Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II.

by John L. Stephens

The untoward circumstances of the morning threw Don Juan into a somewhat anxious state; he had incurred the expense of preparations, and was uncertain whether we intended to do him the honour of dining with him; apprehensive of another bofetada, he was afraid to mention the subject, but on reaching his house he sent to give notice that dinner was ready, and to inquire when he should send it to us. To make amends, and again conciliate, we answered that we would dine at his house, which he acknowledged through Albino as a much higher honour.

His house was on the principal street, but a short distance from the plaza, and one of the first erected, and the best in the place. He had been induced to settle in Iturbide on account of the facilities and privileges offered by the government, and the privilege which he seemed to value most was that of selling out. As he told us himself, when he came he was not worth a medio, and he seemed really to have held his own remarkably well. But appearances were deceitful, for he was a man of property. His house, including doors and a partition at one end, had cost him thirty dollars. The doors and partition his neighbours regarded as a piece of pretension, and he himself supposed that these might have been dispensed with, but he had no children, and did not mind the expense. At one end of the room was a rude frame, supporting the image of a tutelary saint. Near it was a stick thrust into the mud floor, with three prongs at the upper end, in which rested an earthen vessel containing castor oil, with a wick in it, to light up the mansion at night; a sort of bar with bottles containing agua ardiente flavoured with anise, for retailing to the Indians, which, with a small table and three hammocks, constituted the furniture of Don Juan's house. These last served for chairs, but as he had never anticipated the extraordinary event of dining three persons, they could not be brought into right juxtaposition to the table. Consequently, we sent for our two borrowed chairs, and, with the table in front of one of the hammocks, we were all seated except our host, who proposed to wait upon us. There was one aristocratic arrangement in Don Juan's household. His kitchen was on the other side of the street, a rickety old frame of poles, and Don Juan, after running across several times, bare-headed, to watch the progress of the dinner, returned and threw himself into a hammock a little within the doorway, crying out across the street, "Trae la comida, muchacha." "Bring the dinner, girl." The first course included a bowl of soup, a plate of rice, and three spoons; rather an alarming intimation, but at the same time rather grand, and much better than the alternative that sometimes happened, of three plates and one spoon, or none at all; and all apprehension was dissipated by the reappearance of the girl with another bowl and plate. Don Juan himself followed with each hand full, and we had a bowl, plate, and spoon apiece. The contents disposed of, another dish was served, which, by counting the wings and legs, we ascertained to be the substance of two fowls; and while attending to them, we were engaged in the friendly office, which guests but rarely do for their host, of calculating the expense he was incurring. We had too good an opinion of Don Juans shrewdness to believe that he was making this lavish expenditure in mere wantonness, and wondered what he could expect to get out of us in return. We had hardly begun to speculate upon this when, as if knowing what was passing in our minds, he called in his wife, a respectable-looking elderly person, and disclosed another design upon the Daguerreotype. At Nohcacab he had heard of portraits being taken, and wanted one of his wife, and he was somewhat disappointed, and, perhaps, went over the calculation we had just made, when he learned that, as there were no subjects on which it could be used to advantage we had determined not to open the apparatus.

But he did not let us off yet. His next attempt was upon Dr. Cabot, and this, too, was in favour of his old wife. Taking her by the hand, he led her before the doctor, and, with an earnestness that gave dignity to his scanty wearing apparel, and ought to have found its way to the depths of medical science, explained the nature of her maladies. It was really a delicate case, and made more so by the length of time that had elapsed since marriage. No such case had ever occurred in my practice, and even Doctor Cabot was at a loss.

While the matter was under discussion several men came in. No doubt they had all received a hint to drop in at that hour. One had an asthma, another a swelling, and there were so many of Don Juan's friends afflicted that we made an abrupt retreat.

In the evening Don Juan's brother, the alcalde, called upon Dr. Cabot for advice for a sick child, which the course he was pursuing would soon have put beyond the reach of medicine. Doctor Cabot made him desist, and in the morning it was so much better that all the people conceived a good opinion of his abilities, and determined to patronise him in earnest.

The condition of the whole country in regard to medical aid is deplorable. Except at Campeachy and Merida there are no regular physicians, nor even apothecaries' shops. In the villages where there are curas, the whole duty of attending the sick devolves upon them. They have, of course, no regular medical education, but practise upon some old treatise or manuscript recipes, and even in their small practice they are trammelled by want of medicines. But in villages where there are no curas, there is no one to prescribe for the sick. The rich go to Campeachy or Merida, and put themselves under the hands of a physician; the poor linger and die, the victims of ignorance and empiricism.

Dr. Cabot's fame as a curer of biscos had spread throughout the country, and whenever we reached a village there was a curiosity, which threw Mr. Catherwood and me into the shade, to see the medico. Frequently we overheard the people say, "Tan joven," "So young:" "Es muchacho," "He is a boy;" for they associated the idea of age with that of a great medico. He was often consulted upon cases for which he could not prescribe with any satisfaction. Treatment which might be proper at the moment might not answer a few days afterward, and the greatest annoyance was that, if our travelling chest could not furnish the medicine, the prescription had to wait an opportunity of being sent to Merida; but when the medicine arrived, the case might have altered so much that this medicine had become altogether improper for it. It is gratifying to know that, in general, his practice gave satisfaction, yet, at the same time, it must be admitted that there were complaints. The terms could not well have been made easier, but the ground of dissatisfaction was, that he did not always furnish medicine as well as advice. I do not mention this reproachfully, however; throughout the country he had a fair share of patronage, and the run reached its climax at Iturbide. Unluckily, the day on which the inhabitants resolved to take him up in earnest it rained, and we were kept nearly all the time within doors, and there were so many applications from men, women, and children, many of whom came with Don Juan's recommendation, that the doctor was seriously annoyed. Every latent disease was brought out, and he could even have found business in prescribing for cases that might possibly occur, as well as for those already existing.

The next morning Mr. Catherwood made an effort to visit the ruins. Our numerous escort of the former occasion were all missing, and, except an Indian who had a tobacco patch in the neighbourhood, we were entirely alone. This Indian held an umbrella over Mr. Catherwood's head to protect him from the sun, and, while making the drawing, several times he was obliged by weakness to lie down and rest. I was disheartened by the spectacle. Although, considering the extent of illness in our party, we had in reality not lost much time, we had been so much embarrassed, and it was so disagreeable to be moving along with this constant liability to fever and ague, that here I felt very much disposed to break up the expedition and go home, but Mr. Catherwood persisted.

The plate opposite represents the front of this building. It is one hundred and fifty-four feet in front and twenty feet seven inches in depth. It differed in form from any we had seen and had square structures rising in the centre and at each end, as seen in ruins in the engraving; these were called towers, and at a distance had that appearance. The façades of the towers were all ornamented with sculptured stone. Several of the apartments had tobacco leaves spread out in them to dry. In the centre, one apartment was encumbered with rubbish, cutting off the light from the door, but in the obscurity we saw on one of the stones, along the layer in the arch, the dim outline of a painting like that at Kewick; in the adjoining apartment were the remains of paintings, the most interesting, except those near the village of Xul, that we had met with in the country and, like those, in position and general effect reminding me of processions in Egyptian tombs. The colour of the flesh was red, as was always the case with the Egyptians in representing their own people. Unfortunately, they were too much mutilated to be drawn, and seemed surviving the general wreck only to show that these aboriginal builders had possessed more skill in the least enduring branch of the graphic art.