Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/44

 in a building kept for the purpose. The operation of drying and moistening is repeated four or five times, after which the leaves are tied up in bundles, put in hogsheads, and covered over to "sweat." It is upon this "sweating" operation that the flavor and odor of the cigar depend. The principal occupation of the islanders is tobacco growing and cigar making.

Near the plantation there were some curious little buildings that had once served as temples to a very diminutive race of people, whose existence is proved by whole cities of similarly small houses on the east coast of Yucatan. We examined the edifices, but the owner of the plantation said that there were some much more interesting at a place called Buena Vista. We decided to go, though the Indian selected as a guide said the road was bad. We started with him and his four small hunting dogs, and soon acknowledged that the road might be better. The fact is there was no road, nothing but a footpath through the dense forest, so obliterated in places, owing to the tornado, that even our guide paused from time to time to consider whether he was keeping in the track. We were walking on coral rocks over which there was a perfect net-work of small roots, just like ropes, spreading in every