increased. No one
pretends to ride a trotting horse in Yucatan, for he who does labours
under the imputation of not being able to purchase a pacer. The finest
horses in the country in appearance are those imported; but the Yucatan
horses, though small, are remarkably hardy, require no care, and endure
an extraordinary degree of fatigue.

Night came on, and the plaza was alive with people and brilliant with
lights. On one side, opposite the church, along the corridors of the
houses and in front of them, were rows of tables, with cards and dice,
which were very soon crowded with players, whites and Mestizoes; but
the great scene of attraction was the gathering of Indians in the
centre of the plaza. It was the hour of supper, and the small merchants
had abundant custom for their eatables. Turkeys which had stood tied by
one leg all day, inviting people to come and eat them, were now ready,
of which for a medio two men had a liberal allowance; and I remarked,
what I had heard of, but had not seen before, that grains of cacao
circulated among the Indians as money. Every merchant or vender of
eatables, the most of whom were women, had on the table a pile of these
grains, which they were constantly counting and exchanging with the
Indians. There is no copper money in Yucatan, nor any coin whatever
under a medio, or six and a quarter cents, and this deficiency is
supplied by these grains of cacao. The medio is divided into twenty
parts, generally of five grains each, but the number is increased or
decreased according to the quantity of the article in the market, and
its real value. As the earnings of the Indians are small, and the
articles they purchase are the mere necessaries of life, which are very
cheap, these grains of cacao, or fractional parts of a medio, are the
coin in most common use among them. The currency has always a real
value, and is regulated by the quantity of cacao in the market, and the
only inconvenience, economically speaking, that it has, is the loss of
a certain public wealth by the destruction of the cacao, as in the case
of bank notes. But these grains had an interest independent of all
questions of political economy, for they indicate or illustrate a page
in the history of this unknown and mysterious people. When the
Spaniards first made their way into the interior of Yucatan, they found
no circulating medium, either of gold, or silver, or any other species
of metal, but only grains of cacao; and it