326 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



bread ; and placing it carefully on a table, with a fresh 

 cheese, the product of our cow, I lay down at night 

 full of the joy that morning would diffuse over the ru- 

 ins of Palenque ; but, alas ! all human calculations are 

 vain. In my first sleep I was roused by a severe clap 

 of thunder, and detected an enormous cat on the table. 

 While my boot was sailing toward her, with one bound 

 she reached the wall and disappeared under the eaves 

 of the roof. I fell asleep again ; she returned, and the 

 consequences were fatal. 



The padres were slow in movement, and after keeping 

 the village in a state of excitement for three days, this 

 morning they made a triumphal entry, escorted by citi- 

 zens, and with a train of more than a hundred Indians, 

 carrying hammocks, chairs, and luggage. The villages 

 of Tumbala and San Pedro had turned out two or three 

 hundred strong, and carried them on their backs and 

 shoulders to Nopa, where they were met by a deputa- 

 tion from Palenque, and transferred to the village. It 

 is a glorious thing in that country to be a padre, and 

 next to being a padre one's self is the position of being a 

 padre's friend. In the afternoon I visited them, but 

 after the fatigues of the journey they were all asleep, 

 and the Indians around the door were talking in low 

 tones so as not to disturb them. Inside were enormous 

 piles of luggage, which showed the prudent care the 

 good ecclesiastics took of themselves. The siesta over, 

 very soon they appeared, one after the other, in dresses, 

 or rather undresses, difficult to describe, but certainly 

 by no means clerical ; neither of them had coat or jacket. 

 Two of them were the curas of Tumbala and Ayalon, 

 whom we had seen on our journey. The third was a 

 Franciscan friar from Ciudad Real, and they had come 

 expressly to visit the ruins. All had suffered severely 



