GUATEMALA CITY. 
179 
carved with cherubim in low relief. Within the dark 
church all was still and deserted; only the graves be¬ 
neath the pavement of tombstones were tenanted. A 
curtain hung before the image at the altar, and a care¬ 
fully written notice requested the visitor not to uncover 
the Virgin without permission of the sacristan. In the 
bell-tower hung a bell with the date 1748, — twenty-eight 
Church of the Carmen. 
years before the city was built within its sound, when the 
heavy, awkward burden must have been brought with so 
much difficulty into this lonely valley. Two others, with 
the painfully modern date of 1872, hung by its side. 
We wasted the whole morning in a futile attempt to 
call on the President. His house was a large one-story 
building at the corner of the Plaza, not distinguishable 
from its surroundings except by the guard of soldiers at 
