visitors. Even the more distant villages sent contingents of sightseers; but these were more formal occasions, and our visitors, headed by the Alcalde of their village, entered the house in somewhat stately fashion, and seating themselves on the floor—chairs being scarce—would make polite speeches and ask what progress Don Alfredo was making with his work. These conversations would promise to be of interest, as our visitors always professed to know much about the monuments, and to appreciate the reason why foreigners took so much interest in them, until some stray remark showed that our minds were travelling on totally different planes of thought—theirs, I fear, being weighed down with an unmovable belief in buried treasure. Then the conversation would flag, and the pauses become longer, until we produced a brandy-bottle, when they all stood up and solemnly drank our health, and, that ceremony over, took leave of us with the same formal politeness and filed out of the door.
But the greater number of our visitors were, I am sorry to say, ill and suffering persons who came seeking "remedios" for their complaints. We did what we could to help them, although most of their troubles were far beyond the reach of our simple remedies, but the belief in our skill was flattering and often really pathetic. They were genuinely grateful for the smallest relief we could afford them, and would always return to thank us, bringing gifts of chickens, eggs, or cigars. One poor woman told me that for nine years she had eagerly scanned the faces of visitors to the ruins, hoping that Don Alfredo might again be amongst them, for he had given her the only medicine which had ever done her any good. It seems that he had dosed her with calomel, which gave her temporary relief, and now, alas! we had not a grain of calomel with us. However, no remedy would have availed in her case—her malady had clearly passed beyond all hope of cure. As she was very poor, I engaged her nominally to do odd day's work in the kitchen, but really to give her the benefit of our surplus food. She was curiously ignorant, even of such a simple matter as how to clean a saucepan; but her's was such an uncomplaining gentle nature that I grew quite fond of her, and in return she showed me every little attention in her power, and never came without a few fresh eggs or a bundle of cigarettes or some other little present which she thought would give me pleasure.
I had one patient, a Coban Indian, who had come with Mr. Dieseldorff, who rewarded my efforts on his behalf not only by getting well of a bad wound in his foot, the result of a blow from a pickaxe, but also by resisting the temptation to apply a chili-pepper to the wound, which he assured me was a splendid remedy, as you could feel its effects at once. At first he was exceedingly cynical about my treatment, and regarded the carbolic acid lotion disdainfullv, but to his credit be it said that as soon as he realized
