the Civil War. And always the result has been in favor of the black man. Our slaves of the South were almost always well fed, as a rule they were not overworked, on many plantations they were rarely beaten, it was usual to give them a little spending money now and then and to allow them to leave the plantation at least once a week. Like the slaves of Yucatan they were cattle of the ranch, but, unlike the former, they were treated as well as cattle. In the South before the War there were not so many plantations where the negroes died faster than they were born. The lives of our black slaves were not so hard but that they could laugh, sometimes—and sing. But the slaves of Yucatan do not sing!
I shall never forget my last day in Merida. Merida is probably the cleanest and most beautiful little city in all Mexico. It might even challenge comparison in its white prettiness with any other in the world. The municipality has expended vast sums on paving, on parks and on public buildings, and over and above this the henequen kings not long since made up a rich purse for improvements extraordinary. My last afternoon and evening in Yucatan I spent riding and walking about the wealthy residence section of Merida. Americans might expect to find nothing of art and architecture down on this rocky Central American peninsula, but Merida has its million dollar palaces like New York, and it has miles of them set in miraculous gardens.
Wonderful Mexican palaces! Wonderful Mexican gardens! A wonderful fairyland conjured out of slavery—slavery of Mayas, and of Yaquis. Among the Yucatan slaves there are ten Mayas to one Yaqui, but of the two the story of the Yaquis appealed to me the more. The Mayas are dying in their own land and with their own people. The Yaquis are exiles. They
