visit, Coatlan.  The road seemed endless, the ascent interminable; the town itself impressed us as exceptionally mean and squalid, and we stopped only long enough to eat a miserable dinner of eggs with chili and tortillas.  The women here wore native dress.  Several were clad as the Zapotec women from here to Tehuantepec, but a few were dressed in striking huipilis of native weaving, with embroidered patterns, and had their black hair done up in great rings around their heads, bright strips of cloth or ribbon being intermingled in the braiding.  Literally and figuratively shaking the dust of the Mixe towns from our feet, we now descended into the Zapotec country.  We were oppressed by a cramped, smothered feeling as we descended from the land of forested mountains and beautiful streams.  At evening we reached San Miguel, the first Zapotec settlement, a little group of houses amid coffee plantings.

[Illustration:  FIESTA OF SAN MARCOS; JUQUILA]

[Illustration:  BRIDGE OF VINES, NEAR IXCUINTEPEC]

At the first indian house, we asked if we might have shelter for the night.  The owner cordially answered, “Como no? senores,” (Why not? sirs).  He explained, however, that there was nought to eat.  After eating elsewhere, we made our way back to our lodging-place, a typical Zapotec hut, a single room, with dirt-floor, walls of canes or poles, and thatch of grass.  The house contained a hammock and two beds of poles, comforts we had not known for days.  I threw myself into the hammock; Ernst lay down upon one of the beds; the man and woman, squatting, were husking corn for our horses; a little girl was feeding a fire of pine splints, built upon the floor, which served for light.  As they worked and we rested the man asked that question which ever seems of supreme importance to Mexican indians, “Como se llama Ud. senor?” (What is your name, sir?).  “Ernst,” replied our spokesman, to whom the question was addressed. “Y el otro?” (And the other?), pointing to me.  I replied for myself, “Federico.”  The man seemed not to catch the word and badly repeated it after me. “No, no,” said the much quicker woman, “Federico!  Federico! si, senor, nosotros tenemos un Federico, tambien,” (Yes, sir, and we have a Frederick, also).  “Ah, and where is he?” “He will come, sir; we have four boys, Luca and Pedrito, Castolo and Federico; Federico is the baby; the little girl, here, is between him and Castolo; they are working in the coffee-field, but they will soon be here.”  At nine o’clock the little fellows appeared.  They lined up in the order of age, placed their hands behind them, and waited to be addressed.  Castolo, then about ten years of age, most pleased me, and I asked him, among other things, whether he could read and write.  His father answered for him, that he could not read or write; that the opportunities were not good; but that he believed Castolo could learn, that