ng, squares of sponge cake soaked with red liquor, pieces of
_papaya_, cups of sweetened boiled rice, and oranges. The oranges were
unexpectedly high in price, two selling for a _medio_; the seller pares
off the yellow skins and cuts them squarely in two before selling; the
buyer eats merely the pulp, throwing the white skin away. As train-time
neared, interesting incidents occurred. The ticket-agent was drunk and
picked a quarrel with a decent, harmless-looking indian; the conductor
dressed in the waiting-room, putting on a clean shirt and taking off his
old one, at the same time talking to us about our baggage-checks. A fine
horse, frisky and active, was loaded into the same baggage-freight car
with our goods. The bells were rung as signals, and the station locked;
the whole management--ticket-agent, conductor and baggagemen--then got
upon the train and we were off. At one of the stations the ticket-agent
took his horse out from the car, and riding off into the country, we saw
no more of him.

[Illustration: LOADING CATTLE; DONA CECILIA]

[Illustration: MAYAS, RETURNING FROM WORK; SANTA MARIA]

The country through which we were running was just as I had imagined it.
Though it was supposed to be the cold season, the day was frightfully
hot, and everyone was suffering. The country was level and covered with
a growth of scrub. There was, however, more color in the gray landscape
than I had expected. Besides the grays of many shades--dusty trees,
foliage, bark and branches--there were greens and yellows, both of
foliage and flowers, and here and there, a little red. But everywhere
there was the flat land, the gray limestone, the low scrub, the dust
and dryness, and the blazing sun. There were many palm trees--chiefly
cocoa-nut--on the country-places, and there were fields of hennequin,
though neither so extensive nor well-kept as I had anticipated. It
resembles the maguey, though the leaves are not so broad, nor do
they grow from the ground; the hennequin leaves are long, narrow,
sharp-pointed, and rather thickly set upon a woody stalk that grows
upright to a height of several feet. The leaves are trimmed off, from
season to season, leaving the bare stalk, showing the leaf-scar. The
upper leaves continue to grow. In places we noticed a curious mode of
protecting trees by rings of limestone rock built around them; many of
these trees appear to grow from an elevated, circular earth mass. At
Conkal, the great stone church