FROM COBAN TO QUEZALTENANGO. 125 
cabildo was the most important building in the town, as 
the parish church had so decayed that the walls of the 
entire nave had had to be removed. The new construction 
of adobe, with trimmings of stone taken from the ruins, 
will not last many years. The whole town looks dingy, 
and even dirty, owing to the universal use of adobe. The 
roof-tiles are not so well made, nor so carefully kept in place, 
as in some of the smaller towns; but, on the other hand, 
some of the streets are paved, there are some side-walks, 
subterranean street-drains, and street-lamps or candles. 
The Quiche Indios of the present day are not so good- 
looking as the Mayas. The women are badly dressed, 
and not neat; the men wear slashed trousers, loose 
jackets, closed in front and put on like a shirt, and 
in cold weather a narrow blanket, or poncho, with fringed 
ends. Some of these ponchos are figured, and most 
of them have a border, more or less elaborate, woven 
at each end. These Indios are small of stature and light 
limbed, with scanty but common beards, round faces, and 
small hands and feet; they are by no means as modest as 
those of Alta Yerapaz, and evidently unused to seeing 
strange white men. Women carry their babies on the 
back while washing clothes at the fountains or by the 
streams. At home hammocks serve well for cradles. 
Vegetation is not free from pests here, for we saw 
black warts on the oaks, and smut (Ustilago segetum) on 
the corn. The corn-stalks are of the size and appearance 
of our field-corn; but the juice is much sweeter, and 
Frank considered it quite as good as that of the withered 
sugar-cane brought up here from the coast. Everywhere 
marigolds ( calendula ) scent the air, and bunches of them 
are wilting at every altar in every church. 
