GUATEMALA TO ESQUIPULAS. 
195 
assume a livelier appearance. Still anxious about our 
mozos, we walked back several miles on our road, though 
the high wind made travelling very disagreeable. At last, 
in the afternoon, Santiago arrived with the mozo we had 
hired in Guatemala; and to our astonishment the latter 
brought with him his wife and little daughter. This was 
more of a caravan than we had bargained for, and I w r as 
puzzled; but the w r oman seemed quiet and inoffensive, 
and the child, who could hardly walk, and was carried 
always on her mother’s back, was a good little thing, — 
indeed, the most reasonable child I ever saw. I acqui¬ 
esced in the arrangement the more readily because I saw 
that the woman was unwilling to have her husband go 
away so far from home that he might not return to her. 
He was a handsome, strong fellow, and proved well 
worth all the woman’s care. 
On Monday we started our mozos and luggage at six in 
the morning, and left our kind host before seven. We 
were almost surrounded by small volcanic cones, but 
Suchitan was the only one we identified. This gave 
little signs of its fiery origin to unpractised eyes, for 
the lower slopes were covered with shrubs, and here 
and there a little house peeped out among the trees, 
while fields extended to the cloudy summit. So severe 
was the wind on the plain at the base of this volcano 
that our animals several times turned from the path to 
seek shelter. Three leagues out we passed Achuapa, and 
five leagues farther Horcones, — both small villages. 
Clematis grew over the bushes and softened the rough 
appearance of the calabash-trees and espina blancas, — 
almost the only vegetation on this dry and unpromising 
upland. We had frequently seen the ocean from our 
