206 
GUATEMALA. 
ancient kings. I will not tell my readers the exact 
locality, though I fear Don Jose will find no treasures 
greater than the beautiful opals he brought from beyond 
the Merendon Mountains. As we left the Templo I 
bought oranges of a little girl, giving her the price she 
asked, — ten for a cuartillo (three cents); and I almost 
believed in the miracle-working image when the girl 
brought me three more oranges! I ought to have in¬ 
sisted on having twenty for a cuartillo. Very late in 
the afternoon the mozos arrived, having been lost in the 
Cerros, where we strangers had found a plain path with¬ 
out guides. There was not enough daylight left to give 
us a photograph of the image, but we got the white 
Santuario. Even at the present day the annual festival, 
extending from the sixth to the ninth of January, brings 
together many people, — but perhaps quite as much for 
trade as for worship. 
As we rode out of the town in the morning we passed 
men repairing the aqueduct, — which reminds me that 
the water in Esquipulas is very bad. We climbed an 
unbroken hill eighteen hundred feet to an altitude of 
forty-six hundred, glancing back for a last look at the 
great white temple, monarch of the plain. As we crossed 
the divide, we had a fine view of Quezaltepeque, with 
Monte Rico and Suchitan looking in the distance much 
more volcanic than when we passed them on the road. 
Hard as the ascent was, the descent was even worse; 
twenty-one hundred feet of exceedingly bad road delayed 
us greatly, and it was long after noon when we arrived at 
Quezaltepeque. There was not much to see here. In 
the dirty church I noticed a picture of the “ Virgen 
de Lourdes,” and a contribution-box for offerings to that 
