Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/45

Rh to six feet deep. The rooms are lofty and spacious, though generally barren of ornament, and washed or painted white. The great beams supporting the stone roof are visible overhead, and are painted a different color. The floors are cemented, the courts tiled, and there is no woodwork except in the doors and windows. Rooms of this vault-like character are gloomy and depressing to a stranger, but they at least offer no harbor of refuge

for spiders, centipedes, or scorpions, and one may retire to his hammock with a sense of security not always felt within the tropics. The furniture of these houses is simple and plain, and, except in those of the very rich, there is little beyond what necessity requires. No earthquakes or hurricanes disturb the equanimity of the Yucatecos, their heaviest blows seldom exceeding the limits of temporales, or strong winds. Many of the