Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/17

 should be handsomely rewarded; so they went to work and soon unearthed some large boxes filled with gold coin, which were promptly put on board. Then the ship sailed away with its precious freight, after the fishermen had been paid a hundred dollars each for their labor of an hour. This account was given us by one of those very fishermen, now quite aged.

On the tenth day after leaving Progreso, about nine o'clock at night, we sailed into the beautiful Bay of Dolores, at Mugeres Island, or Women's Island, as the Spanish conquerors called it, because they found in the temples of the natives many images of women. The water of the bay was as unruffled and crystalinecrystalline [sic] as a sheet of emerald; and the village of Dolores made a charming picture, with its thatched cottages, boats hauled up on the white beach, and tall palms waving like feathered canopies above the dwellings; while the perfect stillness made us almost imagine that we beheld an enchanted island awaiting the touch of a magic wand. That wand was the first golden sun-ray that shot from the east, calling every creature to life and action. Doors were thrown open; faint columns of smoke wreathed their way to the cloudless sky; children ran to the beach to float their toy ships; fishermen