offices 
of a religion held so sacred here in centuries gone by 
should be so lightly regarded, and that the church build¬ 
ings reared by so much labor and often unselfish devotion 
should now be cared so little for, even in this State of 
Yerapaz, where the Church gained an ascendency over 
the Indios which the iron-clad and iron-hearted Conquis- 
tadores had never done. 
Monday was spent in photographing views in the neigh¬ 
borhood and hunting for mules. Of these we agreed to 
take three for our use all through the country at a charge 
of $150; but when we unsaddled them at our hotel we 
found they all had sore backs, and accordingly sent them 
home. In the evening I went with the postmaster (a 
Kentuckian) to an examination at the Colegio de Li- 
bertad. Three ladino lads did most of the reciting in 
arithmetic, botany, zoology, and history; and a certain 
doctor took the role of chief examiner, — evidently quite 
as much bent on displaying his own knowledge as that 
of his pupils. I had to ask a few questions, which were 
understood and promptly answered. 
In the morning we visited the Government storehouse 
for aguardiente. The inspector wanted us to taste the 
fire-water, which was so strong that it seemed to blister 
the tongue. The sale of this liquor is a Government 
monopoly, yielding a very considerable revenue. 1 A 
distiller at this place has a license, for which he pays 
four hundred dollars per month; and he must furnish a 
1 In 1882, $1,266,042.43, or about one fifth of the total revenue. 
