In the morning, finding sacate very dear, we made up our bestias’ breakfast with maiz, and started betimes. We rode to the Lago de Amatitlan, which is very shallow, but clear near the shore. In the depths of this lake were thrown, according to tradition, immense treasures; and every now and then some ancient idol or bit of pottery is dragged up. On the banks were willows of considerable size; altogether, the whole scene was very different from anything we had found in the republic. The fishermen’s boats were of a peculiar shape,—projecting below the water-line, so that a cross-section amidships would be like the diagram. In trying a short cut back to the main road, we were lost in a _cafétal_, and had to ask the people in charge to open a locked gate and let us out upon our road. We ascended seven hundred feet and found a good path. In various places there were deposits of fine pumice, much of which had been excavated, leaving caverns large enough to shelter many people from the weather. We entered the capital about noon, meeting Santiago on the outskirts, who conducted us to the Hotel del Globo. At this hotel, which was kept by a wretched German, we found our mozos, and the luggage we had sent from Coban and Antigua, in perfect order. We were now in the principal city of Central America,—a city well worthy of study; but not at all a representative one, for all that. After the earthquake of Santa Marta, in 1773, had ruined the beautiful city of Antigua Guatemala, the inhabitants sought a more stable site, farther from the slopes of the great volcanoes; and the valley of the Hermitage was selected, towards the north. Here was the half church, half fortress, that still interests the visitor; but all around was a sterile plain, and its elevation and distance from any port seemed most unfavorable to the growth of a large city. Eighty-four miles separate Guatemala City from its port of San José; while the Atlantic ports are more than a hundred leagues away, with no carriage-road between. In spite of these and other disadvantages, the city of Saint James has grown to be the largest and most important of Central America. It numbers among its churches some of the finest in the country; and its other public buildings are of imposing size, if devoid of any architectural merit. Almost all the houses are of one story; and the paved streets, laid out at right angles, and of nearly uniform width, do not attract the stranger as he rides over the exceedingly rough pavement. Indeed, our first impressions were very unfavorable; for had we not seen Coban, Quezaltenango, Sololà, and Antigua,—all of them much more beautiful than any part of Guatemala City? It was not until we were well out of the city that we were pleased with it,—not until it became a confused mass of white walls almost hidden in foliage, with the church-towers rising above, and in the distance those two noble volcanoes higher still, their heads well in the clouds. A