Who these races were, whence they came, or who were their progenitors, I did not undertake to say, nor do I now. CHAPTER V. Daguerreotype Apparatus.--Set up as Ladies' Daguerreotype Portrait Takers.--Preparations.--A pretty young Lady to begin with.--Preliminaries.--A Chapter of Contingencies.--Success of the first Experiment.--Other successful Experiments.--A Change of Fortune.--Give up this Business.--An Incident.--Take up the Practice of Surgery.--Operation for Strabismus.--Details.--First Subject.--A great Gathering of Squint Eyes.--A troublesome Patient.--A little Hero.--Extraordinary Instance of Fortitude.--A Military Patient.--A Female Patient.--Practice of Surgery abandoned.--Instability of Fame. But the reader must not suppose that our only business in Merida was the investigation of antiquities; we had other operations in hand which gave us plenty of employment. We had taken with us a Daguerreotype apparatus, of which but one specimen had ever before appeared in Yucatan. Great improvements had been since made in the instrument, and we had reason to believe that ours was one of the best; and having received assurances that we might do a large business in that line, we were induced to set up as ladies' Daguerreotype portrait takers. It was a new line for us, and rather venturesome, but not worse than for the editor of a newspaper to turn captain of a steamboat; and, besides, it was not like banking--we could not injure any one by a failure.