Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/22

 statues of himself. He calls himself Spanish Consul and fomentador, has large plantations of vegetables, and plenty of cattle, yet will neither give nor sell anything to anybody, not even a little milk for any one who is sick. Vegetables and fruits ripen and rot, while his cattle roam everywhere and spoil all that other people plant. He works like a slave, and only allows himself one scanty meal a day. No one knows why he lives such an austere, isolated, selfish existence. It is understood that in his younger days he was engaged in the slave-trade on the African coast, and the people believe he must have committed some heinous crime that keeps him a prey to remorse, which he tries to stifle by doing penance. Some say he is haunted, and others that he is looking for the treasure, because he frequently changes his place of residence, building a new hut each time. He has plenty of gold ounces, yet seldom approaches the village. When he passes along the beach at twilight the friendly chat is suddenly hushed, and some one exclaims, in an awe-struck whisper: "There goes Mondaca!"

After some delay we obtained a canoe to take us to the eastern coast of Yucatan, only six miles distant. Our object was to examine some ancient structures at a place called Meco, where pilgrims