We found San Miguel deserted.

Our three _mozos_ who had been paid, and ordered to go simply to that village, and there to leave our things, had left before we arrived.

The man who had come with us, we had dismissed before we realized conditions.

The coffee had been gathered for the season; the chief man of the place was in the mountains; there was no town government; neither prayers, threats, nor bribes produced food for ourselves and our horses; two or three men around the place would not be hired as _mozos_.

We finally were forced to leave our busts, plaster, photographic outfit and plates on a bench under an open shed, and go on alone to Santiago Guevea.