MEXICO AND INDIA 195 



off, in a wagon — what they call here a " volacache," a 

 leather apron stretched upon a frame and suspended on 

 two huge wheels, like the Cuban volantes, only with 

 short shafts. This machine is drawn by three mules 

 which go off at full gallop and keep it up all the way 

 through thick and thin, puddles and dry, thanks to the 

 howling and whipping of the Indian driver, who sits up 

 in front while the passengers are extended full length 

 on a mattress laid upon the frame of the wagon. The 

 whole is covered with canvas to keep you dry and cool, 

 and you hold on the best way you can on the standards 

 of the cover to keep from going up to the ceiling. 



The road is perfectly straight from Progresso to Mer- 

 ida, as flat as my hand, the whole rise in twenty-seven 

 miles being about five feet ; it is just like the roads in 

 Key West ; in fact my ride to Merida showed me what 

 I had long suspected, that the whole of Yucatan was 

 built like the Florida Peninsula of coral limestone. For 

 about three miles inland it is nothing but a succession 

 of low flats with pools lined with mangroves and heads 

 of flat coral limestone, just as you find them at the east- 

 ern end of the Island of Key West. All this comes in 

 admirably well with my ideas of the old course of the 

 Gulf Stream and of its action in building up not only 

 Florida but Yucatan. It will fill up my Blake chapter 

 admirably well, and had I not seen anything else than 

 this my stoppage in Yucatan would have filled my object. 



On arriving at Merida I was driven at once to most 



elegant quarters which C , who was in the class below 



me, engaged for me : in fact I have at my disposal here 

 a huge parlor just now unoccupied, one of the finest 

 houses in Merida, where I sleep, and take my meals at 

 the Consul's. I am just on the Plaza with the cathedral 



