These sheep may be camp pets, but their days of preferment depend largely upon the 

 ability of the commissary department to supply other stewing- ingredients. The training of 

 burros and sheep as pets serves to break the monotony of camp life during periods of inaction 

 in Mexico. Hours are spent and patience tested while off duty in trying to teach young 

 lambs old tricks. 



In the slip of the canal are the boats 

 owned by the Indians living - in the little 

 group of three or four houses belonging 

 to our friends, who combine the voca- 

 tions of boatmen, gardeners, and fisher- 

 men, the latter plying huge nets that seem 

 oversized for the tiny quarry inhabiting 

 the desolate lakes. The gardener works 

 with the primitive tools of his ancestors, 

 and the boatman takes extravagant pride 

 in his dugout chaloiipe, which is his an- 

 cient water vehicle, and also prizes his 

 passenger canoe and freight barge, if his 

 family is rich enough to own them. 



GARDENS BUILT ON HYACINTH 

 FOUNDATIONS 



Without moving from Jose's dooryard, 

 we may by good fortune see a neighbor 

 constructing a "floating" garden, and we 

 are carried back without effort several 

 centuries into the past. From the canals 



the busy Aztecs throw great masses of 

 water hyacinth upon the strip of bog to 

 the thickness of a foot or more. The 

 water hyacinth, which unfortunately does 

 not fit into the ancient picture, is pro- 

 vided with large cellular floats — a natural 

 provision for its dissemination, which 

 has made it an obstruction to navigation 

 in some of our southern rivers. 



Upon this bed of floats they spread a 

 layer of muck, dredged from the bottom 

 of the canals. Perhaps before the plant 

 floats have decayed, these gardens may 

 drift away should the water rise. Even 

 now on portions of the lake square miles 

 of vegetation cover the surface like the 

 "sudd" of the Nile, and the canal roads 

 have to be staked at the sides to keep 

 them from disappearing. Great drifts of 

 microscopic vegetation cover the stag- 

 nant water of the open lakes with a man- 

 tle lovely in color, while the bottom is 



