We walked up a paved street an eighth of a mile to the casa municipal, and, passing an arched gateway in the clock-tower, entered a spacious plaza, with the cabildo on our left and the foundations of the new palace on the brow of the hill opposite. Directly before us was the church and connected buildings,—once a college of priests, since confiscated by the Government, and now used as a music-school, blacksmith’s shop, and for other purposes. The main part of the Plaza was paved; and here were congregated several hundred Indios, mostly of the Quekchi tribe, buying, selling, and bartering. We bought twenty-five fine granadillas (fruit of the passion-flower) for a medio, and as many jocotes for the same price. Delicate straw hats, woven in two colors, were three reals and a medio; cotton napkins (servilletas) of native weaving, two reals; palm-leaf umbrellas (suyacales), such as every mozo de cargo carries, one real. There was a fair supply of raw cotton, cacao, brown sugar, tallow, soap, and blankets.
Interior of the Church at Coban.
COBAN CHURCH AND PLAZA.
The church was very large and interesting; but the front was disfigured by two distinct main entrances, and the bell-tower was too low for the church. Within, there was the simplest architecture imaginable,—plain timber posts, square, with a slight chamfer, with pillow-block capitals and stucco bases; an uneven tiled floor; and side altars of poor design, sometimes painted to imitate marble. On one of these altars a famished cur was eating candle-ends; on another were the three crucifixes of Calvary,—the repentant thief being a young man of personable form and features, while the other was a bald-headed, bearded villain; a very impressive object-lesson we afterwards saw in many churches. A fair St. Sebastian was the only picture of tolerable merit.
Pattern of Cloth.
We called on the excellent Jefe politico, Don Luis Molina, who received us very politely, although our call must have been a great bore to him, as he spoke no English, and my Spanish was very lame. The Indian women in the streets all dress alike,—in a skirt of indigo-blue cotton, generally figured in the loom; and their long and abundant black hair is carefully bound in red bandages (listones) reaching nearly to the ground. Their stature is below medium; they seem modest and good-natured. The blue cloth is woven in rude looms, several of which we inspected, and the thread is dyed in vats of masonry in the house-yard. The threads are dressed in the loom and dried by a few coals in a potsherd placed beneath the warp. A border is woven at each edge, and also in the woof, at intervals, to mark the length of a dress-pattern. A common design is given on the previous page,—the lines being light blue on dark. The lines of light filling are carried outside the selvage, and of course are easily broken; otherwise the cloth is coarse and strong, in widths of a vara, or thirty-three inches. The weavers were very obliging, and pleased to have us inspect their work.
The soil here is a rich red loam, and coffee grows better than elsewhere in the country. Coffee-trees, well-trimmed and loaded with crimson berries, were in every garden, and violets and strawberries were in blossom.