"How about the posterior limb of the equus asinus now?" whispered Fred to Frank, as they left the table.
"Non possumus," was the only answer that occurred to Frank. His views on the subject of edible things had materially changed in the last hour.
The youths made note of the fact that the hacienda of Uayalké was a large and evidently a very prosperous one. The manager told them that they had several thousand acres of land in henequin, and there were more than 1200 men and women employed about the establishment and in the fields. The engines and machinery were more ponderous and powerful than at the hacienda already described; and the buildings of the establishment, together with the huts of the laborers, formed quite a settlement. There was a deep cenoté, from which a troop of women were drawing water, by means of a wheel, with buckets on an endless rope; as fast as their jars were filled they carried them away in the direction of the garden, where the water was used for keeping bright the orange and other trees that cannot live without water.
GARDEN OF THE HACIENDA.
The garden, thus invigorated, was like a spot of green in a desert, and reminded the youths of some of the oases they had visited in their Oriental journeyings. Frank compared it to Biskra, in the Great Sahara, and Fred declared that he saw a striking resemblance to some of the gardens at the edge of the Libyan Desert. Beyond the garden in every direction was the dry and repellent land covered with the hardy henequin, which needs no water, or but the merest trifle of it.
They did not see an idler about the place, every one from the manager down seeming to be fully occupied. Mr. Burbank said that no hacienda in the whole country was better managed than this, and there was none where the laborers were better satisfied with their employer and employment. He added that here, as everywhere else in Yucatan, the laborers were constantly in debt to the establishment, and therefore were unable to quit work suddenly or "go on strike." A laborer who is in debt cannot change employers, unless the new one assumes the responsibility of the obligation to the old; and to bring this about requires considerable negotiation.
After a stay of two hours and more at the hacienda, the journey was continued. Six or seven miles farther on the travellers reached the cenoté of Mucuyché, and made a brief halt to examine it. The cavern is about forty feet deep, and the entrance is surrounded by a garden kept green by the water drawn from the never-failing source. Our friends descended by means of steps cut in the rock. These steps were overhung by stalactites, which furnished convenient holding-ground for nests of swallows and hornets in great numbers. What particularly pleased the youths was that they found here an abundance of the blind fishes that they sought in vain in their first exploration of underground Yucatan. There was the same abundance and variety of lizards and other creeping things as before; some of them were of goodly size, and Fred learned that they were iguanas, and that they often appeared at table.