308 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Precautions against the Attacks of Moschetoes. — Mode of Life at Palenque. — 

 Description of the Palace. — Piers. — Hieroglyphics. — Figures. — Doorways. — 

 Corridors.— Courtyards.— A wooden Relic— Stone Steps.— Towers.— Tablets. 

 — Stucco Ornaments, &c, &c. — The Royal Chapel. — Explorations.— An Aque- 

 duct. — An Alarm. — Insects.— Effect of Insect Stings.— Return to the Village 

 of Palenque. 



At daylight I returned, and found Mr. C. and Paw- 

 ling sitting on the stones, half dressed, in rueful con- 

 clave. They had passed the night worse than I, and 

 our condition and prospects were dismal. Rains, hard 

 work, bad fare, seemed nothing ; but we could no more 

 exist without sleep than the " foolish fellow" of iEsop, 

 who, at the moment when he had learned to live with- 

 out eating, died. In all his travels through the country 

 Pawling had never encountered such hard work as since 

 he met us. 



The next night the moschetoes were beyond all en- 

 durance ; the slightest part of the body, the tip end of a 

 finger, exposed, was bitten. With the heads covered 

 the heat was suffocating, and in the morning our faces 

 were all in blotches. Without some remedy we were 

 undone. It is on occasions like this that the creative 

 power of genius displays itself. Our beds, it will be 

 remembered, were made of sticks lying side by side, 

 and set on four piles of stones for legs. Over these we 

 laid our pellons and armas de aguas, or leathern ar- 

 mour against rain, and over these our straw matting. 

 This prevented our enemies invading us from between 

 the sticks. Our sheets were already sewed up into 

 sacks. We ripped one side, cut sticks, and bent them 



