The writer of this report passed the winter of 1861 at Mérida, the capital of the Province of Yucatan, as the guest of Don David Casares, his classmate, and was received into his father’s family with a kindness and an attentive hospitality which only those who know the warmth and sincerity of tropical courtesy can appreciate.[11-*] The father, Don Manuel Casares, was a native of Spain, who had resided in Cuba and in the United States. He was a gentleman of the old school, who, in the first part of his life in Yucatan, had devoted himself to teaching, as principal of a high school in the city of Mérida, but was then occupied in the management of a large plantation, upon which he resided most of the year, though his family lived in the city. He was possessed of great energy and much general information, and could speak English with ease and correctness. Being highly respected in the community, he was a man of weight and influence, the more in that he kept aloof from all political cabals, in which respect his conduct was quite exceptional. The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his _Histoire des nations civilizées du Mexique_, acknowledges the valuable assistance furnished him by Señor Casares, whom he describes as a learned Yucateco and ancient deputy to Mexico.[12-*] Perhaps some of the impressions received, during a five months’ visit, will be pardoned if introduced in this report. Yucatan is a province of Mexico, very isolated and but little known. It is isolated, from its geographical position, surrounded as it is on three sides by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean; and it is but little known, because its commerce is insignificant, and its communication with other countries, and even with Mexico, is infrequent. It has few ports. Approach to the coast can only be accomplished in lighters or small boats; while ships are obliged to lie off at anchor, on account of the shallowness of the water covering the banks of sand, which stretch in broad belts around the peninsula. The country is of a limestone formation, and is only slightly elevated above the sea. Its general character is level, but in certain districts there are table lands; and a mountain range runs north-easterly to the town of Maxcanu, and thence extends south-westerly to near the centre of the State. The soil is generally of but little depth, but is exceedingly fertile.