300 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



and study these interesting remains. As to most of the 

 places visited by us, he will find no materials whatever 

 except those furnished in these pages. In regard to Pa- 

 lenque he will find a splendid work, the materials of 

 which were procured under the sanction of a commis- 

 sion from government, and brought out with explana- 

 tions and commentaries by the learned men of Paris, 

 by the side of which my two octavoes shrink into in- 

 significance ; but I uphold the drawings against these 

 costly folios, and against every other book that has ever 

 been published on the subject of these ruins. My ob- 

 ject has been, not to produce an illustrated work, but to 

 present the drawings in such an inexpensive form as to 

 place them within reach of the great mass of our read- 

 ing community. 



But to return to ourselves in the palace. While we 

 were making our observations, Juan was engaged in a 

 business that his soul loved. As with all the mozos of 

 that country, it was his pride and ambition to servir a 

 mano. He scorned the manly occupation of a mule- 

 teer, and aspired to that of a menial servant. He was 

 anxious to be left at the village, and did not like the 

 idea of stopping at the ruins, but was reconciled to it 

 by being allowed to devote himself exclusively to cook- 

 ery. At four o'clock we sat down to our first dinner. 

 The tablecloth was two broad leaves, each about two 

 feet long, plucked from a tree on the terrace before the 

 door. Our saltcellar stood like a pyramid, being a case 

 made of husks of corn put together lengthwise, and 

 holding four or five pounds, in lumps from the size of a 

 pea to that of a hen's egg. Juan was as happy as if he 

 had prepared the dinner exclusively for his own eating ; 

 and all went merry as a marriage-bell, when the sky 

 became overcast, and a sharp thunder-clap heralded the 



