Boat on the Lago de Atitlan.
We should much have liked to cross the lake to the ruins on the other side; but the sight of the only boats on the lake, as well as our limited time, deterred us. I have never before seen boats constructed on these lines; the handles on the stern seeming necessary to lift the large, clumsy craft out of the water.
Oh, the hot climb up that hill to Sololà! We started at half-past one, and did not get back until six; and were then so tired that, soon after comida, we fell asleep, in spite of the music and rockets within a few rods of our bedroom. The decencies of life are much neglected here, as elsewhere in Guatemala, and our only washing-place was the veranda-rail, over which we leaned while Santiago poured a calabash of water over us. Those who have travelled in Central France will have some idea of the privies of Central America, where they exist in any form,—indeed, if it were not for the hungry dogs, who act as scavengers, the streets would be in a most disgusting condition.
Sketch Map of the Lago de Atitlan.
All this day the mountains were clear; but on the morrow the clouds came down again. We called on the Jefe to say our adios, and found that neither he nor his secretary could tell us the names of the immense volcanoes before his very eyes every time he went out of his house-door. However, he called in an old Indio, who pointed out the distant Fuego, Agua, and Pacaya, and the nearer Atitlan, San Pedro, and Santa Clara. All these volcanoes have been duly baptized into the Church, to induce them to act as good citizens and christianos.
The Jefe had promised me his mule, and Frank was to have the horse of the alcalde, as his mare, Mabel, had a sore back from the breaking of the tenedora, or crupper, on the journey to Sololà. We secured for a dollar and twenty-five cents two mozos to take our luggage—much increased in weight by the cloths we had purchased in Quezaltenango—as far as Antigua, and at noon we started. Frank’s little mare was a character. She took the saddle all right; but when he tried to bridle her, she rose on her hind-legs and proposed a boxing-match. Frank very naturally declined, as he had no fists to match hers; and as Santiago and the mozos had been sent ahead, we hardly knew what to do, until an old Spaniard kindly came to our aid and taught us a trick. He tied some rope around the creature’s left ear,—a proceeding to which she made not the slightest objection,—and inserting a stout stick and twisting the rope so as to have a firm hold of the ear, I was able to keep her down while Frank put on the bridle. She was perfectly still as long as her ear was in limbo, and did not seem to suffer; but it was useless to try to hold her by mane force or by the nostrils. Every time she was bridled we had to go through the same process.
We first rode down a very steep grade, sixteen hundred feet, to Panajachel,—a pleasing village a league and a half from Sololà. Here are cultivated fields on the borders of the lake far surpassing anything of the kind I saw elsewhere in the republic. They are completely irrigated by the water of many brooks, some of which make cascades by the wayside. Panajachel is the garden of Sololà; with about twelve hundred inhabitants, it has, besides its agricultural advantages, various minerals and especially fine clays. Hot-springs come to the surface on the lake shore. The road was being repaired, and we had to travel slowly,—glad, however, of the excuse for loitering, as the views of the lake and valley were not to be lightly passed by and forgotten. Then came a long, slow climb of fourteen hundred feet to San Andres Semetabaj,—a town of seventeen hundred inhabitants, which showed us as its only attraction a ruined church with a remarkably fine dome; even Sir Christopher Wren never designed a finer. On this long climb we lingered to photograph the last view of the Lago de Atitlan and its volcanoes. The sun was in our faces, and shone over the silvery waters with the effect of moonlight. The three black giants—once so terrible, now so solemnly grand—kept back the surging sea of cloud from the Pacific that seemed struggling to climb their sides and reach the lake. Not a boat, not a human being, was visible as we looked our last on the beautiful lago and turned to a road quite unlike any we had travelled before.
