hand, and, finally, at 10:10 found ourselves in the great indian town of San Gabriel de Chila. It was much larger than we had anticipated and almost purely indian. We walked through a considerable portion of the town before we reached the plaza, the church, and the curato. Our journey had probably been one of fifteen miles. All was dark at the curato; an indian was sleeping in the corridor, but he was a traveller and gave us no information on being awakened. At our third or fourth pounding upon the door, Ernst appeared at the window; on learning who we were he hastened to let us in. He reported trouble in the camp; the padre had gone hastily to Oaxaca to see the archbishop; our telegram had not been received; our letter came that morning. We found that things were packed ready for removal. A good supper was soon ready, but while it was being prepared we took a cool bath, by moonlight, in the trough bath-tub out in the patio.
In the morning we heard the full story. Formerly there was here a priest, who devoted his whole life to this parish, growing old in its service; in his old age he was pensioned, with sixty pesos monthly from the parish receipts. The priest who succeeded him, coming something over three years ago, was a much younger man. During his three years of service, he was continually grumbling; the work was hard, his health was bad at Chila, the heat was intolerable; he wished another parish. The archbishop finally took him at his word; without warning he transferred him to another parish, and sent our friend, the archaeologist here, in his place. This did not suit the man relieved; Chila itself was much to his liking; what he really wanted was to be relieved from the support of his superannuated predecessor. No sooner was he transferred than he began to look with longing on his former charge and to make a vigorous effort to regain it. Accusations were hurried to Oaxaca; the new priest was pursuing agriculture as a means of profit; he had not paid the dues to the aged priest; he had himself admitted to parishioners that his object in coming to Chila was more to study antiquities and natural history than to preach the gospel. It is claimed that, immediately on receiving this communication, the archbishop sent a peremptory letter to the padre demanding an explanation; this letter, Ernst said, never was delivered, hence no explanation was sent. The prelate acted promptly; orders were sent to our friend to give up the parish to the former priest, who appeared on the scene to receive his charge. Then, and then only, it is said the delayed letter came to light. The padre had left, at once, for Oaxaca and his archbishop. From there he sent messages by telegraph: "Pack up, and come to Tehuacan;" "Wait until you hear further." A third came the morning we were there: "Pack up; meet me at Tehuacan, ready to go to a new parish."
It was really sad to look about the new home, to which he had come with such buoyant hopes and of which he had been so soon dispossessed. When he arrived, the place was neglected and filthy; two whole days were necessary to clean it. It had contained practically no furniture; he had made it look like a place in which to live. He had improved and beautified its surroundings. He had planted a little corn and set out some young banana trees; he had gathered many species of cactus from the neighboring hills and had built up a fine bed of the strange plants in his patio. Passionately fond of pets, he had two magnificent greyhounds and a pug—all brought from Guatemala—a black collie, doves, hens and turkeys on the place. And now, he was again without a home and his time, money, and labor were lost.
Ernst accompanied us to Tehuacan. We rented three horses and a man on foot went with us to bring them back to the village. And for the whole we paid the regular price of eighty-seven centavos—twenty-five each for the animals, and twelve centavos for the man—something less than the twenty pesos demanded the day before at Tehuacan.
CHAPTER II
WE START FOR GUATEMALA
(1896)
The evening we were at Mitla, Señor Quiero came hurrying to our room and urged us to step out to the corridor before the house to see some Mixes. It was our first glimpse of representatives of this little known mountain people. Some thirty of them, men and women, loaded with fruit, coffee, and charcoal, were on their way to the great fair and market, at Tlacolula. They had now stopped for the night and had piled their burdens against the wall. Wrapping themselves in their tattered and dirty blankets, they laid themselves down on the stone floor, so close together that they reminded me of sardines in a box. With a blazing splinter of fat pine for torch, we made our inspection. Their broad dark faces, wide flat noses, thick lips and projecting jaws, their coarse clothing, their filthiness, their harsh and guttural speech, profoundly impressed me and I resolved to penetrate into their country and see them in their homes, at the first opportunity.
Our friend the padre never tired of telling how much more interesting Guatemala was than Mexico; he could not understand why any man of sense should waste his time in Mexico, a land so large that a dozen students could not begin to solve its problems, while Guatemala, full of interesting ruins and crowded with attractive Indians, was of such size that one man's lifetime could count for something. His tales of indian towns, life, dress, customs, kindled enthusiasm; but it was only after thinking over the Mixes, that I decided to make a journey to Guatemala. The padre, himself, could not accompany me, being a political refugee, but he had told me Ernst should go with me. After three months' consideration my plan was made. We would start from Oaxaca overland via the Mixes country; we would everywhere keep in the mountains; in Chiapas we would completely avoid the usual highway, hot and dusty, near the coast; in Guatemala itself, we would go by Nenton, Huehuetenango and Nibaj. This did not suit the padre: he had had in mind a journey all rail and steamer; and friends, long resident in Mexico, shook their heads and spoke of fatigues and dangers. But I was adamant; the Mixes drew me; we would go overland, on horse, or not at all.
When the Padre left Chila, he took a letter of recommendation from the Archbishop of Oaxaca to the Bishop of Vera Cruz at Jalapa. By him, the padre was located at Medellin, a few miles from Vera Cruz itself. Thither I journeyed to join Ernst and make the final preparations for the journey. Ernst met me at the station at 6:30 in the evening and we stayed the night in the hot, mosquito-tortured, plague-stricken city. Leaving at eight o'clock in the morning we were at Medellin in an hour. Our journey was through low, swampy ground on which the chief growth was of palm. The padre, whom we had not seen since we parted at Oaxaca, met us at the station and took us at once to his house. The town is small, the population a miserable mixture of black, white, and indian elements. Few of the couples living there have been legally married. The parish is one of the worst in the whole diocese. The bishop warned the padre that it was an undesirable field, but it was the only one then unoccupied. But the padre was working wonders and the church was then undergoing repairs and decorations. The actual curato was long ago seized by the government and is now used as a schoolhouse. The priest lived in a rented house close by the river bank. The house is a double one and the priest occupied but half of it; those in the other half were hostile to him and he was anxious to rent the whole place. His neighbors, however, did not care to leave and threatened vengeance; they were behind a mass of accusations filed against him with the bishop. His friends rallied to his support, sent in a strong endorsement, and he remained. The padre had been industrious while here. Behind his house is the little river, with a bath-house built over it; crossing in a dugout canoe we found his garden flourishing, filled with fresh vegetables. The family of pets had grown; Baldur, Freia, Votan, Doxil—the dogs—were here as at Chila, but he also had fantail and capuchin pigeons, hens and chicks, ducks and geese, canary birds, and native birds in cages. Here also were archaeological relics, plants, beetles and birds for gathering. And here too, for the first time, I had the opportunity of examining his great collection of Ecuadorean humming-birds and a magnificent lot of Guatemalan quetzal skins, among them probably the finest ever collected.