balancing on their heads large flat baskets filled with oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, large slices of salmon-fleshed melons dotted with black seeds, small pineapples, lemons, limes, green and red peppers and garlic, and often in the midst of this market medley sat a small hen or two, as contentedly as if they were brooding over a sitting of eggs. A wealthy Yucatecan who has travelled much is credited with saying, "After Merida give me Paris." There is really much to be said for his patriotic view. Merida is a beautiful city. The vista down the long street from our balcony, with the gay colours of the girls' dresses, the snowy whiteness of the men's clothes, the smart brass-decked skeleton cabs, the soft yellow of the houses (all houses in Merida are by order painted yellow to prevent the unpleasant sun-glare which white walls would mean), here and there a waving crown of green peeping over the housetops from some garden-patio, made a right pleasant picture against the deep blue of the cloudless sky. But Merida owes none of her undoubted beauty to her buildings. There are but three worth mention, and this not from any architectural merits but solely because of their historical interest. These are the cathedral, the bishop's palace, and the house of Francisco de Montejo, conqueror of Yucatan. They are all in the Plaza. The cathedral is a gaunt pile of plastered mediocrity, with naked façade flanked by two turreted towers, lair of the accursed bells which had marred the tropic beauty of the morning. It was completed in 1598 and cost some £60,000, equivalent to-day to perhaps a quarter of a million. Within, there is little worth seeing except the twelve immense columns which support the roof. The hangings and drapings are as tawdry as is the much begilded altar. The pulpit is dusty, dirty and old, and is reached by wooden steps literally rotten and in holes. But if there is nothing worth seeing there is something which is very astonishing. On each pillar is hung a notice which reads: "_Sirvanse no Escupir en el Pavimento de este Templo_" ("You are requested not to spit on the floor of this church"), and on the flooring of the plain yellow-wood seats, and all along each aisle at the entrance to the pews, are spittoons! Yes, it sounds incredible, but they are there--right up to the altar-rails a vista of earthenware abominations such as disfigure the sanded quaintness of the bar-parlour of an old village inn. In a later chapter on Yucatecan manners we shall have more to say of the habit thus officially countenanced by the Church. That perspective of spittoons from door to altar-rail in Merida Cathedral has probably no parallel in any country.