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28, for this would necessitate the purchase of either the wife or the husband by one or the other of the two owners, and that would involve too much trouble.

Such are the conditions in general that prevail on all the plantations of Yucatan.

We spent two days and two nights on the plantation called San Antonio Yaxche and became thoroughly acquainted with its system and its people.

Not only do not the owners of the great henequen farms of Yucatan live on their farms, but neither do the managers. Like the owners, the managers have their homes and their offices in Merida, and visit the plantations only from two to half a dozen times a month. The mayordomo primero is ordinarily the supreme ruler of the plantation, but when the manager, or administrador, heaves in sight, the mayordomo primero becomes a very insignificant personage indeed.

At least that was the case on San Antonio Yaxche. The big mayordomo was compelled to bow and scrape before the boss just as were the lesser foremen, and at meal time Manuel Rios, the administrador, I and my companion—the latter, much to the disgust of Rios, who looked upon him as an underling—dined alone in state while the mayordomo hovered in the background, ready to fly away instantly to do our bidding. At the first meal—and it was the best I had in all Mexico—I felt strongly impelled to invite Mister Mayordomo to sit down and have something. I did not do it, and afterwards I was glad that I did not, for before I left the ranch I realized what an awful breach of etiquette I would have been guilty of.

In the fields we found gangs of men and boys, some gangs hoeing the weeds from between the gigantic plants and some sawing off the big leaves with machetes.