374 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Embarcation.— An inundated Plain.— Rio Chico.— The Usumasinta.-— Rio Pal- 

 isada. — Yucatan. — More Revolutions. — Vespers. — Embarcation for the La- 

 guna. — Shooting Alligators. — Tremendous Storm. — Boca Chico. — Lake of 

 Terminos. — A Calm, succeeded by a Tempest. —Arrival at the Laguna. 



At seven o'clock we went down to the shore to 

 embark. The boatmen whom the justice had consult- 

 ed, and for whom he had been so tenacious, were his 

 honour himself and another man, who, we thought, 

 was hired as the cheapest help he could find in the vil- 

 lage. The canoe was about forty feet long, with a toldo 

 or awning of about twelve feet at the stern, and covered 

 with matting. All the space before this was required 

 by the boatmen to .work the canoe, and, with all our 

 luggage under the awning, we had but narrow quarters. 

 The seeming lake on which we started was merely a 

 large inundated plain, covered with water to the depth 

 of three or four feet ; and the justice in the stern, and 

 his assistant before, walking in the bottom of the ca- 

 noe, with poles against their shoulders, set her across. 

 At eight o'clock we entered a narrow, muddy creek, 

 not wider than a canal, but very deep, and with the 

 current against us. The setting-pole could not touch 

 bottom, but it was forked at one end, and, keeping 

 close to the bank, the bogador or rower fixed it against 

 the branches of overhanging trees and pushed, while 

 the justice, whose pole had a rude hook, fastened it to 

 other branches forward and pulled. In this way, with 

 no view but that of the wooded banks, we worked 

 slowly along the muddy stream. In turning a short 

 bend, suddenly we saw on the banks eight or ten alli- 

 gators, some of them twenty feet long, huge, hideous 



