We had not planned to stop at Acala, but after a hard ride over a dreary
road and a ferrying across a wide and deep river in a great dugout canoe
thirty feet or more in length--our animals swimming alongside--we found
our beasts too tired for further progress. And it was a sad town. How
strange, that beautifully clear and sparkling mountain water often
produces actual misery among an ignorant population! Scarcely had we
dismounted at our lodging place, when a man of forty, an idiot and
goitrous, came to the door and with sadly imperfectly co-ordinated
movements, gestured a message which he could not speak. Almost as soon
as he had gone a deaf-mute boy passed. As we sat at our doorway, we saw
a half-witted child at play before the next house. Goitre, deaf-mutism,
and imbecility, all are fearfully common, and all are relatedly due to
the drinking water.

To us, sitting at the door near dusk, a song was borne upon the evening
breeze. Nearer and nearer it came, until we saw a group of twelve or
fifteen persons, women in front, men and children behind, who sang as
they walked. Some aided themselves with long staves; all carried burdens
of clothing, food, utensils; all were wearied and footsore with the long
journey, but full of joy and enthusiasm, as they were nearing their
destination--a famous shrine. Passing us, they journeyed onward to an
open space at the end of town, where, with many others who had reached
there sooner, they camped for the night. The next day we constantly
passed such parties of pilgrims; coming or going to this shrine which
lay a little off the road between Acala and San Bartolome. In one group,
we counted ninety pilgrims.

[Illustration: RIVER BETWEEN CHIAPA AND ACALA]