over the narrow-gauge line for the capital city.  The station was an enormous, wooden, barn-like structure; the cars were weather-beaten and dilapidated to a degree—­except the first-class car, which was in fair condition.  Passengers were gathering, but no particular signs of the starting of a train were evident.  Boys at the station were selling slabs of pudding, squares of sponge cake soaked with red liquor, pieces of papaya, cups of sweetened boiled rice, and oranges.  The oranges were unexpectedly high in price, two selling for a medio; the seller pares off the yellow skins and cuts them squarely in two before selling; the buyer eats merely the pulp, throwing the white skin away.  As train-time neared, interesting incidents occurred.  The ticket-agent was drunk and picked a quarrel with a decent, harmless-looking indian; the conductor dressed in the waiting-room, putting on a clean shirt and taking off his old one, at the same time talking to us about our baggage-checks.  A fine horse, frisky and active, was loaded into the same baggage-freight car with our goods.  The bells were rung as signals, and the station locked; the whole management—­ticket-agent, conductor and baggagemen—­then got upon the train and we were off.  At one of the stations the ticket-agent took his horse out from the car, and riding off into the country, we saw no more of him.

[Illustration:  LOADING CATTLE; DONA CECILIA]

[Illustration:  MAYAS, RETURNING FROM WORK; SANTA MARIA]

The country through which we were running was just as I had imagined it.  Though it was supposed to be the cold season, the day was frightfully hot, and everyone was suffering.  The country was level and covered with a growth of scrub.  There was, however, more color in the gray landscape than I had expected.  Besides the grays of many shades—­dusty trees, foliage, bark and branches—­there were greens and yellows, both of foliage and flowers, and here and there, a little red.  But everywhere there was the flat land, the gray limestone, the low scrub, the dust and dryness, and the blazing sun.  There were many palm trees—­chiefly cocoa-nut—­on the country-places, and there were fields of hennequin, though neither so extensive nor well-kept as I had anticipated.  It resembles the maguey, though the leaves are not so broad, nor do they grow from the ground; the hennequin leaves are long, narrow, sharp-pointed, and rather thickly set upon a woody stalk that grows upright to a height of several feet.  The leaves are trimmed off, from season to season, leaving the bare stalk, showing the leaf-scar.  The upper leaves continue to grow.  In places we noticed a curious mode of protecting trees by rings of limestone rock built around them; many of these trees appear to grow from an elevated, circular earth mass.  At Conkal, the great stone church magnificently represented the olden time, but it bore two lightning rods and was accompanied by two wind-mills of American