Guatemala : $b the land of the quetzal; a sketchBrigham, William Tufts
History
Guatemala : $b the land of the quetzal; a sketch
Brigham, William Tufts
Central America -- Bibliography; Guatemala -- Antiquities; Guatemala -- Description and travel
The church was very large and interesting; but the front was disfigured
by two distinct main entrances, and the bell-tower was too low for the
church. Within, there was the simplest architecture imaginable,—plain
timber posts, square, with a slight chamfer, with pillow-block capitals
and stucco bases; an uneven tiled floor; and side altars of poor design,
sometimes painted to imitate marble. On one of these altars a famished
cur was eating candle-ends; on another were the three crucifixes of
Calvary,—the repentant thief being a young man of personable form and
features, while the other was a bald-headed, bearded villain; a very
impressive object-lesson we afterwards saw in many churches. A fair St.
Sebastian was the only picture of tolerable merit.
[Illustration: Pattern of Cloth.]
We called on the excellent Jefe politico, Don Luis Molina, who received
us very politely, although our call must have been a great bore to
him, as he spoke no English, and my Spanish was very lame. The Indian
women in the streets all dress alike,—in a skirt of indigo-blue cotton,
generally figured in the loom; and their long and abundant black hair
is carefully bound in red bandages (_listones_) reaching nearly to the
ground. Their stature is below medium; they seem modest and good-natured.
The blue cloth is woven in rude looms, several of which we inspected,
and the thread is dyed in vats of masonry in the house-yard. The threads
are dressed in the loom and dried by a few coals in a potsherd placed
beneath the warp. A border is woven at each edge, and also in the woof,
at intervals, to mark the length of a dress-pattern. A common design
is given on the previous page,—the lines being light blue on dark. The
lines of light filling are carried outside the selvage, and of course
are easily broken; otherwise the cloth is coarse and strong, in widths
of a _vara_, or thirty-three inches. The weavers were very obliging, and
pleased to have us inspect their work.
The soil here is a rich red loam, and coffee grows better than elsewhere
in the country. Coffee-trees, well-trimmed and loaded with crimson
berries, were in every garden, and violets and strawberries were in
blossom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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