was prospering with him.  Yet the message to the judge was that he should come at once to hear this indian’s last words.  With a companion he hastened to the house, and found the man in his hammock, dressed in his best clothes, waiting for them.  He seemed in perfect health.  When they accosted him, he told them he was about to make his will, and say his last words.  They told him that a man in health had a perfect right to make his will, but remonstrated with him for saying that he was about to speak his last words.  He insisted, however, that he was about to die.  In vain they argued with him; he had had his dream.  He gave to one child, house, animals, corn, poultry; to the second, similar gifts; to the third, the same.  Then, having bidden them all farewell, he lay down in his hammock, took no food or drink, spoke to no one, and in six days was dead.  Such cases are not uncommon among Maya indians of pure blood.

When we reached home that night we found Ramon unwell.  Next day, the last of our stay at Tekax he was suffering with fever.  He had done no work while we were absent the day before, and all the packing and doing-up of plaster fell upon the others of the party.  As for him, he collapsed so completely that it scared me.  The ordinary mestizo has no power of resistance; no matter how trifling the disease, he suffers frightfully and looks for momentary dissolution.  It was plain from the first moment that Ramon believed that he had the yellow fever; instead of trying to keep at work or occupying himself with something which would distract his attention, he withdrew into the least-aired corner of a hot room and threw himself onto heap of rugs and blankets, in which he almost smothered himself, cut off from every breath of fresh air.  In vain we urged him to exert himself; in the middle of the afternoon we took him to the doctor, who assured us that the case was in no way serious—­at the worst nothing more than a light attack of malaria.  In the afternoon the jefe, neglecting the padre, invited the judge of primera instancia and myself to accompany him upon a little expedition to the neighboring Cave of the Fifth of May.  We went in a coach, taking Louis, who sat with the driver, as photographer; on the way, we visited the town cemetery, which we found a dreary place, with no effort at adornment and with an air of general neglect.  We passed a number of places where they were boiling sugar, and at one we stopped to see the mode of dipping calabashes for dulces; the fruits are gourd-like, but have considerable soft pulp within the thin, hard crust; several holes are bored through the external shell and the calabashes, slung by strings into groups at the end of a pole, are dipped into the boiling sap or syrup; the dipping is done two or even three times, and the clusters are removed and allowed to drip and dry between dips.  The loose flesh is soaked through with the syrup, making a rich, sweet mass, much used