rank. They appear to thrive in every locality and under all conditions.
Like vicious bulldogs, they are especially fond of strangers, and
never lose an opportunity of showing their domestic hospitality. In
connection with the flea family there is a very small black variety,
the name of which in Spanish is pronounced nēwaw. They usually
attack the feet, especially of the natives--for they wear no shoes--and
burrow in under the skin around the toenails or at the bottom of the
foot, and remaining there they deposit a great number of eggs which
are surrounded by a thin tissue similar to that which covers a ball of
spider eggs. The presence of this troublesome insect is not noticeable
until the eggs begin to enlarge, when there is an irritating itching
sensation followed by pain and swelling. The skin has to be punctured
and the sack of eggs removed,--not a pleasant operation, especially
when there are forty or fifty at one time. These insects thrive at all
seasons, and, next to the omnipresent wood-tick, are one of the worst
torments extant. I have frequently seen natives whose feet were so
swollen and sore that they could scarcely walk. At recurrent seasons
there is a fly that deposits a diminutive egg underneath the skin of
human beings by means of a needlelike organ, and the larva of which
produces an extremely disagreeable sensation, sometimes followed by
fever.
This does not by any means exhaust the list of disagreeable insects
and reptiles, but enough are mentioned to give the reader some idea of
the bodily torments to which both the inhabitants and the visitor are
constantly subjected.
Having obtained a fair idea of the existing conditions we may now
return to our friend Mr. B., and then wend our journey homeward. After
the visit to the hacienda of the wealthy Spanish gentleman (who, by
the way, brought most of his wealth from Spain), he was perhaps the
least concerned of any man in Mexico as to whether vanilla, rubber,
coffee or anything else could be profitably grown there. Like Dickens
with his Dora, he could see nothing but "Carmencita" everywhere, and
no matter upon what line or topic the conversation turned it was sure
to end in the thought of some new charm in the black-eyed beauty. She
was not only a flower, but a whole garden of flowers, too beautiful and
too delicate to subsist long in that vulgar soil. She longed for the
life, excitement and companionship of the friends of her schooldays in
America, compared with which the humdrum monotony of a Mexican hacienda
seemed like exile. With ample means and social standing as an armor
the conquest was therefore a predestined conclusion. The conquering
knight returned home with me, but in less than seven weeks he was back
again, though not by the way of the loitering route down the _laguna_.
In the following November he returned again to America, bringing with
him the coveted treasure whom he installed in a beautiful home in
America's greatest metropolis. The union of these two kindred souls
was a happy event. Their home has since been blessed with the advent
of two lovely girls and one boy. It is therefore no longer true that
no American fortune-hunter has ever returned from the rural districts
of southeastern Mexico richer than when he went there; for here is an
instance where one of the most priceless of all gems was captured and
borne triumphantly away from a land which appears to abound in nothing
but pestilence and torment.
Verily may it be said that this part of Mexico whose people,
possibilities, peculiarities, pestilences and pests I have briefly
sketched in the foregoing pages, was made for Mexicans, and so far as I
am personally concerned, they are everlastingly welcome to it.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.