FROM COBAN TO QUEZALTENANGO. 
109 
Chixoy valley, — here of great depth, but narrow and 
winding. We found a picturesque little house, where we 
slung our hammocks in the best room, eating our huevos 
and tortillas on a shrine sacred to the black “ Lord of 
Esquipulas.” This shrine is usual in houses far from 
any church ; and here it was embowered in leaves, flow¬ 
ers, and fruit, — among the latter citrons of a large size 
and the showy yellow fruit of a solanum. We were 
nearly four thousand feet above the sea, and the night 
was cool, — a comfortable ending to a day altogether too 
short to hold properly all the fine weather, beautiful and 
changing scenery, and delightful journeying crowded into 
its twelve bright hours. 
Before the sun had melted the clouds in the valley 
below us, we were on our horses and slowly climbing a 
steep ascent of eight hundred feet. I had photographed 
the house, and, turning the camera on its pivot, obtained 
a view of the cloudy valley below : these views are be¬ 
fore the reader now. A league brought us to another 
Santa Cruz, — a village pleasantly situated, and about 
the size of Chicaman, consisting of perhaps ten houses. 
There we saw by the roadside some fine oranges ; but 
when Frank rode up to the house with his “j Buenos 
dias, senora! ^ Tiene usted naranjas?” he was met by 
No hay” (there are none). That phrase we heard 
altogether too frequently on our journey. In this case it 
simply meant that the senora had no oranges in the house; 
but she added that we might for a medio pick as many as 
we wanted ! We tried the several trees, and filled a pillow¬ 
case with the fine fruit, — half a bushel for five cents ! 
We had little need of guides, for the camino real had 
few branches between towns ; but soon after leaving Santa 
