ten or twelve gentlemen waiting audience.  The great man himself had disappeared into an office which opened onto this reception-room, but the door of which was not closed.  All waited patiently; from time to time the usher-secretary crept noiselessly to the office door and peeked through the key-hole to see whether the executive was ready.  Finally, at 3:35 the word was given, and the privilege of the first audience was granted to myself.  During these days of waiting—­something which has never occurred with any of the many governors of states in Mexico upon whom I have called—­I had expressed my surprise to a gentleman of wealth and prominence in the city, at the governor’s compelling me to wait for audience.  With some feeling, this gentleman replied, “But, sir, you are fortunate; you are a stranger, and bring letters from cabinet officials; many of the best gentlemen in this city have been kept waiting months in order to see Governor Canton in regard to business of the highest consequence to themselves and to the public.”  I will do the governor justice by saying that he listened with apparent interest to my statement, and that he gave orders that the letters which I wished, to local authorities, should be prepared without delay.  Thanking him, I withdrew, and by five o’clock the secretary handed me the desired documents; we had lost four days.  Early the following morning, as no cargadors were at hand, our little company resolved itself into a band of carriers and we took our baggage and equipment to the Peto station.  The securing of tickets and the checking of baggage was quite an undertaking, and if the train had started at the time announced, we should have missed it; however, we were in good season, and left something less than an hour late.  The country through which we passed was an improvement upon what we had seen before.  The trees were greener, and many flowers were in bloom.  From the train, we saw a group of pyramids at one point, and an isolated pyramid at another.  Some of the indian towns through which we passed, with curious Maya names, were interesting.  So, too, were the vendors at the station.  Hot tamales, “pura masa” (pure dough), as Manuel said, slippery and soapy in feeling and consistency, done up in banana leaves and carefully tied, seemed to be the favorite goods; far better were split tortillas with beans inside and cheese outside; beautiful red bananas and plump smooth yellow ones were offered in quantity.  We lost an hour at the station where trains met, reaching Tekax at eleven.  We walked up to the hot plaza, where we found the town offices closed, and had difficulty in even leaving our stuff with the police.  At a restaurant we had a fair breakfast, for which we paid a peso each person.  As there were no signs of the town officials, we dropped into the curato to see the priest, to whom we presented the bishop’s letter.  He was a Spaniard, who had been in this country only a few months, and despises it heartily.  He was