It was useless to urge effort, and we spent the time talking with the old judge in regard to the habits and superstitions of the indians and in walking with the judge of primera instancia up to the ridge which overlooked the town, and which was crowned by a little hermita. The population of Yucatan is still, for the most part, pure indian of Maya blood and speech. The former importance of this people is well known; they had made the greatest progress of any North American population, and the ruins of their old towns have often been described. They built temples and public buildings of stone and with elaborate carved decorations; they ornamented walls with stucco, often worked into remarkable figures; they cast copper and gold; they hived bees, and used both wax and honey in religious ceremonial. They spun and wove cotton, which they dyed with brilliant colors; they had a system of writing which, while largely pictorial, contained some phonetic elements. They are still a vital people, more than holding their own in the present population, and forcing their native language upon the white invaders. Nominally good Catholics, a great deal of old superstition still survives, and they have many interesting practices and beliefs. The cura presented me a ke'esh of gold, which he took from the church, where it had been left by a worshipper. It is a little votive figure crudely made, commonly of silver; the word means "exchange," and such figures are given by the indians to their saint or to the Virgin in exchange for themselves, after some sickness or danger.
The ridge overlooking the town is of limestone, and is covered with a handsome growth of trees and grass. The terrace on which the hermita is built is flat and cleared; it is reached by a gently graded ascent, with a flight of wide and easy steps, now much neglected. The little building is dismantled, though there is some talk of reconstructing it. Behind it is a well of vile and stagnant water, which is reputed to cure disease. From the ridge a pretty view of Tekax is to be had, bedded in a green sheet of trees. The town is regularly laid out, and presents little of interest, though the two-storied portales and the odd three-storied house of Señor Duarte attract attention. There are also many high, square, ventilated shafts, or towers, of distilleries. From the terrace where we stood, in the days of the last great insurrection, the indians swept down upon the town and are said to have killed 2,500 of the people, including men, women and children.
The school-teacher of the town is a man of varied attainments, being also a photographer, watch-maker, medical-adviser, chemist, and so forth. His house is full of scientific instruments—a really good camera, a fine aneroid barometer, several thermometers, including self-registering maximum and minimum, etc., etc. All seem excellent in quality, but I could not learn that he makes any use of them, except the camera. The cura, and the judge deride his possession of the instruments, doubting whether he knows how to use them. They assert that he has an apparatus for projection, for which he paid 1,000 pesos, which has never yet been unpacked. When we called on him he showed us, by his hygrometer, that the air was very humid, though the temperature was at 86° Fahr., and told us, what probably is true, that in this heavy, hot weather, every wound and bruise, however trifling, is likely to become serious. In illustration of this fact, the cura mentioned that his Spanish carpenter, who merely bruised his leg against the table, has suffered frightfully for three months, having now an ugly sore several inches across, that makes walking difficult. Great care is necessary with any injury that breaks or bruises the skin. We ourselves had already experienced the fact that insect-bites became ugly open sores that showed no signs of healing; as a fact, none of us succeeded in curing such for several weeks after leaving Yucatan. In the afternoon, the priest, the judge of primera instancia and myself took a coach to ride out to a neighboring hacienda, where there was a great sugar-mill, Louis accompanying us on horseback. Our road ran alongside the ridge and consisted of red limestone-clay. It was fairly good, though dry and dusty, and closely bordered with the usual Yucatecan scrub. The ridge, along which we were coursing, is the single elevation in the peninsula; beginning in northeastern Yucatan, it runs diagonally toward the southwest, ending near Campeche. It is generally covered with a dense growth of forest, unless artificial clearings have been made. Covies of birds, like quail, were seen here and there, along the road, and at one point a handsome green snake, a yard or more in length, glided across the way. Snakes are said to be common, and among them several are venomous—the rattlesnake, the coral-snake, and most dreaded of all, a little dark serpent a foot or so in length, with an enormous head, whose bite is said to be immediately fatal. There are also many tree-snakes, as thick as a man's arm. In the forest, mountain-lions are rare, but "tigers" are common. We found Santa Maria to be an extensive hacienda, and the sugar-mill was a large structure, well supplied with modern machinery, and turning out a large amount of product. We saw a few of the indian hands, went through the factory, and were shown through the owner's house, which has beautiful running water and baths, though there is little furniture, and nothing of what we would consider decoration. It was after dark before we started to town, and when we got there we found two wedding parties waiting for the padre's services.
