grumblings and insubordination. However, I knew that I was getting on well when I found that I could raise a laugh at the "brujo's" expense, and I never missed an opportunity of chaffing him about his mysterious powers, and offered to drink any potion he might prepare for me, provided he drank half of it himself.
On the 3rd of March we left the injured man in charge of the hunters, and were all delighted to get out of our damp and gloomy camp and to make a start again. After five days of slow travelling through the forest, crossing the numerous streamlets which go to make up the Santa Isabel or Cancuén branch of the Rio de la Pasion and the muddy intervals between them, we arrived at the deserted village of San Luis, where the horse and mules were at last able to find food more to their liking, as the clearing round the houses afforded some scanty pasture.
Nearly all the houses in the village were empty and fast falling into decay. About two years before my visit the inhabitants of San Luis, worried and wearied by the constant interference of the Government in their concerns, and especially resenting the extra tax which was levied in support of President Rufino Barrios's pet scheme of a railway from the capital to the Atlantic coast, determined to abandon their homes and seek shelter in British territory. In all about one hundred families fled across the border and founded the village of San Antonio between the frontier and Punta Gorda. The Colonial Government did not interfere with them and they lived on in taxless peace but even so their happiness was not complete, for had they not left the sacred images of the saints behind them, and had not their own chosen Alcalde, fearing the long arm of the President, refused to accompany them? The loss was intolerable and a council was called to discuss the matter, when it was settled to make an attempt to recover their saints and their Alcalde whatever the risks might be. A number of the younger men then recrossed the frontier, seized the church bells and the images of the saints, and called to their Alcalde to follow them; but he, wise man, knew the value of forms, and refused to leave unless they would first bind him with cords. This was soon done, and then conscience being satisfied he cheerfully marched off to join his family on the other side of the frontier.
The fate of the bells of San Luis was very nearly becoming an international question, but, fortunately for the peace of the world, after a few despatches had passed between the Governments interested, the matter was allowed to drop.
