drumming noise.  It was due to women who were beating cotton.  At the first house we visited we found three women all busily occupied.  An old woman sitting in the doorway was spinning thread; a second, somewhat younger woman with a baby in a blanket on her back, sitting on the ground, was weaving cloth; a third woman sat, with a great cushion of moss in a bag of matting on the ground before her, over which was spread a deer-skin on which was laid raw cotton, which she briskly beat with beaters made of five or six divergent sticks fastened together at one end.  Such beating sticks are called mapaho; one is held in each hand, and the beating is briskly done, alternately with one and the other; the beating is intended to spread the raw cotton into a thin and even sheet before it is spun into thread.  Returning to the town-house, we began our work, but were soon interrupted.  The town is situated on a slope over which the houses are scattered.  From the porch of the municipal house where we sat, we could see several huts upon the slope above.  Groups of women and children gathered on the little terraces before the houses to look down upon us at our work.  The presidente and other officials had gone to bring us subjects, when we heard an outcry upon one of these terraces.  A man cried out to the officials; struggled, apparently with a woman, then fell.  The police rushed up the path.  A moment later a surging crowd of a dozen persons were struggling together with cries and shouts.  In spite of the commands of the segundo secretario, we started for the scene of the disturbance, but long before we reached the spot, met a big topil with his head cut open and blood streaming down his face, soaking his garments.  His arm was thrown around another man’s neck, whose wrist he held, dragging him thus a prisoner toward the jail.  Two others followed, holding a bad-looking little man between them.  The two had fought, and when the topil tried to take them, the little man, seizing a rock, split open his head.  The two persons were thrust into the jail and a guard set.  Great effort was made to find the stone with which the blow was dealt, in order that it might be used as evidence.  The secretario told the topil not to staunch nor wash the wound.  With natural curiosity, the presidente and other men were clustered around the jail, looking in at the prisoners, when the segundo secretario ordered them from the door.

This man is a strange one.  He is a Cuicatec, who married a Chinatec wife.  He is little, but important.  He ever carries a queer old sword.  When he first appeared before us, he impressively said, “No tengas cuidado” (Have no care.) He told us that our comfort and our orders should be cared for, even though we were in a pueblo of mere brutes, unreasoning beings; he should charge himself and the officials with our needs.  There were scarce three hours of daylight in the afternoon, and