Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-09
ON THE ISTHMUS.
A JAUNr INTO THE INTERIOR OF
YUCATAN.
Riding in a Volan-Hacienda Life
Encounter With Woodticks-
A Remarkable Well-Etc.


Especial Correspondence OF the REcoRD-U UNION. |
YUcATAN (Mexico), May 90, 1888.
Travelling in the interior of Yucatan is
by no means unalloyed delight. owing to
the intense heat of the sun, the wretched
condition of the roads and the presence of
numerous pestiferous insects-not to men,
ton the greater perils of poisonous lizards
and spiders, serpents, centipedes, ct al
To avoid the fercer heats, most journeys
are made by night-on mule-bacl or in
rolans, for lack of any other means of
transportation. This singular vehicle,
which is much like the Cuban uoldnte, has
two great wheels and canvas top, its
body, perched upon high elastic springs,
being placed directly over the axle 1t is
not high enough to sit up in, but upon its
bottom of woven rope is a mattress upon
which you may recline-tirst taking care
to Gust any scorpions, tarantulas or other
would-be c0mpagaoRS dc g0yage. A long
framework extends out behind, upon
which your luggage is secured, and the
little donkeys are harnessed three abreast
one inside the shafts and one on either
side of him. These Yucatan donkeys are
the smallest | have ever seen, but are ex-
ceedingly strong, and make up what they
otherwise lack in size by the remarkable
length of their ears, which they carry
furled along their backs when not unduly
excited.
For our benefit, party was made up,
to visit some famous ruins which lie two
days journey from Merida. According to
custom, we slept the early part of the
night and started about l o'clock A. NJ.
No pen can do justice to the glorles of
cloudless night in the tropics. Mine will
not attempt it, but leave you to imagine
the round, yellow moon, by whose soft
radiance one might read a printed page,
and all the sweet scents and sounds of the
sleeping world through which, reclining
upon our mattresses, we were whirled as in
dream, while the air was heavy with the
odor of orange-howers, blossoming roses,
and wild musk that rioted over the hedge
rows. We thought of Richters hero of
Titan" the youthful Spanish Count
Cesara, who tainted from excess of emotion
uDOL tliS tSl avs Va ISOlti DSllt, hItIG HIS
friends had brought him blindlolded, that
he might the more enjoy the beauties of
nature when they were suddenly revealed
to him, and removed the bandage from his
eyes just as the sun arose from behind the
Alps" as all the gates Of the new heaven
flew open, and the Olympus of nature,
with its thousand reposing gods stood
around him."
However, it is only in novels, fortu-
nately, that well-regulated people faint
from excess of such emotions. BY and by
for US the sun came up in a blaze of glory,
than which the terraces of Isola Belle
could have shown no better. the western
sky flushed crimson, and the delicate
leaves of the mimosa trees turned to quiv-
ering gold. Then the jays and orioles came
out of the scrub, the blackbirds and chick
bills and other songsters common to the
latitude, and lastly the evil-omened vult-
ures (cdthdrtes aura, the species common
to Central America and the West Indies),
and clumsily, as though still half asleep,
settled upon the carcass of donkey that
had fallen by the wayside.
About A. NJ. we reached an important
hemp hacienda, and-unquestioned ard I'M
questioning-our drivers proceeded straight
through its open gate, halted under 4
giant creba tree in front of the casa and
unhitched the donkeys. as though monarchs
of all they surveyed. Another of the pc
culiar features of travelling in Yucatan is
that every haciendado not only makes the
chance guest perfectly welcome to all that
his casa affords, but actually impresses
upon him that his coming had been longed
for and his presence is boon conferred
upon the hacienda and its inmates. There
being no hotels in the country, such
haciendado feels called upon TO make an
inn of his house, and in the annual pro-
vision for necessary expenditures he sets
aside generous sum for the entertainment
of travellers.
To the lonesome communities shut up
for life within the walls of most of these
remote haciendas the advent of a respect
able party, fresh from the outer void, is
indeed blessing, especially to the female
members of the family, who have little
chance from the cradle to the grave of see
ing anything beyond the walls that i'm
prison them. Frequently it is like the
entertaining of "angels unawares," and
girls are given in marriage by the means,
who otherwise would have remained I'M
welded simply because never discovered.
As we tumbled ungracefully ont of the
bouncing volan-descent from which is in
finitely worse, because of its springs, than
climbing down from the upper shelf of a
ship state-room-the master of the casa
came smilingly forth to meet us, followed
by his well-pleased wife and daughters.
Soon a delightful breakfast was served,
consisting of eggs, frejoles, tortillas, choco-
late and oranges, and afterward we were
shown all over the house and its immedi-
ate surroundings. The immense casa is en-
vironed by corridors of stone, precisely
like those seen in the old Spanish missions
in Southern California, and broad alameda
or shaded walk extends past the stable
and out to the gardens beyond. At the
back of the house is a quaint, old-fashioned
clock-tower, and in the patio is fountain
shaded by orange and olive trees, in which
colony of doves COO all day long.
OF course, the hacienda has its chapel,
attended by priest who resides within
the walls. The little sanctuary, which, in
contrast to the glare outside seems cool
and shadowy as well, has some queer fig
ures carved in stone above its doorway,
and its affairs are hung with marvellous
laSC dhu SllbIOlutTl -lHc JlIe-WOrE OF gen.
erations of pious ladies of the hacienda
family.
The estate is large one, having thou
sands of acres planted to hemp, and great
engines are constantly at work crushing
the leaves and scraping the pulp. On
every side stretched broad fields Of sisal,
surrounded by high stone walls with innu-
merable arched gateways Everywhere
limerick crops up out of the sandy soil,
and we noticed that the gardens and Or
ange groves were small, but numerous,
walled with bricks, the better to retain
the moisture.
Among other oddities we observed
long procession of female servants, twenty
five or thirty of them, drawing water from
two deep wells, reaching cenote by an
endless chain of sheepskin buckets over a
large wheel. All day this living machin-
cry came and went, each woman carrying
great cdntdro, or jar, steadied upon her
hip or shoulders. The water irrigates the
orange groves, pineapple patches and coffee
plantations, and the gardens shaded by
bananas, lines and cocoa palms. Without
it this sandy plain would have remained a
vast desert, and with it the hacienda bios
SONS like an oasis, as in reality it is
There are no rivers in Yucatan that |
flow ahova tho orrornd tho ,Oao,,Ia !