We rode slowly, and the poor, creaking vehicle threatened to fall to pieces every moment, but we reached the station safely.  It was scarcely ten when we arrived at Merida and took our old quarters at the Moromuzo.  Our invalid at once lay down, and neither threats nor bribes would move him; he looked as if he suffered, but he insisted on doing so; going to the nearest drug store we described his symptoms to the apothecary, who assured us that the case could not be serious, and supplied a remedy which was rapid and energetic in its action, though our sick man insisted that he was not improved.

We were now but waiting for notice of a vessel sailing from Progreso for Coatzacoalcos.  Writing, errands, visits, filled up the time, but it was dreary waiting.  The muddy streets, the heavy, moist, fetid air, the outrageous prices, the mosquitoes—­all combined to make a disagreeable experience.  We worried through three days, and still no announcement of a boat.  In a visit made to the bishop, to tell him of our kind reception in Tekax and to make inquiry regarding books printed in the Maya, we were again warned by the prelate to be most careful of our health; that day, he told us, two of our countrymen, working at the electric-light plant, had been stricken with yellow fever and would surely die.  The second day we were in town the boys met Don Poncio, one of the Spanish comrades of the padre at Tekax, who, with another of the household, had run away, leaving the good priest alone, as the young fellow who had been ill in the room next ours developed a full case of yellow fever the day we left, and was dead before night.

One day we went to a cenote for a bath.  Passing through a house into a rather pretty garden, we came to a stairway, partly natural and partly cut in the solid rock, which we descended; we found ourselves in a natural cave, with a pool of blue, transparent water.  A paved platform surrounded one side of the cave, and near its rear edge was a bench of masonry, which was continued along the side of the pool by a similar bench, cut partly from the living rock.  The water was so clear that we could see, by the light coming from above, to its very bottom, and could detect little black fishes, like bull-heads, against the sand and pebbles.  The pool was irregular in shape, so that a portion of it was out of sight behind the rock-wall, beyond which we found that there was a paved floor and benching similar to that in the portion which we had entered.  We had a delightful and refreshing swim in this underground pool, but it was noticeable that, after we came out into the air, there was no evaporation of water from the body, and towels were absolutely necessary for drying.  Such cenotes are found in many parts of Yucatan, and form the regular bathing-places, and are often the only natural supplies of drinking-water.  Of streams above ground there are practically none in the whole peninsula.