of an
object thus loftily pronounced a ridiculous phantom of the brain." This
part of Senor Velasquez's journal being interesting and carefully
written, we give the following translation without abridgement:--

"The Cura, nevertheless, on finding that his supercilious
scepticism had not proved so infectious among us as he expected and
that we were rather vexed than vacillating, offered to procure us
guides in the course of a day or two, who were familiar with many
parts of the sierra, and who, for good pay, he doubted not, would
flatter our expectations to the utmost extent we could desire. He
advised us, however, in the same style of caustic dissuasion, to
take with us both a barometer and a telescope, if we were provided
with those instruments, because the latter, especially, might be
found useful in discovering the unknown city, and the former would
not only inform us of the height of the mountain, but of the
weather in prospect most favorable to a distant view. Senor Huertis
replied that such precautions would be adopted, as a matter of
course, and would, moreover, furnish him, on our return to
Gueguetenango, with the exact latitude and longitude of the spot
from which the discovery might be made. He laughed very heartily
and rejoined that he thought this operation would be much easier
than to furnish the same interesting particulars concerning the
location of the spots at which the discovery might fail to be made;
and saying this he robed himself for mass, which we all, rather
sullenly, attended.

"Next morning, two good looking Meztitzos, brothers, waited on us
with a strong letter of recommendation from the Cura, as guides to
that region of the sierra which the Padre's letter had so
particularly described, and which description, the Cura added, he
had taken much pains to make them understand. On being questioned
concerning it, they startled and somewhat disconcerted us by calm
assurances, in very fair Spanish, that they were not only familiar
with all the land-marks, great and small, which the Cura had read
to them, but had several times seen the very city of which we were
in search, although none but full-blooded Indians had ever ventured
on a journey to it. This was rather too much, even for us, sanguine
and confiding as we were. We shared a common