Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/159

Rh in the fine collection of Wheaton Seminary, at Norton, Massachusetts. My friend had a "corner" on these ocellated turkeys, having killed and bought over one hundred. All were shipped to Paris, to a large dealer in bird skins, who supplied the museums of Europe. Never before had so many been sent to the museums, though even now there are not a dozen in the United States.

Since my departure, the Doctor has returned to his home in the North. If he can be prevailed upon to prepare his adventures for publication, the record of his three years' sojourn in the solitary forests of Yucatan, the world will be delighted with the richest mine of sylvan and aboriginal lore ever opened to the public.

The events above narrated occurred in 1881. Two years later, I unexpectedly met my friend in New Mexico, and passed a week with him in a cosy log cabin which he had erected in a cañon, nine miles above the ancient city of Santa Fé. There I saw, a thousand miles distant from their habitat, many of the animals (in skins and feathers) which we had collected in the wilds of Yucatan; I slept in the same hammock, and upon the same tiger-skin; and our talk, as we lay awake at night, was almost exclusively of the historic peninsula and its delightful inhabitants.

The correo, or mail-coach, left at two in the afternoon for Merida, with myself and two Yucatecos as passengers. In learning that they were Yucatecos I naturally inferred that they were gentlemen, as they were, and that they would linger at every possible point on the road, which they did, first at a fiesta, where there had been a bull-fight, corrida de toros, and then at a dance. We reached the town house of the General just in time for dinner, stayed with him an hour or two, parted from him with an affectionate embrace, and arrived at Motul at dark. Here my companions ordered supper, refusing to let me pay for it, or share in the expense, saying that I was a stranger and their companion, and that it was their duty to see me through.

We changed mules at Motul, and galloped nearly the whole