Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/392

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372
OFFICIAL VISIT
[CH. XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVII.


Leave Zacapa for Gualañ, and thence for Encuentros.


At four leagues from Zacapa, we stopped to sleep at a miserable little village called San Pablo, consisting of 300 Indians, living in cane huts: the inhabitants are particularly stupid, ill formed, and very diminutive. I went into some of these hovels, and sat down to chat with the inmates, but could make nothing out of them: they knew little of the capital of Guatemala, and had never heard of their present rulers: they knew how to make tortillas, cakes of Indian corn, and drink aguadiente; not that the habit of drunkenness was common amongst them, but that in the preparation of these two necessaries seemed to consist all their enjoyment of life. The accommodation which we re-