A STREET IN MERIDA.
"Three mules are the regulation team for a volan coché. They are harnessed abreast, and under the control of a vigorous driver they get over the roads with commendable rapidity, when all things are considered. There is a great deal of swing to the vehicle, and it overturns occasionally, though not often. The roads of Yucatan are not at all good; one man told us they were made by Cortez three and a half centuries ago, and have never had a dollar of expenditure for repairs since they were constructed."
As our friends went to the door they met their host, who had just descended from the carriage and was ready for them. Frank and Fred wondered if all four of them, the host and his three guests, were to ride in one coché, and while the wonderment continued another vehicle of the same kind came dashing around the corner.
Their entertainer, Mr. Honradez, suggested that Doctor Bronson and himself would ride in one carriage, while the two youths occupied the other. As they were to spend a night at the hacienda, each of the travellers carried a small hand-bag, and these articles, added to some cushions which Mr. Honradez had thoughtfully placed in the seatless vehicles, added considerably to the comfort of the ride.
Away they dashed along the rough streets of Merida and out through the thickly shaded suburbs. They met dozens of natives bringing into the city loads of country produce to sell in the market-place; the bearers bent beneath their burdens, and many of them had travelled all night in order to reach the city in the morning. The most conspicuous of these porters were the sellers of ramon, the branches of a tree that serve as food for horses and mules, which eat the leaves and twigs of ramon as they do grass or hay. According to its bulk, the stuff is very light, and a ramon-seller is completely hidden beneath his apparently enormous but really comfortable load.
"Mr. Honradez made things interesting," said Fred, "by getting up a race between our two carriages. He promised two reals to the driver who would get first to a village which he named, and the fellows went at it in earnest. They stood up on the shafts of their vehicles and yelled at their mules; at the same time they were not sparing of their whips, and the result was that the poor beasts went at a furious gallop for a mile or more. Our driver got in advance, and as we saw that the race would be kept up as long as the teams could run, Frank and I suggested to him that we would give him three reals to let the other man win. He immediately accepted the offer and dropped to the rear, shouting something in Maya to his competitor as the latter passed him. After that we went on at a more respectable pace, and were heartily glad that the breakneck speed was not kept up.
"At the village, the name of which I have forgotten, we rested ten or fifteen minutes and then went on, reaching the hacienda just as the forenoon was beginning to be uncomfortably warm. The great heat of Yucatan renders it desirable to make all journeys in the night as much as possible, and hence our early start from Merida.