Just outside the town-house, under a thatched shelter, a group of old women were cooking atole in great ollas until a late hour. This gruel they ladled out to those men and boys who had been working, and doled out to them drinks from black bottles. The men and boys, with their red head-cloths or neck-cloths, went forth from time to time in groups upon some public errand. Towards evening, eight or ten little fellows came from the forest with bundles of firewood upon their heads and great machetes hanging at their sides. In the morning, the same group of youngsters came in loaded with bunches of green leaves and holly to be used in decorating the church. At eight o'clock there was a procession in the churchyard; the saint, dressed in flowing garments, was carried about, accompanied by banners and a band of music. During the festival, everyone drank; even the little boys of eight or nine years, who brought in their loads of wood, received their spirits, which they drank like old topers. There was no evidence of bad temper as a result of this drinking, but an increasing stupidity. When, in the morning, we found our breakfast to consist of nothing but coffee, we realized our mistake of the night before, and promptly betook ourselves to the house of the secretario, where we spent the following day. The demands of the church during the day were so heavy that we did little work. The day itself was dark and dismal. In the late morning the boys brought in great loads of poinsettia, from which they fashioned brilliant rosettes and garlands for the church. At night, a wooden platform was brought in for a bed, upon which Louis, Manuel and I slept, while the others made a bed of broad boards upon the floor. Being behind with his developing, Louis set to work as soon as the lights were out, and kept at it until half-past-one. Scarcely had he come to bed and promptly fallen asleep, when there was a pounding at the door, which was almost immediately after broken in. Rising, I called out to see what was wanted, and four or five indians, all very drunk, came staggering in. The oldest of the party carried a great machete, and one of them closely hugged a bottle full of spirits. After begging pardon for disturbing us, they built a smoky fire, near the drying negatives. Fearing that their drunken movements and the smoke would work disaster, I made them change their place of rest and fire, moving them to the other end of the room. There they built another fire, and, before morning, they had consumed three bottles of spirits. What with the firelight and smoke, the noisy laughter, the loud talking and constant movement, it was impossible for me to sleep. Only for a single hour, when they fell back upon the floor in drunken slumber, and their fire burned down, did I get a bit of rest. If seems that they were an official guard put to watch the town store of grain which was kept in the building, and which was subject to the depredations of animals. During the following day we completed our work upon Chinantecs. The type is one of the best marked. In the child, the nose is wide, flat at the tip, with a straight or even concave bridge; the eyes are widely separated and often oblique; the mouth is large, the lips thick and the upper lip projects notably beyond the lower; the face is wide, and flat at the cheek-bones. With age, this type changes, the nose becomes aquiline, and of moderate breadth, the upper lip becomes less prominent, the skin lightens.
For two days more, days of darkness, rain and cold that penetrated to the marrow, we remained prisoners in the village, waiting for the horses for which we had sent the day of our arrival. It was impossible to make photographs, nor was it feasible to look around the town, or into the adjoining country. The secretario, indeed, showed us the way in which spirits are distilled from the sap of sugar-cane, and we had ample opportunity to examine the dress of the people and the mode of weaving. All the women dress in garments of home-woven cotton, and the red head-cloths, so characteristic a feature of the dress of men and boys, are woven here from thread already dyed, bought in other places. The little figures of animals or birds or geometrical designs worked in them in green or yellow worsted are woven in, at the time of making the cloths, with bright bits of wool.
