374 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



but on the road little things were constantly occur- 

 ring in which he showed an ingenuity and a fertil- 

 ity of resource that saved us from many annoy- 

 ances. He had been a soldier, and at the siege of 

 Campeachy had received a sabre-cut in a fleshy 

 part of the body, which rather intimated that he 

 was moving in an opposite direction when the sabre 

 overtook him. Having received neither pay for his 

 services nor pension for his wound, he was a little 

 disgusted with patriotism and fighting for his coun- 

 try. He was by trade a blacksmith, which busi- 

 ness, on the recommendation of Dona Joaquina 

 Peon, he had given up to enter our service. His 

 usefulness and capacity were first clearly brought 

 out at Kabah. Knowing the character of the In- 

 dians, speaking their language, and being but a few 

 degrees removed from them by blood, he could get 

 out of them twice as much work as I could. Him, 

 too, they could ask questions about us, and lighten 

 labour by the indulgence of social humour, and very 

 soon I had only to give instructions as to what 

 work was to be done, and leave the whole manage- 

 ment of it to him. This doubled our effective force, 

 as we could work with two sets of Indians in dif- 

 ferent places at the same time, and gave Albino a 

 much greater value than that of a common servant. 

 He had one bad habit, which was that of getting 

 the fever and ague. This he was constantly fall- 

 ing into, and, with all our efforts, we could never 

 break him of it, but, unluckily, we never set him a 



