United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Just at dusk we looked down upon Nenton in a little valley, with a fine stream crossed by a pretty bridge, where mountains rose steeply on every side. Having been registered by the custom officials, we slept that night, our first in the new republic, in the municipal house. Next morning we started bravely, the whole town having assembled to see us off.

Would our little mule be able to pass it? We remembered what an American tramp, whom we had met at Tuxtla Gutierrez and who had walked on foot from Guatemala City, had said: "Between Nenton and Huehuetenango you will pass over a mountain that will make your heart sick; may God help you."

Before us rose the appalling mass of the Sierra Madre; to get that mule across it would wear us out in mind and body; I regretted that he had not died, and determined to have no further trouble with him. Quickly, we sent back word to Nenton that a mule and saddle were for sale; the crowd gathered.

We would start from Oaxaca overland via the Mixes country; we would everywhere keep in the mountains; in Chiapas we would completely avoid the usual highway, hot and dusty, near the coast; in Guatemala itself, we would go by Nenton, Huehuetenango and Nibaj.

Thence, we journeyed by horse through the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, to the city of Guatemala, entering the Republic of Guatemala at Nenton. The return journey was made by rail to the Pacific port of San Jose, steamer to Salina Cruz, rail to Coatzacoalcos, steamer to Vera Cruz, and rail to the City of Mexico.

Only the portion of this journey between Oaxaca and Nenton is here described, the rest not lying in Indian Mexico. The City of Mexico was headquarters for the work in 1897-98. A trip was made by rail from there to Dos Rios, to measure and photograph the Otomis of Huixquilucan, in the state of Mexico.

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.