How cold that Thursday morning was when we started at daybreak! The thermometer marked 46° at half-past six o’clock, and we were at an elevation of eight thousand feet. We had a fine carriage-road for our travel to-day, on which I used Frank’s mare, while he tried his luck with my “trick horse.” For a while all went well, and Frank made the little beast go ahead, while I stopped to pick up some lava fragments in one of the cuttings; and so when Frank’s turn came I could see perfectly how odd it looked to have a horse collapse under his rider. Along the road were elder-trees (_Sambucus_) pollarded like our willows; as, however, they were not shady, but in the way of fine views, we voted them a nuisance. It was down hill all the way, and as we approached Sololà the view of the Lago de Atitlan and the volcano was disappointing. We had surfeited, perhaps, on the glories of landscape, and had expected something finer, with an immense lake, several volcanoes of more than average size, and a town whose white houses and red-tiled roofs were almost concealed in trees and flowers. However critical we might be, we were glad enough to see the town, and not less to find a posada, where we had a room to serve as store-room and bedchamber. We at once sent back our miserable horses; and after reporting to the comandante, as in duty bound,[18] we strolled through the Plaza, sending Santiago in search of bestias for our next stage. Here we first found the ripe fruit of the sapote (_Lucuma mammosa_), and did not like it. The outside was brown, rough, and leathery; the meat reddish, surrounding a smooth nut, and the whole flavored with cinnamon. Some sapotes were as large as a coconut, but generally they were not half that size.[19] The Plaza was full of people buying and selling. Mule-trains came in and went out, and it seems that this is the great wheat-market. This grain (_trigo_) is small and round, and the Government officials weighed each bag, which should contain six arrobas, or one hundred and fifty pounds. Fat-pine (_ocote_) is also an important article of commerce here, as it is the principal source of candle-light among the Indios. [Illustration: Sololà and Atitlan.]