The population showed no great difference from the peasants elsewhere. I ran early into their superstitions against photography, however, their belief, common to many uncivilized races, being that once their image is reproduced any fate that befalls it must occur to them in person. When I stepped into a field toward a man behind his wooden plow, he said in a very decided tone of voice, "No, señor, no quiero!"
"Porque no quiero, señor," and he swung the sort of small adze he carried to break up the clods of the field rather loosely and with a determined gleam in his eye. I did not want the picture so badly as all that.
There was no such objection in the straggling town made of thatch and rubbish I found along the way early in the afternoon. The hut I entered for food had an unleveled earth floor, many wide cracks in the roof, and every inch within was black with soot of the cooking-stove--three large stones with a steaming earthen pot on them. There was _carne de carnero_, tortillas and water, all for five cents. The weak-kneed table was spread with a white cloth, there were several awkward, _shallow_, home-made chairs, and against the wall a large primitive sideboard with glistening brown earthen pots and carefully polished plates and bowls. When I had photographed the interior, la senora asked if I would take a second picture, and raced away to another hut. She soon returned with a very small and poor amateur print of two peons in Sunday dress. One of them was her son, who had been killed by a falling pine, and the simple creature fancied the magic contrivance I carried could turn this tiny likeness into a life-size portrait.
Beyond, were more rocks and wooded mountains, with vast seas of Indian corn stretching to pine-clad cliffs, around the "shores" of which were dozens of make-shift shacks for the guardians against theft of the grain. Later I passed an enormous field of maize, which more than a hundred Indians of both sexes and every age that could stand on its own legs were harvesting. It was a communal corn-field, of which there are many in this region. They picked the ears from the dry stalks still standing and, tossing them into baskets, heaped them up in various parts of the field and at little temporary shanties a bit above the general level on the surrounding "coast." As I passed, the gang broke up and peons in all colors, male, female, and in embryo, went away in all directions like a scattering flock of birds.