Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/176

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156
OFFICIAL VISIT
[CH. XI.

the reflection that the journey down it was practicable, because it had often been made. As we descended, we came closer and closer to the object we were pursuing, and, different from most other objects of human pursuit, we found, that, when attained, the more interesting it proved. At the bottom of the hill, is a kind of waiting house or house of call for those who are going up, or coming down, this appalling precipice. Those who are going up do right to recruit themselves with something to enable them to undertake the difficulties of it, and those who have undergone the perils of the descent deserve some recompense for their trouble.

We entered the village about six o'clock in the evening, and took possession of a house which had been left, I cannot say, prepared, for our reception. It consisted, of course, but of two rooms; one of which was about twenty feet long, nearly three fourths of the length of the building, and the other, running in a right angle at