[Illustration:  READY FOR CHURCH; TEHUANTEPEC]

[Illustration:  THE WIDE ROAD; TEHUANTEPEC TO JUCHITAN]

Resuming our journey, we struck out upon the highway which parallels the coast.  Almost immediately, the road changed from a fair country cart-road to a road remarkable at once for its straightness, breadth and levelness.  It was, however, dreadfully hot and dusty, and was bordered on both sides with a tiresome and monotonous growth of low, thorn-bearing trees, with occasional clumps of palms.  We ate dinner at Juchitan, in a little eating-house conducted by a Japanese!  A little beyond that important indian centre, we saw a puma pace forth from the thicket; with indescribably graceful and slow tread it crossed the dusty road and disappeared in the thicket.  In the morning we had startled flocks of parrots, which rose with harsh cries, hovered while we passed, and then resettled on the same trees where they had been before.  In the evening we saw pairs of macaws flying high, and as they flew over our heads they looked like black crosses sharp against the evening sky.  At evening we reached Guvino, a dreadful town, in the population of which there seems to be a negro strain.  We stopped with the presidente, in whose veins flowed Spanish, indian, and negro blood.  In his one-roomed house besides ourselves there slept the owner, his wife, two daughters, one with a six-weeks baby, a son, and two young men—­friends of the family.

Turning north the next day, onto the Niltepec road, we wandered from our trail, losing five leagues of space and more than three hours of time.  The country through which we passed was terribly dry; there were no running streams.  We crossed the bed of one dried river after another—­streaks of sand and pebbles.  The people in the villages near these dried river-beds dug holes a foot or two deep into this sand and gravel and thus got water.  At the place where we camped for the night, Suspiro Ranch, a new house was being palm-thatched.  All the men and boys of the neighborhood were helping; the labor was carefully divided; some were bringing in great bundles of the palm leaves; others pitched these up to the thatchers, who were skilfully fitting them under and over the poles of the roof framework and then beating them firmly home.  Many of the helpers had come considerable distances and spent the night, so that we shared our room with quite a dozen men and boys, while the women and children slept in another house.

Passing through Zanatepec, we stopped for Sunday at Tanatepec.  Here we found ourselves again upon the low coast road.  It was, however, our last point of low altitude, as from there we struck inland over a higher, cooler, and more interesting mountain road.  At Zanatepec we first saw the marimba played.  This musical instrument, unquestionably African in name and origin, is hardly found north of Chiapas, but is extremely common through Central