enitors."

Who these races were, whence they came, or who were their progenitors,
I did not undertake to say, nor do I now.

CHAPTER V.

Daguerreotype Apparatus.--Set up as Ladies' Daguerreotype Portrait
Takers.--Preparations.--A pretty young Lady to begin
with.--Preliminaries.--A Chapter of Contingencies.--Success of the
first Experiment.--Other successful Experiments.--A Change of
Fortune.--Give up this Business.--An Incident.--Take up the Practice of
Surgery.--Operation for Strabismus.--Details.--First Subject.--A
great Gathering of Squint Eyes.--A troublesome Patient.--A little
Hero.--Extraordinary Instance of Fortitude.--A Military Patient.--A
Female Patient.--Practice of Surgery abandoned.--Instability of Fame.

But the reader must not suppose that our only business in Merida was
the investigation of antiquities; we had other operations in hand which
gave us plenty of employment. We had taken with us a Daguerreotype
apparatus, of which but one specimen had ever before appeared in
Yucatan. Great improvements had been since made in the instrument, and
we had reason to believe that ours was one of the best; and having
received assurances that we might do a large business in that line, we
were induced to set up as ladies' Daguerreotype portrait takers. It was
a new line for us, and rather venturesome, but not worse than for the
editor of a newspaper to turn captain of a steamboat; and, besides, it
was not like banking--we could not injure any one by a failure.

Having made trials upon ourselves until we were tired of the subjects,
and with satisfactory results, we considered ourselves sufficiently
advanced to begin; and as we intended to practice for the love of the
art, and not for lucre, we held that we had a right to select our
subjects. Accordingly, we had but to signify our wishes, and the next
morning put our house in order for the reception of our fair visiters.
We cleared everything out of the hammock, took the washhand basin off
the chair, and threw odds and ends into one corner; and as the sun was
pouring its rays warmly and brightly into our door, it was farther
lighted up by the entry of three young ladies, with their respective
papas and mammas. We had great difficulty in finding them all seats,
and were obliged to put the two mammas into the hammock together. The
young ladies were dressed in their prettiest costume, with earrings and
chains, and their hair ador