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also refused to agree to saying that I had a letter from the authorities of Tehuantepec ordering him to furnish what I needed. When we are admitted to the rude hut that serves as town house here the entire lot of men sitting about followed us in & tried to have us put our baggage in one corner that had been used as a bed for mixing mortar. I again refused to listen but took general possession & arranged our outfit ready for working. Finally the secretary turned up & read my letter to the presidente & then they announced their willingness to do what they could in order to comply with the letter. From this time on we had no further annoyance.

I told the people that I needed certain [[strikethrough]] an [[/strikethrough]] manuals & the crowd of officials sitting about said they would get them for me. The next 4 days brought in a fine lot of mephitis & spiloglae often coming in alive led by a string in the hands of their captors. They could not make use of their scent bag & I asked why & the men said they had annoyed the until they had exhausted their supply- I was rather startled several times by having them bring up live skunks within a foot or two while I was at work & then call my attention to them. The man caught the skunks by searching for their holes under bunches of cacti (Opuntia). The amusing part to this was the fact that among these skunk catchers were nearly half the town officials who seemed greatly pleased at the chance to make a little money in this way. Although nearly 30 skunks were caught yet not a man was scented by them. The presence on the salt flats here of Otocorys,