With Tizimin as our base we explored the Kantunil district. The roads marked even on the official maps in Mexico City no longer exist, probably never existed. Overgrown and rendered impassable by luxuriant vegetation, such as there are have become mere trails which even the Indians can only use in single file. Thirty miles to the eastward of Tizimin begins the region of unbroken primeval forest. The road, which starts a good width, dwindles down into a mere path by which the Indians from Chansenote and Kantunil come into Tizimin to buy powder or shot or a new gun. Growing their own maize, raising cattle, pigs and poultry, spinning and weaving their clothing, braiding their hats and netting their hammocks, arms, salt, and luxuries such as women's finery or spirits are all they need to buy. They come into Tizimin not in crowds but one or two at a time, so as not to create suspicion, and meet their friends outside with their purchases. Of these Indians some five thousand are said to still exist in this north-eastern corner of the Peninsula; but the Mexican authorities, after butchery as ruthless as it has been fruitless, have been forced to retreat, and there is thus no way of obtaining accurate statistics. The Jefe Politico of Merida himself told us (we quote it as a proof that the Indians have triumphed thereabouts) that his family property near Kantunil had not been of any profit for years and was never likely to be again, as the Mayans denied his agents access to it. It was at Tizimin that we first realised the positively amazing ignorance of the Yucatecan as to his own country or even his own district. No definite information as to the road we should take, or whether indeed we could reach the coast at all, was available. As it proved, this was impossible. Between Kantunil and the sea stretch miles of uninhabitable swamp which is impassable for horse, mule or man except possibly in places at the end of the driest of dry seasons. When we were there an average of three feet of water covered the coast lands. A change of plan was thus essential, and we had to go first more directly north and then take an eastward course. Meanwhile we employed some days in exploring the north-easterly district. The road to Chansenote shows signs of the struggle which has ended, at any rate for the present, in the triumph of the Indians. Here and there the gaunt walls of ruined haciendas, half hidden by luxuriant tropic weed, stand as silent witnesses to the cowardly retreat of the Yucatecan landlords. A cruel war of extermination has laid its desolating hand on all around, and the hungry forest has swallowed up again _milpas_ (cornfields) and fruit gardens.