A Glimpse at Guatemala. Anne Cary Maudslay
home will place a marked stone in a certain position, or put one stone above another, as a test of his wife’s fidelity during his absence. If the stones are untouched on his return he is satisfied; but many a poor woman must get an undeserved thrashing, as the mischievous Ladino boys delight in moving the stones when they can find them, thus ensuring a family squabble.
VOLCANO OF ATITLAN.
On Sunday, the 21st January, to my regret, we broke up our camp. Mr. Gosling said good-bye to us the night before, and started on his return journey to Guatemala before daylight; and we afterwards learned that he rode and walked the whole sixty miles of rough road in a day, arriving at the legation about 10 o’clock in the evening, neither he nor his mule any the worse for the long journey.
We sent on our pack-mules and luggage to the town of Panajachél to await our arrival, and set out ourselves to visit the small village of San Antonio, which lay three thousand feet below us on the border of the lake. The shortest way to the village is by a precipitous path down the cliff, used daily by the Indians, but altogether impossible for mules; so we packed what we needed for the night on the backs of some Indians and sent them off by this route. We rode back ourselves through Godines, and then took the road which leads through the great gap towards the sea-coast. It was a beautiful morning, and we thoroughly enjoyed our ride through pine woods and past fields of maize and flowering aniseed. The clouds had not yet rolled up, and we had a splendid view through the gap to the rich lowlands of the Costa Grande. About six miles from Godines we left the high road and turning sharply to the right came in full view of the lake again. A solitary black storm-cloud had gathered over the surface of the water and threatened us with a drenching should it come over our way; but luckily we escaped it, and its changing tints only added to the beauty of the scene.
The narrow path zigzagged down the hill, and was so steep that we preferred to dismount and lead our mules until we reached the water’s edge; then a ride of a few miles over a path scraped out of the hillside brought us in view of the little Indian town.
The walls of the queer-looking square houses are built of rough stones held together by a framework of undressed sticks, and a grass thatch covers the roof. Each house stands within a small enclosure formed by a rough stone wall or a reed-fence, and some attempt has here and there been made to plant these enclosures with flowers; but usually the hard surface of the earth is swept bare. There are only two or three trees in all the village, and as none of the Indian houses are plastered or white-washed, the prevailing colour is a dusky brown of earth, rock, and thatch, which renders all the more striking the striped huipils of the women and the red-and-white handkerchiefs bound round the men’s heads.
SAN ANTONIO.
We climbed up through the steep narrow lanes to the Cabildo, where we proposed to pass the night, and found the verandah in front of the building closely packed with Indian travellers and their cargoes. There were only two rooms—one used as a prison, which was overcrowded with delinquents, who stretched out their hands through the heavy barred door and begged for alms; the other used as a “Sala Municipal,” which was both small and dirty: however, we were ready to make the best of it as a lodging, when we were informed that, as the Secretario was away, no one could give us leave to make use of it. Somewhat discouraged, we wandered on, in search of a resting-place, past the church, roofless from the shocks of many earthquakes, and arrived at the foot of a high flight of steps, crooked and picturesque, at the top of which stood the school-house. Here was our chance: we hunted up the Ladino schoolmaster; Gorgonio and he were soon fast friends, and the room used as a girl’s school was placed entirely at our disposal. The room had a mud floor and was furnished with a blackboard—very useful to hang clothes on—a table, and a few wooden benches. There were no windows, and the door had to be kept wide open to admit light and air, greatly to the delight of a few urchins who lingered about the steps and furtively watched our movements.
SAN ANTONIO.
The Ladino inhabitants of San Antonio are the schoolmaster, his wife and children, the Secretario, and two women who keep the estanco or grog-shop; otherwise the town is purely Indian and governed by an Indian municipality. Until quite lately it was difficult of access by land and almost isolated, but since the track along the lake-shore has been improved it is found to be a convenient short cut from the Altos to the coffee-fincas on the Costa Grande, and the sight of strangers is no longer a novelty. Nevertheless we found the women and girls so extremely shy that they ran away from us and from the camera, as though the evil eye were on them.
After arranging our camp-beds and ordering our supper from the estanco we strolled about the town to see the sights. Whilst we were enjoying the lovely view and watching the changing lights upon the water, a procession of Indians clad in their black sack-like garments came towards us. It was headed by the alcalde with his staff of office, who was followed by his alguacils and mayores, each carrying a long white stick. They stopped at house after house, apparently giving some directions to the inmates, and as they passed us the alcalde civilly wished us “buenas noches”; then a little further on they halted and an alguacil clambering up a wall stood on the top and in a loud clear voice, which seemed to travel up the hillsides, called out the instructions for the work to be put in hand on the morrow, and repeated the Municipal orders for the week. After a moment’s pause he was answered by a voice far away in the distance, then by another in an opposite quarter of the town, and when all was quiet again the Indians ceremoniously bade one another good night and the procession dispersed. This, we learnt, is the usual custom on a Sunday night, and in the stillness of the fading daylight it was a curious and impressive ceremony.
Next morning we were awakened by the arrival of the school-boys, whose class-room was next door: each little fellow trotted up the steps with a little bundle of wood faggots on his back, which he deposited outside the door, and then took his seat on the wooden bench within. They were the quaintest little creatures imaginable, dressed just like their fathers; but their strange black garments were in indifferent repair, and the red-and-white handkerchiefs round their heads looked as though they might have been handed down from father to son. There they sat on the bench as still as mice, with their thin black legs dangling down, each one with a yellow-covered dog-eared school-book in his hand, in which he buried his face when overcome with bashfulness at the sight of us. About 7 o’clock the schoolmaster came in to call the roll, and as each boy answered his name he shouldered his bundle of faggots and demurely trotted off with it to the schoolmaster’s house and deposited it in the kitchen. Thus having done their duty and given the schoolmaster his week’s supply of firewood, they seated themselves on the bench again, buried their faces in the yellow-covered books, and never stirred for three whole hours! during which time the schoolmaster sat outside the school-room and chatted to Gorgonio and Santos. Perhaps after all the master’s absence or presence did not make much difference, for he owned to us that he could not speak the Indian language, and his pupils knew no Spanish.
As we were in occupation of their school-room the girls were given a holiday, and we saw them only at a distance, for they always took to their heels on our approach.
There is a school-house in every village, and the Government really seems to do its best to give the Indians some education, but the difficulties are great. Sometimes it is the Indian parents who refuse to send their children to school, fearing that if they learn to read and write and speak Spanish they will be employed by the Cabildo at a starvation salary and never find time to plant their milpas; at other times it is the difficulty of finding competent and trustworthy teachers. Indeed, I heard of one case in which it was not until the schoolmaster had been some years in office that the Jefe Político discovered that the man could neither read nor write. The Jefe was for instant dismissal, but the Indian parents begged that the schoolmaster might be allowed to retain his office, because he kept the children so quiet all the morning, and their mothers could make the tortillas in peace.