good-bye politely, and hastened away as fast as if he had a note to pay, and only five minutes more left to pay it in, and no money to pay it with. His boys remained, and waited on us. One of our party offered him a couple of cigars, which he passed over to a little girl of his tenant's, being too much in a hurry, if not top much of a gentleman, to smoke. So our primitive gorilla disappears in a farmer of to-day. So will all scientific humbugs disappear.
The chief business of this place is the raising of jenequen, or hemp, pronounced hencken. It has the thick, green, sharp leaf of the cactus. A large traffic has sprung up in it at this port; not less than five thousand bales are exported annually to New York, or two million pounds. It is used in making ropes, and has a growing and extensive value. It is worth six cents a pound here, and pays about ninety-five per cent, on its cost of culture, so that it is a very valuable article of commerce. Its finer varieties are as soft as silk. It is destined to be more and more a source of union between Yucatan and the United States.
We roll in the warm surf of the sea—a Christmas luxury not enjoyed at Newport and Long Branch, but which was delightful at Progresso—and dine at our friend, the collector's.
There is no church in the place, and this chief man, though a Romanist, invites me to establish our church here. The chief corner of the grand plaza is still unoccupied, and the Methodist cathedral can be built there. It shows our opportunities, at least, and the liberality of this people, though perhaps it is too much like the sort we find in Western towns, where they will give any body a church lot in order to make the other lots the more valuable. Yet these simple-hearted natives ought to have a Sunday-school and Christian teachings, songs, and ordinances; and we hope some time to see the offer accepted, and such a church flourishing at Progresso. Some Christian body will undoubtedly take possession of the field, as a preliminary to the city near by, which is white unto this harvest. Whoever enters into this inheritance will find a pleasant possession.
Our day's delights have kept us beyond the hour appointed by
