In accordance with a custom that I usually adopted whenever it was possible, I established friendly relations with an Indian family in the neighbourhood in order to obtain some knowledge of their language or dialect. I had a list of words in Spanish to which I obtained the local equivalents. In this manner I made a small vocabulary of the dialects spoken by the Indians amongst the Altos near Guatemala, by the Quichés at Santa Cruz and San Tomas, by the Kachiquels near Las Godinas, and by the tribe near Patinamit. This custom was not only useful in helping me to understand the various links or differences in the tribes that we met, but it was also a means of bringing about a small degree of friendliness, and of overcoming that very decided unsociability which forms such an integral part of the Indian nature. At sunrise we were in our saddles, and soon found ourselves to be riding over a difficult and rugged country. The hills were steep, and the mule tracks, in many places, almost impassable. In the afternoon we crossed a high mountain ridge, and then descended towards the Indian hamlet of San Lorenzo, and pushed on as fast as possible, in order to reach Gueguetenango before the night. On our arrival, we rode up to the convent gate, where I was welcomed by Padre Juan Batista de Terran. He was in a highly disturbed and irritated state of mind. His convent had been battered and almost destroyed by the artillery of the Indian rebels, commanded by Cruz, and his church was filled with soldiers who had been quartered there, and were eating and drinking, gambling, and leading wild and irreverent lives within the shrines. On the following day I called upon the Corregidor and obtained a passport for Augustin, and then sent him and the baggage mule back to Guatemala. He had faithfully performed his duties as guide and attendant, and had been careful in looking after the wants of the mules, often taking great trouble in finding for them a proper supply of forage wherever we were quartered in the night. But he had not expected to meet with such rough tracks as we had passed over amongst the sierras and down the barrancas, and was glad to be able to return by more secure and better known roads. The inhabitants of Gueguetenango, at the time of our arrival, were in an excited and disorganised condition. They had not recovered from the alarm caused by the recent events of the rebellion. The Plaza was crowded with wild-looking Indians, and throughout the town there was an unusual movement of armed men. My chief preoccupation was the search of a trustworthy guide, which was a matter for considerable difficulty. Finally I succeeded in securing the services of an Indian belonging to a local tribe of the Mams. He bore the name of Carlos, and spoke Spanish sufficiently well to enable me to keep up a tolerably intelligible conversation with him.