Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/627

Rh torches, lighting the way for the coché, which had an aspect so funeral that it almost made me shudder. Mr. C. had had his difficulties. After carrying him about a league, the Indians stopped, laid him down, and, after an animated conversation, took him up, went on, but in a little while laid him down again, and, thrusting their heads under the cover of the coché, made him an eager and clamorous address, of which he did not understand one word. At length he picked up dos pesos, or two dollars, and gathered that they wanted two dollars more. As the alcalde had adjusted the account, he refused to pay, and, after a noisy wrangle, they quietly took him up on their shoulders, and began trotting back with him to the village. This made him tractable, and he paid the money, threatening them as well as he could with vengeance; but the amusing part was that they were right. The alcalde had made a mistake in the calculation; and, on a division and distribution on the road, by hard pounding and calculating, each one knowing what he ought to receive himself, they discovered that they had been paid two dollars short. The price was a shilling per man for the first, and nine pence for every subsequent league, besides two shillings for making the coché; so that, with four men for relief, it was eight shillings for the first league, and six shillings for every subsequent one; and a calculation of the whole amount for nine leagues was rather complicated.

It was half-past one when we reached Merida, and we had been up and on the road since two in the morning. Fortunately, with the easy movement of the coché, Mr. C. had suffered but little. I was tired beyond all measure; but I had, what enabled me to endure any degree of fatigue, a good cot, and was soon asleep.

The next morning we saw my friend Don Simon, who was preparing to go back and join us. He promised, if we returned, to go down with us and assist in a thorough exploration of the ruins. The Spanish vessel was to sail the next day. Toward evening, after a heavy rain, as the dark clouds were rolling away, and the setting sun was tinging them with a rich golden border, we left Merida. At eleven o'clock we reached Hunucama, and stopped in the plaza two hours to feed the horses. While here, a party of soldiers arrived from the port, waving pine torches, having just returned victorious from the siege of Campeachy. They were all young, ardent, well-dressed, and in fine spirits, and full of praises of their general, who, they said, had remained at Sisal to attend a ball, and was coming on as soon as it was over. Resuming our journey, in an hour more we met a train of calêches, with officers in uniform. We stopped, congratulated the general upon his victory at Campeachy; inquired for a United States' sloop-of-war