with a force of but nine men; that it would be extended to San Cristobal and San Bartolome; that he was no engineer, but that he could tell quite well when a road was passable for a cart.  We found him greatly interested in a congress which he had called of persons interested in labor questions.  Among the questions which he hoped to see considered was the abolition of the system of peonage, which still exists in full development in the state.

Less than three leagues from Tuxtla Gutierrez is Chiapa, famous for the brightly painted gourds and calabash vessels there manufactured and sent out to all parts of the republic.  Toys, rattles, cups, and great bowl-basins are among the forms produced.  We visited a house where five women were making pretty rattles from little crook-necked gourds.  The workers sat upon the floor, with their materials and tools before them.  The first one rubbed the body of the dry gourds over with an oil paint.  These paints are bought in bulk and mixed upon a flat slab, with a fine-grained, smooth, hard pebble as a grinder, with aje and a white earth dug near the road between Chiapa and Tuxtla Gutierrez.  The aje is a yellow, putty-like mass which gives a brilliant, lacquer-like lustre; the white earth causes the color to adhere to the surface to which it is applied.  The second woman rubbed the neck of the gourd with green paint; the third painted the line of junction of the two colors with white, using a brush; the fourth brought out the lustre of the before dull object by rubbing it upon a pad of cotton cloth upon her knee, giving a final touch by careful rubbing with a tuft of cotton-wool; with a brush, the final worker rapidly painted on the lustrous surface delicate floral or geometric decoration.  Though representing so much delicate and ingenious labor, these pretty toys were sold at the price of two for a medio (three cents in United States currency).

The aje which gives the brilliant lustre to this work deserves more than a passing notice.  It is made chiefly at San Bartolome and is secured from an insect, a sort of plant-louse, which lives upon the blackthorn and related trees.  The insect is found only in the wet season, is small, though growing rapidly, and is of a fiery-red color, though it coats itself over with a white secretion.  It lives in swarms, which form conspicuous masses.  These are gathered in vessels, washed to remove the white secretion, boiled, crushed, and strained through a cloth; an oily matter, mixed with blood (?) and water passes out, which is boiled to drive off the water and to concentrate the oily mass.  This is then washed in trays, to rid it of the blood, and made up into balls, which are sold at ten or twelve centavos (five or six cents) a pound.  It is a putty-like substance, with a handsome yellow color.  We have already stated that it is ground up with dry paints to be rubbed on the object which is to be adorned, and that the brilliant lustre is developed by gentle and rapid friction.