The promised crowd filled the market Sunday, and our work went finely. Between the town officials and the priest, subjects were constantly supplied. Among the indians who presented themselves for measurement was old Manuel, sacristan from Xaya; he is a h'men, and we had hoped that he would show us the method of using the sastun, or divining crystal. He is a full-blood, and neither in face nor manner shows the least emotion. Automatic in movement, he is quiet and phlegmatic in manner; having assumed the usual indian pose for rest, a squat position in which no part of the body except the feet rests upon the ground, or any support, he sat quietly, with the movement of scarcely a muscle, for hours at a time. He sang for us the invocation to the winds of the four quarters, which they use in the ceremony of planting time. Though he is frequently employed to say the "milpa mass" and to conjure, he claims that he never learned how to use the sastun, but told us that another h'men in his village knew it well.
One of the padre's companions has been ill ever since he came to Yucatan; Sunday he suffered so greatly that a doctor was sent for in haste. Nothing was told us as to what his trouble might be, but personally I suspected that he had the small-pox. In connection with his illness, we learned for the first time that another companion of the priest, brought from Spain, died in the room I was occupying, less than two weeks before, from yellow fever. We had known that one of his companions had died of yellow fever, but supposed it was some months earlier. Toward evening the priest was sent for by a neighbor, who needed the last service. On the padre's return, we learned that this person was believed to be dying from vomito. For a moment we were in doubt what was best to do, especially as the police had told us that the padre had permitted no fumigation of his premises after his comrade's death, simply sprinkling holy water about the place. That night the young man in the next room suffered greatly, and I could not help but wonder what ailed him. However, I decided that what danger there might be from the disease we had already risked, and as we expected to remain but one or two more days, it seemed hardly worth while to make a change. Monday we planned a visit to San Juan and Xaya. The horses had been ordered for five o'clock, but mass had been said, chocolate taken, and all was ready, long before they appeared. Six, seven, eight all passed, and at last, at nine, only three animals appeared. This decided us to leave Ramon behind to pack the busts which we had made, while the others of the party, with the padre, mounted on his own horse, should make the journey. A foot mozo carried the camera. The road was of the usual kind, and was marked at every quarter league with a little cross of wood set into a pile of stones and bearing the words, De Tekax—— L. As we passed La Trinidad we noticed great tanks of water for irrigation before the house, and tall trees with their bare, gray roots running over and enveloping the piles of stones on which they had been planted. There were no other plantations or villages until just before the ninth cross—two and a quarter leagues—we came to the hennequín plantation of San Juan. The mayor domo was delighted to see the padre and greeted us warmly, taking us at once to the great house. We rode between long lines of orange trees, loaded with sweet and juicy fruits, and were soon sitting in the cool and delightful hallway. It is impossible to say how many dozens of those oranges four of us ate, but we were urged to make away with all we could, as the daily gathering is something more than five thousand. Soon an elaborate breakfast was ready for us, but before we ate we took a drink of fresh milk from cocoanuts cut expressly for us. We had salmon, eggs, meat-stew, beans, tortillas, and wine. But the mayor domo expressed his regret that he did not know we were coming, as he would gladly have killed a little pig for us. As dessert a great dish of fresh papaya cut up into squares and soaking in its own juice, was served. Sitting in the cool corridor, after a good breakfast, and looking out over a beautiful country, with promises that all the subjects necessary for measurement should be supplied, the idea of riding on to Xaya lost attractiveness, and we sent a foot-messenger with an order to the town authorities to send the h'men with his sastuns without delay to see us.
MAYA DANCE; SAN JUAN
THE H'MEN WITH HIS SASTUN; SAN JUAN
This was our first opportunity to see the industry of hennequín, which is the chief product of this hacienda. The leaves, after cutting, are brought from the field tied up in bundles. These are opened, and the leaves are fed into a revolving, endless double chain, which carries them on iron arms upward and dumps them onto a table, where three men receive them and feed them into the stripper. This consists of a round table, into the inner, excavated, circular face of which a round knife with dull edge fits closely, though at only one place at once; the leaves, fed between the table and knife, are held firmly by them at about one-third their length. The projecting two-thirds of the leaves hang downward; as the table revolves the leaves thus held are carried to a vertical revolving rasp which strips out the flesh, leaving the fibre masses hanging. These taken out from between the table and the knife are fed again to a second revolving table which holds the masses of fibre, leaving the unstripped portion of the leaves exposed to a second rasp, which strips it. The hanks of fibre are dropped from the second table onto a horizontal wooden bar, where they are rapidly sorted over by a man who throws inferior and spotted bunches to one side. The whole operation is rapid and beautiful. The fresh fibre is then hung over bars, in the southern wind, to dry, after which it is baled in presses for shipment.