Carrera favored the Church party, but had not the slightest intention of letting the Church rule him. He knew how to use it, and the clergy generally submitted gracefully. In all previous revolutions the defeated party had been banished, and so the State was kept unanimous—a condition that could not obtain now, because neither party had much real power left after the constant struggles of the past few years. It was while our countryman John L. Stephens, whose fascinating account of his travels will always be a classic, was on a diplomatic mission to Central America that young Carrera was gathering his power, and it is to this distinguished traveller that most of the information about Carrera is due. Carrera, _Fundador de la República de Guatemala_ (Founder of the Republic), is the title he claimed on the coinage of Guatemala during his administration; and after a long reign—the word is used intentionally—he was able to designate his successor and die in his bed, while his chief antagonist, Morazan, after a most persevering struggle for the union of Central America, was shot by his ungrateful countrymen. The tomb of Carrera is in the metropolitan church in Guatemala City. [Illustration: Rafael Carrera.] On the death of Carrera, in 1865, Don Vincente Cerna succeeded to the Presidency; but he did not possess the power over the Indios that Carrera held, and before his term of office had half passed, disturbances broke out on the northern frontier, where a man named Barrios had collected a gang of outlaws. This insurrection was suppressed, and Barrios executed; he however left a successor in the person of Serapio Cruz, a very corpulent man, but for all that a typical brigand, who for some time waged a guerilla war from his mountain retreats, capturing the distilleries of aguardiente (then a Government monopoly), and destroying what he could not carry away. Joined to this enemy on the outskirts of the republic was a no-less disturbing element in the legislature in the person of Don Miguel Garcia Granados, who was most active in attacking the Government. As the Presidential term of Cerna ended, a rival in the political field, General Victor Zavala, seemed likely to be elected; but by a close vote Cerna was re-elected. In 1869 a loan was negotiated in London which enabled the Government to pay its most pressing debts, and quiet was apparently secured. All this time, however, the insurgent Cruz was strengthening his band in the mountains, where he was joined by a man destined to hold the chief place in Guatemala, General J. Rufino Barrios; and in December, 1869, the rebel army approached the capital. The city was in a most excited state, expecting pillage if not destruction, when the unexpected news came that the _head_ of Cruz would soon be in the city. It was true; a party of Indios had attacked and defeated the chief, and now brought his bleeding head to the President. This disagreeable