and finally ran him out of the plaza. We then tried the "estancos," where native garments are almost always to be found left as pledges in payment for liquor, which the estanquero can sell if not redeemed within a stated time; but here again we failed, as the municipality of Sololá had very properly put a stop to this miserable practice and forbidden the estanqueros to receive pledges of any kind.
The "patron" of the posada had become interested in our search, and did his best to induce an Indian girl who was sitting in his patio to sell us the beautifully embroidered huipil which she was wearing; but she stoutly refused the money he offered her, and was evidently so unwilling to part with her garment that we told him not to trouble her further. However, his blood was up for a bargain, he evidently despised our scruples, and paying no attention to them went on pestering the girl until she held her head down and blushingly owned that the garment she was wearing was the only one she possessed.
In the afternoon we rode on over the hills to the northward until we reached Los Encuentros, a station on the diligence-road between the cities of Guatemala and Quezaltenango. This road here runs at an altitude of 10,000 feet above the sea along the ridge of the range of hills which divides the plains of Chimaltenango and Patzum from the valley of the Motagua River. Here we halted for the night at the rest-house and in company with five other hungry travellers sat down to a meagre supper. I forget what the first course was, but it was not attractive, and the "piece de resistance" was a very diminutive chicken. I watched that chicken, as it was brought in, with hungry eyes; but, alas! it was handed to our native companions first, and the free use of their unwashed knives and forks in its dissection took all my appetite away. Two of our companions were Englishmen, old acquaintances of my husband's, so we made ourselves as comfortable as was possible in the verandah, had a cosy cup of tea together, and satisfied our appetites on strawberry-jam and "pan dulce."
The next morning we made an early start. Our way for about three leagues lay in a more open country on the downward slope towards the Rio Motagua, through maize-stubbles, and dried-up pastures, where a few miserable black-and-white sheep were being herded by wild-looking Indian urchins. About mid-day we caught sight of a group of red-tiled roofs in front of us, and soon afterwards rode into the large Indian town of Santo Tomas Chichicastenango—a brown, dusty-looking place, lacking even the relief to the eye one might have expected from the presence of the chichicaste or tree-nettle, from which the town takes its name. The chichicaste is a tree with which we had already become familiar, as it is so
