By Wednesday we had captured two mules; and these, in addition to our mare,—all being well shod,—enabled us to leave Coban accompanied by a capital mozo de cargo, who carried my photographic outfit. Santiago rode one mule, I the other; and Frank had the mare, who was a little wild at first, but soon became very tame and attached to us by kind treatment. After trying to get away for three days, we started early in the morning, and nearly forgot to look at the barometer, which was my constant companion; but after we were in the saddle the little dial was consulted, and the needle indicated an elevation of forty-four hundred feet. No barometer was needed to mark the elevation of our spirits on getting on the road again. As far as Santa Cruz we retraced our steps. Our mozo kept up with us, carrying our photographic and cooking utensils easily. And now this little town, in the early morning, was far more attractive than when, wet and hungry, we came to it before. On this visit there was more to eat, and from a tree by the wayside we bought twenty-five oranges for three cents, and also some good bananas. Our breakfast was very satisfactory, although eaten in a dirty house full of filthy children. At two we started on a good road for San Cristobal, where we arrived in an hour and a half. This little town, of some four thousand inhabitants, is surrounded by hills of great beauty; but the Laguna is an insignificant body of water. As there is no posada, we rode into the Plaza, and had a capital room assigned us in what was once a monastery,—now confiscated to public uses. Our comida was obtained at the house of an aged señora to whom the polite comandante conducted us. We found that Thursday and Sunday were the principal market-days, that the town-clock chimed the quarters, that there were unworked mines of silver and lead close at hand, and that the maguey grew abundantly there. We also watched the process by which the rotted leaves are macerated and washed in the brook which flows through the town, and we saw the resulting _pita_ spun into cords for hammock-weaving. [Illustration] The priests’ kitchen was roofless; but the great cooking-range was intact, being built of brick, with perhaps a dozen pot-holes of graduated sizes,—the largest being cut from the corners of four tiles, the smaller ones from the edges of two. Besides this range, which occupied the middle of the kitchen, there were two large cooking-benches.