furnishes power for mills, factories and lighting-plant, and is crossed several times by picturesque, roofed bridges, in the shelter of which one may spend hours in watching the dashing water, foaming cascades, curious potholes worn in the rocky banks, and the passing Indians.  Most Mexican towns are contented with one plaza; this one has three, following each other closely, separated only by single lines of narrow buildings.  They are neatly planted, and supplied with bandstand and monuments.  The town is electric-lighted and several hotels had been lately put in readiness to receive the crowd of visitors expected with the completion of the railroad, a matter of a few months later.

The prefecto of Uruapan and jefe politico of the district is the son-in-law of Governor Mercado, and to him we bore a special letter from his father-in-law.  The old gentleman had been insistent that we should return by Capacuaro and Cheran, indian towns.  He said that at the former we should find a mogote (mound or heap of stones and dirt) which every traveler should see, while at the latter Lumholtz had secured some skulls of exceptional interest, and that we should do the same.  As our time was short, we asked the prefecto to send a messenger to Cheran with orders to dig some skulls and have them ready against the time of our arrival.  That official expressed delight in doing our bidding, and we saw the messenger summoned and the order placed in his hands, with full direction as to its delivery.

[Illustration:  INDIAN SPEAR-THROWER; LAKE PATZCUARO]

Meantime, there were objects of interest for us in Uruapan itself.  The town is famous for its lacquer work, made with aje, like that of Chiapa.  Gourds are ornamented, fruit-forms are colored after nature, bowls made from fruit shells are elaborately decorated, all quite like the Chiapa work.  What is characteristic of Uruapan are the placques and table-tops of wood, decorated with floral designs in brilliant colors, upon a background of dark-green, pink, blue, yellow, or black.  This art is in the hands of a few persons, some pure indians.  Visiting them, we found the wooden placques and table-tops are brought from one of the mountain villages of the Tarascans; they are first covered thickly with the background color; upon this the pattern is pencilled and then cut out in the lacquered surface; the color, mixed with oil and aje, as with other substances, is then applied with the finger-tips to fill the cut patterns; the lustre is then brought out by careful rubbing.  The work is striking, and is prized throughout the Republic.

In the same quarter of the town, where this local industry is carried on, are many goitrous persons.  The disease seems to be confined to the one district, but there perhaps one-half the people have it, most of them to but a slight degree.  Occasionally the swelling is notable, and in the families affected we find, as usual, deaf-mutism.