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or talpetate (sun-dried mud) commenced and carried up to the eaves, almost imbedding the upright posts on the inside. Last of all, partitions are run up to separate the rooms, which are roughly ceiled with reeds or canes lashed across the tie-beams. The matter of brick or mud floor and the amount of plaster laid on the walls depends on the wealth of the householder; but even a poorly-built house, such as our hotel, will show a good coat of plaster and blue or white wash to the street.
Curiously enough, it is from the plasterers that one has the best chance of buying the highly polished prehistoric stone axes, "piedras de rayo" (lightning stones), as they call them, firmly believing them to be of the nature of thunderbolts; for they collect them as useful tools with which to smooth down and give a burnished surface to the plaster.
In some of the houses there are no windows giving on the street, all light for the rooms coming through the door opening on to the patio. When the windows do open towards the street they rise above heavy projecting sills, into which the bars of the iron reja are fixed. Here, as in old Spain,—
| "Las ventanas en las calles son muy peligrosas Para madres que tienen hijas hermosas," |
for it is between the bars of the reja that most of the lovemaking is carried on. All the windows are fitted with thick wooden shutters, and it is only in the larger towns that glass casements have come into use.
We were consumed with impatience to get out of the heat and dirt of Zacapa; but even after we had come to an arrangement with an arriero to carry our additional luggage he kept on finding pretexts for delay, and it was not until the 28th February that we set out for Copan, despite the well-intentioned warnings of two young Americans, newly arrived in the country, who had shared the discomforts of the hotel with us and told us alarming stories of the dangers of travelling in Honduras since the outbreak of the most recent revolution.
Indian cargadores are not an institution in this part of the country, and in consequence our pack-train had been increased to the number of twenty-five mules. Those under the charge of Santos, carrying our own pack-saddles and boxes, went well, as they had done throughout the journey; but the hirelings driven by a loud-voiced and exceedingly profane arriero, caused incessant delays. Something was always going wrong with the badly-adjusted cargos, and the clumsy native pack-saddles galled the backs of the poor beasts, which were already marked with a hundred scars; but the sight of their raw wounds failed to awaken the sympathy of the arriero, who goaded
