Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/24

 the village of Dolores, and having put up a thatched roof intended to remain at Nizucte a few days, working hard at scraping a woolly substance from the trunk of a fan-palm called in Spanish guano. We asked how much they could earn at that work, and were informed that one aroba (twenty-five pounds) is worth $2.50; three people working together obtain that amount in two days. The stuff is used to make cushions and pillows, being as soft as feathers, but firmer. The leaf of the guano is baked underground, and made into very strong ropes that serve the fishermen in their boats; the canoe we had engaged had no other rope in it. The fresh leaves make excellent fans, that retain a bright-green color for eight or ten days. They were put into our hands to keep off mosquitos when we were invited to be seated on a log under the thatched roof. The pretty girl offered us cigarettes; she was astonished when we declined. Not smoke! It was such a consolation! Would we not try just a very little one? She seemed to regard me as an object of pity because I had never used tobacco, and my husband as a very peculiar being for having given up the use of the weed.

These people informed us that the "queer old houses" were close by. The largest building proved