Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/69

 carry it home, then felt afraid and put it down again. Next day I returned to look for it, because I wanted to have the alux (dwarf), but could not find the place again."

It is affirmed that very diminutive people still dwell among the hills in Honduras and Guatemala; but no one seems able to say exactly where. This would lead to the belief that if there are any still living, as so many assert, they must be very few, and successful in hiding. Nevertheless, it is related that one day, in the year 1825, woodcutters, wandering along the banks of the Moho river, British Honduras, in search of mahogany trees, were startled, upon reaching a place called Meditation Fall, by a strange little being that suddenly emerged from the bush, stared wildly at them, and fled.

The men pursued, overtook, and brought the odd creature to their camp. It was a dark-skinned girl, about eighteen years old, not quite three feet high. She had no other covering than her hair—thick, black tresses that reached to her feet, nearly covering her. She was very wild, but not stupid. Finding that they did not harm her, she talked to the wood-cutters in the Maya tongue, which they also spoke, that being the language of the Indians in those parts.