The accumulated offerings of gold and silver images are sold to pay the charges of the Templo,—not always, however; for report has it that the Government some years ago seized fifty thousand dollars’ worth of this treasure and appropriated it to its own use. Dr. José invited us to share his room, which we gladly did. He had just returned from Honduras, and was on his way to an Indian city in Guatemala where was buried, to his certain information, an immense treasure of the ancient kings. I will not tell my readers the exact locality, though I fear Don José will find no treasures greater than the beautiful opals he brought from beyond the Merendon Mountains. As we left the Templo I bought oranges of a little girl, giving her the price she asked,—ten for a cuartillo (three cents); and I almost believed in the miracle-working image when the girl brought me three more oranges! I ought to have insisted on having twenty for a cuartillo. Very late in the afternoon the mozos arrived, having been lost in the Cerros, where we strangers had found a plain path without guides. There was not enough daylight left to give us a photograph of the image, but we got the white Santuario. Even at the present day the annual festival, extending from the sixth to the ninth of January, brings together many people,—but perhaps quite as much for trade as for worship. As we rode out of the town in the morning we passed men repairing the aqueduct,—which reminds me that the water in Esquipulas is very bad. We climbed an unbroken hill eighteen hundred feet to an altitude of forty-six hundred, glancing back for a last look at the great white temple, monarch of the plain. As we crossed the divide, we had a fine view of Quezaltepeque, with Monte Rico and Suchitan looking in the distance much more volcanic than when we passed them on the road. Hard as the ascent was, the descent was even worse; twenty-one hundred feet of exceedingly bad road delayed us greatly, and it was long after noon when we arrived at Quezaltepeque. There was not much to see here. In the dirty church I noticed a picture of the “Virgen de Lourdes,” and a contribution-box for offerings to that modern shrine; and Frank found a very curious incense-burner, which certainly did not give evidence that the second commandment had been broken. As we stayed only an hour for our almuerzo and comida combined, we did not see much besides the Plaza and the main street; we followed the latter out of the town, fording a stream of some size, with gravelly bed and bordered with fruit-trees. [Illustration: Incense-burner.]