York" respectively-a cockpit and no doubt various other attractions which we in our short stay failed to discover. The population is estimated at fifteen thousand, or nearly twice that of Rivas. South of the town the rugged crest of the extinct volcano Mombacho rises black and massive against the sky, its sides covered with rich plantations and coffee fincas nearly to the summit.

An opportune fiesta enabled us to witness a procession different in character from any that we had hitherto seen. Distant bursts of half barbaric music apprised us of its coming, and we hastened to the door just as it turned into the street upon which the hotel stood. A brass band led the way, followed by surpliced prelates, priests, and acolytes bearing crosses and banners, while bringing up the rear was a crowd of fantastically clad maskers, whirling and posing in the mazes of an intricate dance, the blare of trumpets, banging of bombas, and shouts of an eager and excited populace furnishing a strange accompaniment to exercises presumably devotional in character.

Sunday afternoon we went to a cockfight, held in the patio of an inn, and attended by a large number of the sporting fraternity. The fighting was very uninteresting, but not so brutal as I had expected, the cocks being equipped with sharp steel spurs, which usually insured instant

death to the bird struck, and made the longest fight a matter of a few seconds only. The crowd, however, was decidedly interesting, and seemed composed of all classes of society. Government officials, with roosters under their arms and their hands full of paper money, rubbed elbows with barefooted mozos staking their last centavos upon a favorite bird, while whitehaired patriarchs and cigarette-inhaling striplings leaned side by side over the board inclosure, watching with bated breath the progress of the fight.

W

CHAPTER XII

EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY

HEN the mail-clad Spaniard, a sword in one hand and the symbol of an intolerant, medieval Christianity in the other, descended upon the helpless aborigines of Central America, he came, not as a humble settler, to wrest an honest living from the land of his adoption, but as a ruthless conqueror, to pillage and destroy, to slay or subjugate the rightful owners of the soil. The history of the early invasions is a tale of horrors, from which the reader turns away aghast, and which not even the boundless courage, vast ambitions and ultimate triumphs of brilliant leaders can palliate. Rich provinces of great extent fell before mere handfuls of determined men, whom the Spanish crown rewarded with titles, grants of land, and powers almost absolute over the vanquished inhabitants. The natives, held in slavery worse than death, tilled the fields of their oppressors, who, increasing in wealth and power, formed an arrogant and idle aristocracy, for whom and by whom the country was governed. The politi

cal and social distinctions of the Old World were mirrored in the New, and the Viceregal court became a centre from which millions of men, unrepresented and unconsidered, except as instruments for the aggrandizement of their masters, were governed.

The French Revolution, following upon our own attainment of national independence, shook the thrones of Europe and echoed faintly among the smouldering peaks and tangled forests of the captain-generalcy of Guatemala. The oppressed children of the Aztecs, the wandering scions of Castile, caught the sound, and hope, so long a stranger to their breasts, sprang up anew. The downfall of Spain, her relegation to a subordinate place among the nations of Europe, tightened for a time the ties which bound her absent children to her; but with the restoration and the introduction of needed reforms in the mother country came a feeling of discontent that such reforms were not for them, and there arose a cry for independence. The aristocratic portion of the population, fearing for its privileges, but powerless to stem the tide of popular demand, bent all its energies to perpetuating as an independent monarchy the oligarchy which had in fact ruled the country for many years. Thus there were few to oppose secession when, on the 15th of September, 1821, the representatives of the

people met in the city of Guatemala and proclaimed the independence of the country. Conscious of her own weakness, betrayed by those whom she had trusted, Spain made little effort to coerce her rebellious subjects, and the change was bloodless and complete. But scarcely had the separation been accomplished, when a Constituent Assembly was convoked to organize the country as a Republic. The aristocrats, or Serviles, as they were called, saw their visions of ascendancy fade. Fearing the loss not only of prospective power but of material prosperity as well, and encouraged by the establishment of a monarchy in the neighboring State of Mexico, they resolved to sacrifice their lately-acquired independence, and achieve by treachery and force the incorporation of Central America in the empire of Iturbide.

The Constituent Assembly met in Guatemala City, but its deliberations were forcibly suspended by bands of armed Serviles, who assassinated or imprisoned the Liberal leaders, assumed control of the convention, and fraudulently imposed upon the astonished people a resolution declaring the annexation of the country to the Mexican Empire. No sooner had the news of this outrage spread through the sparsely populated country districts than it was met by a general uprising. Granada,