158 
GUATEMALA. 
be found in a posada. While our bestias were feeding we 
went to the church, which had a curious campanile deco¬ 
rated (?) with sculptured angels at the angles. Inside, 
there was a wedding, — the couple kneeling within the 
chancel-rail under one red shawl. The officiating priest 
seemed to be an Irishman. As we rode out of town we 
passed a public fountain, to which excellent water is 
brought from a distance of several miles by a very 
ancient aqueduct. The fountain was of the usual form, 
— a column more or less ornamented rising in the midst 
of a circular or polygonal basin, which catches the water 
falling from one or more spouts near the top of the 
column. From this common basin horses drink and 
women dip water, the spouts being quite out of reach. 
The Indios place their water-jars on the edge of the large 
basin and conduct the water by a bambu pole just long 
enough to reach from the spout to the jar. 
At eleven o’clock we reached Patzicia, but did not stop 
even to examine the ruined church. The evening before 
we had noticed a long cliff some ten feet high, — evidently 
caused by a comparatively recent subsidence; and here 
we saw other evidences of earthquakes in remote ages 
before the present town was built. On the trees by the 
road was a beautiful yellow bignonia, and in the yards we 
saw fine double pink and white dahlias growing as trees, — 
fifteen feet high, and with stems eight inches in diameter. 
Chimaltenango, the head of this Department, did not 
interest us, and we did not linger. 
The road was level, but winding and dusty. We were 
approaching the volcanoes Agua and Fuego, which kept 
changing their relative position in a very puzzling manner. 
Several small hamlets — San Lorenzo, San Luis, Pastores, 
