THE REPUBLIC OF GUATEMALA. 285 
proper channel. Is it wonderful that round blocks should 
be found in square holes under such circumstances ; or 
that the political equilibrium, all unstable, should turn to 
this signal disturbance or that, without much reason ? 
There were two parties, around which rallied oppos¬ 
ing elements, — the Conservative, Central, or Servile, as 
it was variously called, and the Federal, Liberal, or 
Democratic. To the former belonged the leading fami¬ 
lies, who possessed certain monopolies and feared to lose 
them; the clergy, who with these few families held 
themselves for an aristocracy; and a few of the lower 
classes, who from personal or religious feelings were 
satisfied with the existing order of things: and all these 
bitterly resisted any innovation, especially any attack 
upon the privileges of the Church. To the Liberals 
flocked all those who did not enjoy monopolies, and who 
could not be worse off under any change ; but there 
came to this standard also men of intellect, who saw 
the dangers which threatened their country, and who 
rejected the superstition into which the local Church had 
fallen, but who in their eagerness to hold up the ex¬ 
ample of the United States of the North to their newly 
emancipated countrymen, forgot the radical difference 
between the Anglo-Saxon and Spanish stock and train¬ 
ing. Then came in the feeling of race-prejudice; and 
when one remembers that three quarters of the popu¬ 
lation was Indian, and that of the other quarter was 
composed the entire ruling class, it will perhaps be a 
matter of surprise that more evil did not come from 
this threatening condition of affairs. If the Indios of 
Guatemala had not been the most peaceable and law- 
abiding of their kind known to history, they might have 
