1892 
Patzeaaro 
(Michoacan) 
ever in Mexico* 
Patscuaro is a sleepy old town that, until the advent of the R.R, 
was buried in the heart of Michoacan and lived in itself. The people 
are still fanatically religious and the one or two attempts made to 
establish Protestant missions her© have failed owing to the pleasure 
taken by their neighbors in taking frequent shots at them with old 
muskets or other weapons of ancient design but sometimes deadly effect. 
The streets of the tcsra run up and down small hills and are paved 
with cobblestones through which quite a growth of bright green grass 
is to be seen in many places. Wagons and carts are very rarely seen. 
Beyond the first part of the lake lies the old town of Slnsun, one of 
the early mission stations, where a still sleepier town than Patzeuaro 
lies. There in a rude old church, amid some exceptionally primitive 
pictures done by local artists in the early days, hangs a beautiful 
Murillo of the burial of Christ,** hangs there with hand-hewed beams 
and flooring of a frontier Franciscan chapel. The day of my visit, I 
was taken into the deserted chapel by the sacristan, closely followed 
by 6 or 8 half-breed Indiana who jealously watched every movement 
and squatted against the wall behind me while I was viewing the 
picture. It is quite startling to find such a beautiful object of 
art hanging amid such surroundings and, as might be supposed, offers 
of considerable sums have been made for this picture but its beauty 
is so apparent that it has impressed itself upon even the ignorant 
I 
people where it hangs and they have a superstitious regard for it 
which would render it a dangerous matter for anyone to try and take 
itmsray tinder any pretext, 
I obtained a rude stone idol made by these Taraseos of ancient 
times and, on Inquiry for others at Sinsun, was told that they can 
be obtained at times but that the Indians, when they find one in a 
, - 100 * 
