to brave
a wild bull, furious though he be, and to attach themselves to the
crocodiles in the rivers, until they have killed them and brought them to
the bank."[2]

In reading these lines, one cannot help from remembering the classical
description Alexander Von Humboldt gives of the Negro boatmen of the river
Dagua, in the actual republic of Colombia. The inimitable skill and
unsurpassable bravery Humboldt saw them display in the midst of the
ferocious currents and loud-pouring rapids of that river caused him to
exclaim: "Every movement of the paddle is a wonder, and every Negro a god!"
A nice monument to the fame of indomitable bravery the Negroes manifested
in past times in Guatemala exists still in a saying often heard by
travelers: "_Esos son negros_!" or "Those are Negroes," an exclamation
which means: "Those are desperate men, who do not care for anything." One
could also hear the saying: "_Esto es obra de negros_," or "that is a work
of Negroes," the meaning being that it was work for bold men with iron
nerves.

Another expression brings out the fact that the Negroes were considered, or
forced to be, very hard workers. "_Trabaja como un negro_" or "he works
like a Negro," signified doing "the most arduous labor." That the lot of
the slaves was often a bitter one, though, because of the less greedy
Spanish character, without doubt generally a less hard one than in North
America, is shown by the fact that Guatemala had her "_Cimarrones_" just as
Jamaica, and Guiana, had their Maroons.

The Spanish word "_cimarron_" signifies indiscriminately a runaway head of
cattle or horses, that had become wild, or a runaway slave. The fugitive
Negroes of Guatemala had their chief stronghold in the inaccessible
mountain woods of the Sierra de las Minas, which lies near the Atlantic
coast between the Golfo Dulce and the valley of the river Motagua. The
Golfo Dulce, which is now abandoned because of lack of sufficient depth for
the big vessels of to-day, was at that time the port of entry for the whole
of Guatemala. From it a bridle-path ran over the Sierra de las Minas to the
valley of the Motagua and further on to the capital. In speaking of this
path over the mountain, Gage remarks: "What the Spaniards fear most until
they get out of these mountains, are two or three hundred Negroes,
Cimarrones, who for the bad treatment they received have fled from
Guatemala and from other places, running away from their masters in order
to