334 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



I rode up to the house of the padres to escort them to 

 the ruins. They had passed the evening sociably at 

 cards, and again the padre of Palenque was wanting. 

 We rode over to his house, and waited while he secured 

 carefully on the back of a tall horse a little boy, who 

 looked so wonderfully like him, that, out of respect to 

 his obligation of celibacy, people felt delicate in asking 

 whose son he was. This done, he tied an extra pair of 

 shoes behind his own saddle, and we set off with the 

 adios of all the village. The padres intended to pass 

 the night at the ruins, and had a train of fifty or sixty 

 Indians loaded with beds, bedding, provisions, sacate 

 for mules, and multifarious articles, down to a white 

 earthen washbowl ; besides which, more favoured than 

 we, they had four or five women. 



Entering the forest, we found the branches of the 

 trees, Avhich had been trimmed on my return to the vil- 

 lage, again weighed down by the rains ; the streams 

 were very bad ; the padres were well mounted, but no 

 horsemen, dismounted very often, and under my escort 

 we got lost, but at eleven o'clock, very much to the sat- 

 isfaction of all, our long, strange-looking, straggling 

 pSrty reached the ruins. The old palace was once more 

 alive with inhabitants. 



There was a marked change in it since I left ; the 

 walls were damp, the corridors wet; the continued rains 

 were working through cracks and crevices, and opening 

 leaks in the roof; saddles, bridles, boots, shoes, &c, 

 were green and mildewed, and the guns and pistols 

 covered with a coat of rust. Mr. Catherwood's ap- 

 pearance startled me. He was wan and gaunt ; lame, 

 like me, from the bites of insects ; his face was swollen, 

 and his left arm hung with rheumatism as if paralyzed. 



We sent the Indians across the courtyard to the op- 



