To us, sitting at the door near dusk, a song was borne upon the evening breeze.  Nearer and nearer it came, until we saw a group of twelve or fifteen persons, women in front, men and children behind, who sang as they walked.  Some aided themselves with long staves; all carried burdens of clothing, food, utensils; all were wearied and footsore with the long journey, but full of joy and enthusiasm, as they were nearing their destination—­a famous shrine.  Passing us, they journeyed onward to an open space at the end of town, where, with many others who had reached there sooner, they camped for the night.  The next day we constantly passed such parties of pilgrims; coming or going to this shrine which lay a little off the road between Acala and San Bartolome.  In one group, we counted ninety pilgrims.

[Illustration:  RIVER BETWEEN CHIAPA AND ACALA]

[Illustration:  THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT AT SAN BARTOLOME]

We had been told that San Bartolome was full of goitre, and we really found no lack of cases.  It is said that forty years ago it was far more common than now, and that the decrease has followed the selection of a new water source and the careful piping of the water to the town.  In the population of two thousand, it was estimated that there might be two hundred cases, fifty of which were notable.  None, however, was so extraordinary as that of which several told us, the late secretario of the town, who had a goitre of such size that, when he sat at the table to write, he had to lift the swelling with both hands and place it on the table before he began work.  The former prevalence of the disease is abundantly suggested by the frequency of deaf-mutes, a score or more of whom live here—­all children of goitrous parents.  Bad as was San Bartolome, it seemed to us surpassed by San Antonio, where we found the disease in an aggravated form, while at Nenton, our first point in Guatemala, every one appeared affected, although we saw no dreadful cases.

San Bartolome is an almost purely indian town, where for the first time our attention was called to the two sets of town officials—­indian and ladino.  The indian town government consisted of four Indians of pure blood, who wore the native costume.  This, here, is characteristic, both for men and women.  The men wore wide-legged trousers of native woven cotton, and an upper jacket-shirt, square at the bottom, made of the same stuff, with designs—­rosettes, flowers, geometrical figures, birds, animals, or men—­wrought in them in red, green, or yellow wools; about the waist was a handsome brilliant native belt, while a bright kerchief was twisted about the head.  The men were well-built, but the alcalde was a white pinto.  Women wore huipilis, waist-garments, sometimes thick and heavy, at others thin and open, in texture, but in both cases decorated with lines of brightly colored designs.  Their enaguas, skirts, were of heavy indigo-blue