after a charming ride up a wooded mountain-side we descended some two thousand feet to a hot valley, where we halted for lunch. Indeed, this day our elevations changed rapidly, for in the afternoon we again rose to a height of over four thousand five hundred feet, and by nightfall had descended again a thousand feet to the little town of Tocoy or Morazan (as it is now called), with its palm-leaf roofed houses, coconut-trees, and tropical climate. The most agreeable shelter to be found in this part of the country is in the village school-house, and the reception under its roof depends on the goodwill of the schoolmaster whose house it is. The school-houses are all much alike, with walls of adobe, a roof of thatch or coarse red tiles, and a mud floor; and the inventory of furniture includes a few rough wooden benches, a table, a blackboard, and sometimes a rickety chair.
The schoolmaster at Morazan most kindly put the large room at our disposal, reserving for himself an inner apartment with no exit to the outside. As the pleasures of privacy are but feebly appreciated by a Guatemalteco, the idea of my objecting to his passing at any hour through what had become my bedroom never occurred to him until Gorgonio, with blandest voice and most courtly manner, suggested that the señora was "muy distinguida," and might be "muy molestada" by the intrusion. Kindly taking the hint, the pedagogue closed the door between the rooms, and made his own exits and entrances by climbing through a window. As the sun set, a splendid full moon rose over the town, hiding all its defects and beautifying our surroundings with the magic of its light. A warm breeze stirred the feathery leaves of the coconut-palms, gently wafting them together in a clinging embrace; and, tired as we were, we lingered late in the plaza enjoying the beauty of the tropical night—a beauty which no words of mine can describe.
We were up next morning at dawn, and had to hurry through our packing to make way for the school-children, who thronged in almost as soon as the sun rose. Our day's journey lay across dry sandy plains and a gently undulating country, where nature had conspicuously adapted the vegetation to its environment, for not even the hungriest animal would have dared to face the armour of pines and prickles which both on shrubs and trees guarded the precious green leaves. The stunted acacias, now leafless from the drought, bristled with huge hollow thorns, affording secure houses for the ants; and almost every one of these thorns which I examined was bored at the base with a small round hole, through which the ants ran in and out. Amongst these thorn-protected branches the wasps, too, build their delicate paper nests, safe from the attack of any insect-feeding bird. There was one tree with pale green leaves and apple-like fruit which was
