At eleven o'clock
the ball broke up; and if the loteria was objectionable, and the
bull-fight brutal, the paseo and baglio redeemed them, and left on our
minds a pleasing impression of the fete of San Cristoval.

One fiesta was hardly ended when another began. On Monday was the great
fete of Todos Santos. Grand mass was said in all the churches, and in
every family prayers were offered up for the souls of the dead; and,
besides the usual ceremonies of the Catholic Church throughout the
world, there is one peculiar to Yucatan, derived from the customs of
the Indians, and called Mukbipoyo. On this day every Indian, according
to his means, purchases and burns a certain number of consecrated
candles, in honour of his deceased relatives, and in memory of each
member of his family who has died within the year. Besides this, they
bake in the earth a pie consisting of a paste of Indian corn, stuffed
with pork and fowls, and seasoned with chili, and during the day every
good Yucateco eats nothing but this. In the interior, where the Indians
are less civilized, they religiously place a portion of this
composition out of doors, under a tree, or in some retired place, for
their deceased friends to eat, and they say that the portion thus set
apart is always eaten, which induces the belief that the dead may be
enticed back by appealing to the same appetites which govern when
living; but this is sometimes accounted for by malicious and skeptical
persons, who say that in every neighbourhood there are other Indians,
poorer than those who can afford to regale their deceased relatives,
and these consider it no sin, in a matter of this kind, to step between
the living and the dead.

We have reason to remember this fete from one untoward circumstance. A
friendly neighbour, who, besides visiting us frequently with his wife
and daughter, was in the habit of sending us fruit and dulces more than
we could eat, this day, on the top of a large, undisposed-of present,
sent us a huge piece of mukbipoyo. It was as hard as an oak plank, and
as thick as six of them; and having already overtasked ourselves to
reduce the pile on the table, when this came, in a fit of desperation
we took it out into the courtyard and buried it There it would have
remained till this day but for a malicious dog which accompanied them
on their next visit; he passed into the courtyard, rooted it up, and,
while we were pointing to the empty platters as our acknowledgment of