moreover, arrangements had been made for further supplies to overtake us on the road. However, the men had not been satisfied, and each one had thought it necessary to bring with him an extra thirty or forty pounds' weight of food on his own account. As a rule, it is no doubt the better plan to let Indians cater for themselves, but then there is always the danger that at the end of a few days they will tell you that all their food is finished, and propose a halt whilst they send to their homes or hunt round for supplies; and as time is of no importance to them, the delays may be endless. On the other hand, if you undertake to cater for them they never quite believe that you mean to go on doing so, and look on your supply of food as something to be feasted on at once, and the capacity of an Indian's stomach for holding totoposte (parched corn cake) is a marvel to any white man.
Some years ago, when starting on a ten days' journey through the forest from Coban to the Lake of Peten, I took a large quantity of totoposte with me, not to be eaten on the way, as each man carried his own food for the journey, but to enable me, when I reached the lake, to push on at once to the ruins of Tikál. The loads were most carefully arranged, and I set out feeling confident that no one was overburdened; but never in all my experience was there more growling and groaning. I began to think that in some unaccountable way we must have made a mistake in the weights, and I felt obliged to pick up some more carriers on the way to ease my men of part of their burdens; nevertheless the groaning and the grumbling did not cease. After a long and wearisome march we arrived at the village of Saclúc, and set about re-arranging our cargoes for the journey to Tikál. Then only did I find out that the totoposte had been secretly taken out of the packs and eaten during our march, and that the bulky burdens under which the mozos had been groaning were half made up of sticks and dead leaves. So skilfully had the change been made that even Gorgonio had been deceived, and there was no avoiding a delay of three or four days whilst a fresh and far more expensive supply of totoposte was being baked.
I was not going to be taken in by the same trick on this journey, and made sure that the reserve stores of totoposte should not be tampered with; but there was no doubt that the mozos had really overburdened themselves with the extra food they had chosen to bring with them, and the result was that at first we only crawled along, and the best part of each day was spent in resting and eating. One mozo in particular, named Domingo, absolutely appalled me with his prodigious appetite. I had brought him with me from Coban, because he stated that he knew of some stone idols in a cave close by the track we were to follow. His account of the discovery was that, some years previously, whilst travelling through the forest from San Luis to
