We made exceedingly comfortable beds of the public documents in the register’s office, and I must confess to reading one of these marriage-records, which, as usual, was entered with great particularity, filling a folio page. Comfortable as this “marriage bed” was, we were in the saddle the next morning at five o’clock; and leaving our adios for the kind comandante, followed the river bank for some distance in the mist. Not half a league from the town we came to a ruined church of considerable size, evidently shattered by earthquakes. Our path led directly through a campo santo, and even over the graves, which were usually covered with tiles crossed and edged with white paint. We crossed the dry bed of a river,—certainly at some seasons difficult to ford,—and came upon a good level path extending along the river side for a mile; and then by a sudden turn we climbed out of the valley up a steep hill of decomposing rock, coming to a grassy plain on the top. There we met Indios loaded with pottery,—some with huge _cántaras_ of red clay so large that two made a load; others with twelve fifteen-inch spherical pots, all of good workmanship.[13] The water by the roadside was all whitish, and not inviting. The highest part of the pass was 6,250 feet; only a few hundred feet below it we found a beautiful liliaceous plant, and some of the mozos we passed carried superb clusters of a purple orchid which we afterwards found parasitic on trees. Another valley and another steep gravelly slope to nearly eight thousand feet, and then we had a view over a vast extent of mountainous country. No lake or river relieved the thirsty landscape, though rain-clouds hung on the horizon and dropped their showers in the far west. Corn was in tassel; and where we rested at noon on a high plateau, 7,825 feet, we found it in milk. There we saw the maguey used as a hedge-plant,—and a very impervious fence it made. From this high land there was a gradual descent towards the south. Far away to the left we saw the church of San Pedro, surrounded by its little adobe village, and soon we caught a glimpse of the still-distant Santa Cruz del Quiché, high enough, but seemingly in a valley, for mountains like the hills about Jerusalem guarded it on every side. The soil near the road was very thin, and covered what seemed to be indurated tufa. Deep pools of water were formed in this hard substance.