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170 Towards evening I ascended a steep limestone hill about 400 feet high, rising a quarter of a mile to the west of the camp. Gorgonio had caught sight of it the day before and mozos had been sent up to clear the top. We had a splendid view from S.W. to N.W. across the great forest-covered plain of the Rio de la Pasion and its branches, and could distinctly see on the far horizon some clear-cut hills which we took to be the Nueve Cerros (bearing 119°-122°) on the Rio Chixoy. To the N.W. were the distant hillocks of Peten, and right across the N.N.E. a long range of abrupt hills, but all very far distant. We could not have chanced on a better point from which to get a view over the country, for we were standing on the last of the range of hills which projected into the plain from the direction in which we had been travelling.

Isolated black storm-clouds heavily charged with rain were passing over the country to the north of us, and just as I was putting away the prismatic compass, a heavy shower struck us and in a moment we were all drenched; we hastened to make the best of our way back to camp, the thinly clad mozos shivering with cold. Here bad news awaited us the mozos who had been out with Carlos clearing the track were returning from work in single file, when one who had a load on his back put his foot out of the track into the low herbage at the side and trod upon a "tamagás," which bit him in the foot. Luckily the snake was a small one, but the two little round blue-edged marks left by his poison-fangs were not to be mistaken, and the mozo's foot and leg were already greatly swollen.

In the matter of a snake-bite, Indians are best left to their own devices;they almost always carry a supposed antidote with them or know where to look in the forest for some medicinal herb in the efficacy of which they have the firmest belief. In this case the remedy was a smooth seed like the kernel of a brazil-nut, called Cedron, which is excessively bitter and astringent and which comes, I believe, from Mexico. An infusion was made from the scrapings of this seed and given to the patient to drink, whilst the skin of the foot around the bite was scarified with a knife and a strong infusion of the seed was rubbed into it. It is not always on drugs alone that the inhabitants of the country rely for protection against death by snake-bite; during one of my earlier journeys, whilst travelling through the forest on the way to Peten, a Ladino came into camp who had been following on our tracks for two days. After he had rested and had some supper I told Gorgonio to find out what he wanted. He was rather mysterious in his replies; but at last it came out that he had heard that I was the fortunate possessor of a unicorn's horn, and he wished me to sell him a piece of it. I was utterly mystified, for at that time I knew nothing of the virtue of