At last our animals appeared. They had been sent from Papalo, and we made arrangements, as we supposed, for using them through to Cuicatlan. The animals arrived at 9:30 in the morning and the mozo with them reported that the roads were bad from the constant rains of the past several days. We decided to leave that afternoon, stopping at Zautla for the night, and then, making an early start, to push through in a single day. The presidente, alcalde, and other town officials accompanied us to the border of the village, where they bade us adieu, begging for a real for drink. As we left, the sky was clear and the mists were rising from the valleys. For the first time we gained some idea of the beauty of the country all around us. The houses of the town are well built, with walls of poles or narrow slabs neatly corded together in a vertical position. The roofs are thatched with palm; they pitch sharply from a central ridge and the ends pitch also from the ridge in independent slopes. The top is crested with a comb of thatch, neatly applied. Off to the right from the village lay a magnificent valley, with massive rock walls clad with green forest. The low masses of clouds and great banks of mist but emphasized the impression made by those parts of the scene that were visible. Soon we had passed the ridge and looked down again into the Zautla valley. The road was not as bad as we had anticipated. As we made our upward climb, we found that the flame-colored orchids, few when we last passed that way, were out in quantity. They are a terrestrial species, and the colors are a beautiful combination of flame-red with chrome-yellow. The other day only the outer and lower flowers of the racemes were blown, but on this occasion the whole cluster was in bloom. We noticed strikingly, what had before suggested itself to us, that through this district flowers of certain colors mass themselves together. Thus, on this slope, the hundreds of bunches of flame-colored orchids were rivalled by clusters of a tubular flower perhaps an inch in length, of almost the same hues. Along the glen-road near Tepanapa all sorts of flowers seemed to be pink or flesh-colored, while along the jungle-bank, near the coffee plantation, everything was blue or purple. When we reached Zautla, neither the presidente, the secretario nor the segundo was in town. The big topil, whose head was healing, did the honors of the place. We had intended to make an early start, but it was half past six before we mounted and were on our way. Going back over the old road, we soon reached the little coffee finca in charge of our Mixtec friend, and here we left the familiar trail, for what our guide insisted was a better one. We struck up and up and up the slope to avoid little ravines which he assured us were very bad. At last, when it was certain that he had completely lost his way, we started down into the forest. For a time we followed a bad and disused trail, but soon even this disappeared, and we tore our way through the tropical vegetation as best we could. Often the men had to cut the way with their machetes; sometimes we slid for yards over the wet mud; frequently our heads were caught by hanging vines, and faces and hands were scratched with brambles. When at last we came out upon a cleared space, we found ourselves at the Chinantec village of Santa Maria. Perhaps there were four houses in the village.
Our appearance caused great excitement. Our pack-animals bade fair to destroy the maize and other plantings in the field. In the trail were oxen, which had to be gotten out of our way for fear of being driven to frenzy by our mere passing. They assured us that we were on the road to Tepanapa, so we completed the descent to the brooklet and started up a trail which at any time would have been steep, stony, slippery, all at once. We were compelled, finally, to dismount and lead our animals; Frank, before he did so, tumbled his horse three times down the bank. At one place two of the horses fell together in a struggling mass, and for a moment things looked serious. All the animals but my own fell, at least once, before we reached the summit. From there, it was an easy ride over a level district until we were in sight of Tepanapa, which, by sunlight, presented a most attractive appearance. The houses are spread over a gentle slope, to the very edge of a little barranca. Each had a little enclosure, with a group of banana plants. Butterflies of brilliant hues lazily flew about, and a few birds uttered their characteristic cries. We could not, however, delay. Before us lay a tremendous ascent; the first part, which we had passed after dusk, we found rougher than we realized; rock masses here were covered with a thick cushion of brilliant crimson moss, a kind of sphagnum. The gully trail had not been improved by the recent rains, and it taxed our animals severely to reach the summit. Arrived in the district of the trees loaded with beards of golden-yellow moss, we caught a magnificent view back over the valley. With one sweep of the eyes, we could almost follow our whole round of wandering. The ridges on which lay San Juan Zautla and San Pedro Soochiapan both were in sight, as were the valleys in which Santa Maria and Tepanapa lay. But the only actual feature which we could see and recognize was the little coffee finca this side of Zautla. The combination of green mountains, blue ridges and bare rock cliffs was grand. Here our road forked, and at this point we had a moment's excitement. We met an old indian man with a baby tied upon his back, and his old wife, carrying a burden, followed after. Before them a black bull was calmly walking. The moment the old man saw us, he waved his arms and cried out, in great excitement, "Toro, muy bravo!" (Bull, very fierce!) and hastened forward to catch the lasso wound round the horns of the beast to lead him out of our way. Just then the bull took matters into his own control, and, with a snort and plunge, started wildly away, dragging the old fellow at a wild run down the trail, finally whirling him and the baby into a heap by the roadside, while he himself took up the mountain-side. It was after dark before we reached Papalo.
After much grumbling, supper was prepared and a solemn promise given that we should leave at seven in the morning. When we were ready, no animals were to be seen. The presidente asserted that the price which we had paid was only to that point, and that if we wanted animals for Cuicatlan we must make a new arrangement. This was sheer blackmail, because there had been no misunderstanding in the matter, and a liberal price had been paid. After wrangling for an hour, we shook the dust of Papalo literally from our feet, and started to walk to Cuicatlan, telling the town authorities that our burdens must be taken by mozos to the cabecera before three o'clock, and that we should pay nothing for the service. Probably we should not have been so ready to take this heroic action if we had not remembered that the road was down hill all the way, and good walking. Still, fifteen miles is fifteen miles, and the sun was hot, and though we left at 8:30, it was two o'clock before we entered Cuicatlan. We had no adventures by the way, except the killing of a coral snake which lay in the middle of the road. At three the mozos with their burdens arrived, and felt it very hard that we kept our promise of paying nothing for their service.