ANOTHER STATELY RESIDENCE. 



407 



There were no mountains ; only some little inequalities 

 whiph brought the head lower than the heels, and they 

 seldom stumbled. In this way they carried us about 

 three miles, and then laid us down gently on the ground. 

 Like the Indians in Merida, they were a fine-looking 

 race, with a good expression of countenance, cheerful, 

 and even merry in their toil. They were amused at us 

 because we could not talk with them. There is no di- 

 versity of Indian languages in Yucatan ; the Maya is 

 universal, and all the Spaniards speak it. 



Having wiped off the perspiration and rested, they 

 took us up again; and, lulled by the quiet movement 

 and the regular fall of the Indians' feet upon the ear, I 

 fell into a doze, from which I was roused by stopping 

 at a gate, on entering which I found we were advancing 

 to a range of white stone buildings, standing on an ele- 

 vation about twenty feet high, which by measurement 

 afterward I found to be three hundred and sixty feet 

 long, with an imposing corridor running the whole 

 length ; and on the extreme right of the building the 

 platform was continued one or two hundred feet, form- 

 ing the top of a reservoir, on which there was a wind- 

 lass with long arms ; and Indian women, dressed in 

 white, were moving round in a circle, drawing water 

 and filling their water- jars. This was called the haci- 

 enda of Mucuyche. We entered, as usual, through a 

 large cattle-yard. At the foot of the structure on which 

 the building stood, running nearly the whole length, 

 was a gigantic stone tank, about eight or ten feet wide, 

 and of the same depth, filled with water. We were 

 carried up an inclined stone platform about the centre 

 of the range of buildings, which consisted of three dis- 

 tinct sets, each one hundred and twenty feet front. In 

 that on the left was the church, the door of which was 



