been on time, might have done some work.  The agente showed us the historic picture in the old church; it is the portrait of a clergyman, whose influence did much to quell the insurrection in 1713.  More interesting to us than the old picture, were groups of indians, kneeling and praying.  When they knelt, they touched their foreheads and faces to the ground, which they saluted with a kiss.  Having assumed the attitude of prayer, they were oblivious to all around them, and, curiously, their prayers were in the native language.  The town-house was placed at the disposition of our party, but the agente’s bed, in his own house, was given to me.  As I sat writing at the table in his room, the whole town government—­a dozen or so in number—­stalked in.  Most of them wore the heavy black chamaras made by the Chamula indians.  These were so long that they almost swept the ground.  The faces of the men were dark and wild, and their hair hung in great black shocks down upon their shoulders and backs.  In their hands they held their long official staves.  Advancing to the table where I sat, in the order of their rank, they saluted me, kissing my hand; arranging themselves in a half-circle before my table, the presidente placed before me a bowl filled with eggs, each wrapped in corn-husks, while the first alcalde deposited a cloth filled with a high pile of hot tortillas; a speech was made in Tzendal, which was translated by the second official, in which they told me that they appreciated our visit; it gave them pleasure that such important persons should come from such a distance to investigate the life and manners of their humble town; they trusted that our errand might be entirely to our wishes, and that, in leaving, we might bear with us a pleasant memory.  They begged us to accept the poor presents they had brought, while they assured us that, in them, we had our thousand most obedient servants.  And this in Cancuc—­the town where we were to have met our death!  At night, the fires on a hundred hills around us made a magnificent display, forming all sorts of fantastic combinations and outlines.  In the evening, the son of the agente, who had been to Tenango with a friend, came home in great excitement.  He was a lively young fellow of eighteen years.  At the river-crossing, where they arrived at five in the evening, a black cow, standing in the river, scared their horses so that they could not make them cross; the boy emptied his revolver at the animal, but with no effect; it was clearly a vaca bruja—­witch cow; an hour and a half was lost before they succeeded in getting their horses past with a rush.

[Illustration:  THE TOWN GOVERNMENT; CANCUC]