Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/26

 there we decided to sleep, but the mosquitoes were determined that we should not; there were millions of these fiendish insects, and no amount of smoke seemed to annoy them. A refreshing shower sprinkled us now and again, which relieved us from our tormentors for a few minutes.

On our way back to Island Mugeres we passed through immense schools of sardines, and that evening enjoyed some of them for dinner. They were very large and of a remarkably fine flavor, but the people in those parts only catch a few now and then to serve as bait for bigger fish.

Our next expedition was to the salt pits in the middle of the island. By an underground passage these large pools communicate with the sea on the east side. At the beginning of the fishing season, men and women go to collect the salt that is deposited by evaporation on the shore of the pools. They seem to regard it as a kind of picnic, though the work is laborious, especially for the women, who stand up to their waists in muddy water all day long, putting the salt into large turtle shells that serve instead of vats. It would be almost impossible to transport the salt by land to village Dolores; the only roads are narrow pathways through the thicket, and the soil is so rocky and