Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/51

 barometer. It has a loud voice that is never heard except just previous to bad weather: this is so well authenticated that, even if the weather is fair, no sailor will venture out when warned by that lizard.

The roaring wind and heavy rain beating on the broad leaves of the banana-trees around the house prevented us from sleeping. When the storm abated, just as we were passing into dreamland, slumber was rudely dispelled by violent clanging of the church bells. A dozen peaceable citizens, disturbed from their rest, went to see what was the matter. They found an old woman pulling vigorously at the rope. She was quite demented and refused to stop her music. They drove her home, which so provoked her that in the morning she threw one of her grandchildren into a well, saying "it must be killed." The child's father being at hand, it was rescued uninjured, though much terrified.

In the villages throughout Yucatan, baptisms and funerals are great events, a wake being regarded as a mild entertainment. In Cozumel we had occasion to see one of those friendly gatherings.

The patient was a young woman who had lived alone. Being suddenly stricken down in a fit, from which she never recovered, a neighbor had taken