FROM COBAN TO QUEZALTENANGO. 
131 
so when Frank’s turn came I could see perfectly how 
odd it looked to have a horse collapse under his rider. 
Along the road were elder-trees ( Sambucus ) pollarded like 
our willows; as, however, they were not shady, but in 
the way of fine views, we voted them a nuisance. It was 
down hill all the way, and as we approached Solola the 
view of the Lago de Atitlan and the volcano was dis¬ 
appointing. We had surfeited, perhaps, on the glories of 
landscape, and had expected something finer, with an im¬ 
mense lake, several volcanoes of more than average size, 
and a town whose white houses and red-tiled roofs were 
almost concealed in trees and flowers. However critical 
we might be, we were glad enough to see the town, and 
not less to find a posada, where we had a room to serve 
as store-room and bedchamber. We at once sent back our 
miserable horses ; and after reporting to the comandante, 
as in duty bound, 1 we strolled through the Plaza, send¬ 
ing Santiago in search of bestias for our next stage. 
Here we first found the ripe fruit of the sapote (Lucuma 
mammosa ), and did not like it. The outside was brown, 
rough, and leathery; the meat reddish, surrounding a 
smooth nut, and the whole flavored with cinnamon. Some 
sapotes were as large as a coconut, but generally they 
were not half that size. 2 The Plaza was full of people 
1 It is the duty of every person to whose house strangers come to pass the 
night to report to headquarters the name, where from and whither hound, so 
that we could be tracked all over the republic from the central telegraph office 
in Guatemala City, — often very useful. 
2 There is no little confusion in the nomenclature of the sapotes, or sapodillas. 
What is usually called sapote in Guatemala does not belong to the genus Sapota , 
hut to an allied genus Lucuma , and is known in the West Indies as the mammee- 
apple. The true sapote has several seeds; the mammee only one. An allied 
genus contains the star-apple (Ghry sophy Hum cainito). The sapoton, or big 
sapote, does not even belong to the Sapota family, but is a Pachira, 
