210 
GUATEMALA. 
in Guatemala. A visit to a sugar-estate in the valley 
showed us fields of red cane, small, but very sweet. 
There were two small mills, both made in Buffalo, N. Y., 
— one turned by wind, the other by oxen; and the 
product is about nine hundred pounds of brown sugar 
a day. 
At five the next morning we were serenaded by the 
military band of the town, — an honor we had received 
several times before; and the music was very good. 
We left the ancient town of Chiquimula at eight o’clock, 
although our hostess, Senora Anacleta, wished us to stay 
and join an expedition of her friends to Copan to exam¬ 
ine “ las ruinas,” — an excursion w r e longed to make, but 
could not then. 
The road to Zacapa was good, and we saw many 
gigantic cylindrical cacti. These curious trees looked 
pulpy and fragile; but Frank tried a branch with 
his raw-hide lasso, and the horse could not pull it 
off ! We shall never again lasso a prickly cactus. On 
trees by the road (chiefly euphorbiaceous trees) were 
large nests, eighteen to twenty inches long, of some 
mud-wasp. As we approached Zacapa we crossed the 
Hondo by a ford where the water was not two feet 
deep ; but the path was very long and winding, and the 
current rapid. As usual, there was no posada ; but a call 
on the Jefe, Don Brigido Castaneda, resulted in a page 
being sent to conduct us to the decent house of a widow, 
where we found lodging and comida. Our first search 
was for a blacksmith, our animals needing re-shoeing. 
There were three herreras in the town; but one was sick, 
another had no charcoal, while the third had no nails, — 
and there w r as no lending among these sons of Thor. So 
