The market-place was very attractive; for besides the bustle of the builders, who were piling up the cut and sculptured stone of the most imposing public edifice I have seen in Guatemala, the many cloth-merchants exhibited their brilliantly colored merchandise to great advantage. This is the centre of the trade in native cloths; and many beautiful and durable fabrics are woven here and in the neighborhood from cotton and wool. The stone generally used in building comes from the volcanoes back of the town, and is a light-brown lava. The Plaza is double,—one half bounded by the church of San Juan de Dios, the stone penitentiary, and shops; and its space is occupied by a garden surrounded by a wall of carved stone and provided with stone seats. A pond in the midst has a pavilion, or band-stand, on an island. The other half of the Plaza is paved, and used as a market-place; here are the new buildings for the Government. Near by the hotel I saw a sign, of which I made a note, thinking to profit thereby; but Frank saw it more clearly than I did, and knocked all the romance out of it. To my first glance it read, “Collection of Young Ladies,” COLEGIO NAL. DE SEÑORITAS but to the critical eye of my _fidus Achates_ it was simply a National Seminary of Young Ladies; so we did not venture to explore it. The church of San Juan de Dios was large, and the façade ornate,—worthy the principal church in a city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The old organ, of four octaves, had been recently painted; and in the two towers hung seven bells,—three bound to the beams with rawhide, as usual, the others on yokes. The cloisters adjoining this church[21] were interesting, from the multitude of curious paintings they contained, mostly of Scriptural histories; and in them Christ was always represented as a shaven monk, with the girdle of the Cordeliers. In the old lumber-room of the church were the remains of an ancient organ, and heads, bodies, and arms of saints,—not relics, but the _membra disjecta_ of the dolls that are put together and dressed up on holy-days. We had often seen similar places, which Frank called “property-rooms;” in one we found boxes of wigs and beards, and in another a figure of Christ with permanently bent legs, and staples in his ankles to strap him on to the mule on Palm Sunday! It was both amusing and pitiful to see the trash used for religious purposes. [Illustration: Church at Quezaltenango.]