eared affected, although we saw no dreadful
cases.

San Bartolome is an almost purely indian town, where for the first time
our attention was called to the two sets of town officials--indian and
_ladino_. The indian town government consisted of four Indians of pure
blood, who wore the native costume. This, here, is characteristic, both
for men and women. The men wore wide-legged trousers of native woven
cotton, and an upper jacket-shirt, square at the bottom, made of the
same stuff, with designs--rosettes, flowers, geometrical figures, birds,
animals, or men--wrought in them in red, green, or yellow wools; about
the waist was a handsome brilliant native belt, while a bright kerchief
was twisted about the head. The men were well-built, but the _alcalde_
was a white _pinto_. Women wore _huipilis_, waist-garments, sometimes
thick and heavy, at others thin and open, in texture, but in both cases
decorated with lines of brightly colored designs. Their _enaguas_,
skirts, were of heavy indigo-blue stuff or of plain white cotton, of two
narrow pieces sewed together and quite plain except for a line of bright
stitching along the line of juncture. As among other indian tribes, this
cloth was simply wrapped around the figure and held in place by a belt.
The town is famous for its weaving and dyeing; the loom is the simple,
primitive device used all through Mexico long before the Conquest.
We were surprised to find that the designs in colored wools are not
embroidered upon the finished fabric, but are worked in with bits of
worsted during the weaving.

From San Bartolome to Comitan, the road passes over a curious lime
deposit, apparently formed by ancient hot waters; it is a porous tufa
which gave back a hollow sound under the hoofs of our horses. It
contains moss, leaves, and branches, crusted with lime, and often forms
basin terraces, which, while beautiful to see, were peculiarly harsh and
rough for our animals. But the hard, and far more ancient, limestone,
onto which we then passed, was quite as bad. At the very summit of
one hill of this we found a cave close by the road; entering it, we
penetrated to a distance of perhaps seventy-five feet, finding the roof
hung with stalactites and the walls sheeted with stalagmite. Just after
leaving this cave, we met a tramp on foot, ragged, weary, and dusty, and
with a little bundle slung upon a stick over his shoulder. He accosted
me in Spanish, asking whence we had come; on my reply,