72 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



assistance. The monkeys showed no fight after the 

 first volley ; several of them must have been 

 wounded, but only the one now lying before us had 

 remained upon the field. 



The Mexicans we had fallen amongst were from 

 the Tzapoteca, principally cochineal - gatherers, and 

 kinder-hearted people there could not well be. They 

 seemed to think they never could do enough for us ; 

 the women especially, and more particularly the two 

 whom we had endeavoured to rescue from the power 

 of the apes. These latter certainly had cause to be 

 grateful. It made us shudder to think of their fate 

 had they not met with us. It was the delay caused 

 by our attacking the brutes that had given the 

 Mexicans time to come up. 



Every attention was shown to us. We were 

 fanned with palm leaves, refreshed with cooling 

 drinks, our wounds carefully dressed and bandaged, 

 our heated, irritated, mosquito-bitten limbs and faces 

 washed with balsam and the juice of herbs : more 

 tender and careful nurses it would be impossible to 

 find. We soon begn to feel better, and were able to 

 sit up and look about us ; carefully avoiding, however, 

 to look at each other, for we could not get reconciled 

 to the horrible appearance of our swollen, bloody, 

 and disgusting features. From our position on the 

 rising ground we had a full view over the frightful 

 swamp, at the entrance of which all our misfortunes 

 had happened. There it lay, steaming like a great 



