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The "doctor" drew a black case from his pocket, went through some hocuspocus with a small mirror, and within two minutes, though his Spanish was little less excruciating than his English, had proved to the startled curate that the glasses he was wearing would have turned him stone-blind within a month but for the rare fortune of this great Berlin specialist's desire to visit the famous historical capital of the Tarascans.
When they paddle over one side only, the stroke of the oar through the water is oblique, maintaining a steady course. In such canoes the Tarascans of the lake villages go from place to place; in such a canoe, we started one morning before six o'clock, for Santa Fe de la Laguna. Our force consisted of three persons, an old man named Felipe, his wife, and a young man.
The work is curious, and I am inclined to see in it a surviving imitation of the ancient feather-work for which the ancient Tarascans were famous. From Parracho our road led through Aranza to Cheran. Just beyond Aranza we passed over the astonishing wash from some summer torrent.
Thence we went to Patzcuaro by rail, and studied the Tarascans in the villages about Lake Patzcuaro, visiting these by canoe-trips. After returning to Mexico, we visited the states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. In and around the City of Tlaxcala, we secured our Tlaxcalan subjects. At Cuauhtlantzinco, we worked upon Aztecs.
The cart upon which they were carried consisted of a pair of wheels and an axle; one end of the timbers was attached to this, and the other was fastened to the yoke of oxen. It was rare that we met with a single timber cart, as four or five usually went together. The drivers who were in charge of them were pure Tarascans.
Visiting them, we found the wooden placques and table-tops are brought from one of the mountain villages of the Tarascans; they are first covered thickly with the background color; upon this the pattern is pencilled and then cut out in the lacquered surface; the color, mixed with oil and aje, as with other substances, is then applied with the finger-tips to fill the cut patterns; the lustre is then brought out by careful rubbing.
Some miles away from the town, at the far end of Lake Patzcuaro, behind the hills, lies the ancient Indian village of Tzintzuntzan, at the time of the Conquest the residence of the chief of the Tarascans and ruler of the kingdom of Michoacan, which was not subdued until ten years after the fall of Mexico. I planned to visit it next day.
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