For ourselves, we retraced the road of yesterday to Ciudad Vieja, and found the cabildo, where the soldiers captured the necessary mozo,—literally at the point of the bayonet; but he was a capital fellow, in spite of his forced service. While the hunt was in progress, we looked about the town; but there was not much to see, except the elaborately wrought doors of the church. There were few indications of the awful ruin the flood from Agua had brought upon the town in 1541; but some of the buildings seemed to be partly resting on substructures of older date. Some of the slaves in uniform called soldiers told us we could not go into the presence of the comandante without taking off our spurs; so I haughtily declined to go in, or even dismount, and ordered him to come out and receive the Jefe’s letter. He meekly obeyed, seeming to be a very decent fellow. Clouds covered both volcanoes, and our road led southward between them. We had a good enough road, down hill constantly, and winding into the valleys on the side of Fuego,—often crossing fine streams of clear cold water. The crater of the volcano was still smoking,—as it has been since 1880, when there was a slight eruption. We could see that the crater-wall was broken down to give issue to what looked more like scoriæ than lava. Gases have acted extensively on the whole summit, which displays many colors, from the decomposition of the lavas. As the day closed, the road became bad and full of small stones. The foothills were capped with irregular masses of lava, which in the sunset looked not unlike the ruined castles on the Rhine. We were in the region of canefields, and we often caught a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. At seven we rode into Escuintla and found the hotel comfortable enough; but all night there was a horrid noise,—drums, rockets, bombs, and shouts, and we dreamed that the town was being captured by storm.