Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/42

 of fruit; but that he could not have, because Dona Concha said only a week or two before a tornado had swept over the island uprooting every fruit tree.

These periodical tornadoes are the only drawback to life in Cozumel. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why it is almost uninhabited. Nevertheless when the Spanish Conquerors arrived there, more than 350 years ago, the population numbered 100,000, besides 50,000 pilgrims who yearly visited the shrines. The island was then called Cuzamil, which means in Maya language "the swallows."

The soil is strewn with vestiges of ancient dwellings that are concealed beneath forests rich with valuable timber. Among the trees are the ebony, brazil-wood, cedar, sapote, ramon, rosewood, and the zac-ha-na (house of white water) under whose roots there is always a spring of pure, clear water. The thickets are alive with pheasants, quails, pigeons and other game. With a little care every kind of tropical fruit, of very fine quality, grows abundantly; vanilla is found wild: plenty of copal can be gathered from the trees, as well as honey and wax, the product of harmless wild bees.

Only labor is needed to turn all this to wealth. The natives have quite as much work as they care to