nothing. Entering the house, we fell into
fine large hammocks; and Senor Trego told us that we were welcome on
our own account, even without the recommendation of the padre Rodriguez
of Xul. This gave us a key to the mystery. The padre Rodriguez had
given us a letter to some one on this road, which we had accidentally
left behind, and did not know the name of the person to whom it was
addressed; but we now remembered that the cura, in speaking of him, had
said deliberately, as if feeling the full import of his words, that he
was rich and his friend; and we remembered, too, that the padre had
frankly read to us the letter before giving it, in which, not to
compromise himself with a rich friend, he had recommended us as worthy
of Senor Trego's best offices upon our paying all costs and expenses;
but we had reason to believe that the honest padre had reversed the
custom of more polished lands, and that his private advices had given a
liberal interpretation to his cautious open recommendation. At all
events, Senor Trego made us feel at once that there was to be no
reserve in his hospitality; and when he ordered some lemonade to be
brought in immediately, we did not hesitate to suggest the addition of
two fowls boiled, with a little rice thrown in.

While these were in preparation, Senor Trego conducted us round to look
at his establishment. He had large sugar-works, and a distillery for
the manufacture of habanera; and in the yard of the latter was a
collection of enormous black hogs, taking a siesta in a great pool of
mud, most of them with their snouts barely above water, a sublime
spectacle for one interested in their lard and tallow, and Senor Trego
told us that in the evening a hundred more, quite equal to these, would
come in to scramble for their share of the bed. To us the principal
objects of interest were in the square, being a well, covered over and
dry, dug nearly to the depth of six hundred feet without reaching
water, and the great seybo trees, which had been planted by Senor Trego
himself; the oldest being of but twelve years' growth, and more
extraordinary for its rapid luxuriance than that before referred to as
existing at Ticul.

At four o'clock we resumed our journey, and toward dark, passing some
miserable huts in the suburbs, we reached the new village of Iturbide,
standing on the outposts of civilization, the great point to which the
tide of emigration was rolling, the Chicago of Yucatan.

The reade