202 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



friends, who kept us company to the ruins, and from 



there we went back to the hacienda of Mr. to 



spend the night before returning to Merida. This gave 

 me an excellent chance to see something of the way of 

 living of the better class — in fact of the swells of the 

 State. 



I must frankly say that it is appalling what barbarians 

 they still are, at least a hundred years behind the age. 



How anybody who, like C , has spent four years in 



the United States and subsequently studied eight years 

 more in France, can have gone back to this semi-bar- 

 baric state passes my comprehension. They eat like pigs, 

 sleep ditto, and have a holy horror of fresh air and cold 

 water. The latter they think is sure to give you a fever, 

 and they keep a scarf over their mouth for fear of 

 allowing the least miasma from entering their lungs. Not 

 one of the decent comforts of life to be found in any of 

 the swell haciendas where we happened to stop, either 

 for breakfast or for the night, and although the over- 

 seers had all been warned we were coming and to be 

 ready for us, there was very little to eat, and they did 

 not seem to know how to make use even of what they 

 had. They gave us some wretched beef and potatoes, 

 while there were pigs (young) and oranges and plantain 

 and all kinds of vegetables, growing all round ; and then 

 the dirt and the fleas and the ticks we got while running 

 round the ruins — all was not conducive to make me 

 look on the bright side of things. 



Still in spite of all this the trip has amply repaid me 

 and I have enjoyed it immensely and learned a great 

 deal. When I have seen the pueblos near Santa Fe, I 

 shall have a pretty good idea of American archaeol- 

 ogy. I will not go into details of the ruins of Uxmal, 



