142 
GUATEMALA. 
space is occupied by a garden surrounded by a wall of 
carved stone and provided with stone seats. A pond in 
the midst has a pavilion, or band-stand, on an island. 
The other half of the Plaza is paved, and used as a 
market-place ; here are the new buildings for the 
Government. 
Near by the hotel I saw a sign, of which I made a 
note, thinking to profit thereby; but Frank saw it more 
clearly than I did, and knocked all the romance out of it. 
To my first glance it read, “ Collection of Young Ladies,” 
COLEGIO N A k E SENORITAS 
but to the critical eye of my fidus Achates it was simply 
a National Seminary of Young Ladies; so we did not 
venture to explore it. 
The church of San Juan de Dios was large, and the 
facade ornate, — worthy the principal church in a city of 
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The old organ, of four 
octaves, had been recently painted; and in the two towers 
hung seven bells, — three bound to the beams with raw¬ 
hide, as usual, the others on yokes. The cloisters adjoin¬ 
ing this church 1 were interesting, from the multitude of 
curious paintings they contained, mostly of Scriptural 
histories; and in them Christ was always represented as 
a shaven monk, with the girdle of the Cordeliers. In the 
old lumber-room of the church were the remains of an 
ancient organ, and heads, bodies, and arms of saints, — 
not relics, but the membra disjecta of the dolls that are 
put together and dressed up on holy-days. We had often 
seen similar places, which Frank called 66 property-rooms; ” 
1 It was here that the Vice-President, Flores, was torn to pieces by women 
in the last days of the Confederacy, when the Church was in power. 
