answer doubtfully, even after having looked at the sun—so wrapped up in the tale have they become.

They are very fond of dancing and of music, but they do not perform the former either gracefully or freely, nor have they any variety or art in its execution. They have no talent or gift for playing an instrument either. They are wont to sing in their idle moments or even while at work, but sadly and in a monotone.

The woman who finds herself pregnant works until the very last moment before the child is born, and resumes her tasks immediately afterward, as soon as the baby is attended to. They leave their children so much to themselves, and give them so little care, that they are forever creeping around on the floor in all the mire and dirt, and always completely naked. A diaper and a tiny hipil are all they get for the first few days of their life. Around wrists and ankles they occasionally will tie tiny cords made of blue cotton to protect them, so they say, from epilepsy. Those who can afford to do so will hang a little rosary of beads interspersed with wooden honey-berries around their necks and put tiny earrings in their ears.

A pregnant Indian woman will not go outdoors during an eclipse, in order to avoid her child being born with spots or ugly birthmarks on its body; nor do they visit women who have just given birth to a child, because it is their belief that the babies would become ill with pains in their bowels.

As soon as the child is six months old they name a godfather and a godmother for the ceremony of opening the baby's limbs for the first time. To this end they set a table with some kind of pottage, and the godfather makes nine rounds of the table, with the baby placed astride one of his hips, which is the way in which it will be carried thereafter by its mother. Then they place in the child's hands, if it is a girl, a needle, a spindle, and the implements with which they weave their cloth; if it is a boy, he is given a hatchet, a machete, and other implements he is expected to use when grown up. These godparents enjoy the same distinction as those at the christening.

The women do not care about knowing their own age, and they keep track of the age of their children only until they have attained about six or eight years; after that they forget it. Although they grow into young manhood or womanhood very quickly, really old age comes late, except in the appearance of the women, who at the age of thirty-five look like women of forty-five.

Their most common diseases are pleurisy, intermittent fevers, and jaundice, while fits, fainting spells, and hysterics are exceedingly rare.

As a rule the women are abstemious, economical, and very hospitable. They love work, and are fond of raising chickens and turkeys, which they sell in order to enable them to buy what they most need, or else they prepare such fowl for banquets, marriages, christenings, the day of All Souls, or for the novenas which they celebrate for the Holy Cross or the saint of their special devotion. They do not fancy all manner of necessities, nor do they pretend to live on the work of their husbands; rather they work constantly in order to dominate them, and in this they succeed generally, at least to a certain degree. They will upbraid them if they undertake anything without asking their advice. They do not forget offenses they may have received until they are avenged. In their old age they are liable to commit small insignificant thefts, and they especially seem to like to become mendicants, even though they do not need to be. They seem to do this as a kind of compensation for what in their earlier days they may have given to the poor.

Sentiments of gratitude do not last long. However, we must in this case always except those who were reared in the homes of white people. With few exceptions (when perhaps poor methods or little care in their education, or perchance bad example and ill-treatment dominated), these Indian girls are virtuous, assiduous, disinterested, and very well-disposed toward all the different branches of service and ready to learn whatever they are taught. They are modest, and are fond of dressing themselves nicely and decently. They are so affectionate, true, and grateful, that many a time they grow old in the service of one family, and if this family meets with misfortune and perhaps becomes impoverished, they will go to work outside to help support them, of which I could mention many cases. Just the opposite happens with the men, who, although they were educated in a white family from early childhood, and many a time with the same care as the white children, the cases are rare that they do not gradually drift apart, become estranged, give themselves up to vice, and finally forget their benefactors entirely.

DRESS

The ordinary costume of the men consists of a shirt of white cotton like ours, worn outside the white drawers of the same material, which are wide and reach to the calf of the leg; a belt, white or in colors, is worn around the waist under the shirt; a kerchief; a straw hat, and sandals consisting of only soles which are adjusted to the foot by cords of agave fiber, complete his costume. While at work in the field they take all their clothes off and wear only a loin-cloth, which they call huit, consisting of a piece of cotton cloth fastened around the hips, the points passing between the thighs to be fastened to the belt below the navel. From this belt hangs the sheathed machete on the left side.

When they go out, the Indian women wear on their heads either a piece of cotton cloth of about half a yard in width by two and a half yards in length, the ends of which hang down the back, or else they tie a red kerchief around the head, a very bright red being their favorite color. A hipil of cotton is fashioned like a wide sacque-coat, with an opening in the center to put the head through, fitting around the neck, having openings on the two sides for the arms. This hipil reaches to about the calf of the leg, falling on a skirt or petticoat, also of white cotton, three or four fingers longer. It is fastened around the waist under the hipil, which falls loosely over it. The hem of both the skirt and the hipil are very often roughly embroidered in blue or red thread. For traveling they wear sandals like the men.

LANGUAGE

The Indians of Yucatan speak the Maya language, though somewhat adulterated through contact with Spanish. Several Spanish expressions have gradually crept into their idiom, especially in cities and principal towns where the Indians are in almost constant intercourse with whites and mestizos. Many among them can speak Spanish perfectly well, but as a rule they avoid it, and will answer in Maya to those who speak Spanish to them.

STATURE, PHYSIOGNOMY, COLOR

Generally speaking, the Indians of Yucatan are of about the same stature as all intertropical races, of a round face, straight black hair, rather coarse, not very pronounced eyebrows, very little beard or none at all, a low narrow forehead, black and expressive eyes, a somewhat flat nose, small but outstanding ears, protruding cheekbones, a regular mouth with thin lips and beautiful teeth, a stout neck, broad chest and shoulders, arms, thighs, and limbs of robust and muscular build. Their hands and feet are small, and the toes of their feet stand closer together than the heels. They have no hair on their bodies except