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INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Journey resumed.— Arrival at Uxmal.— Hacienda of Uxmal. — Major-domos.— 

 Adventures of a young Spaniard.— Visit to the Ruins of Uxmal.— First Sight 

 of the Ruins. — Character of the Indians.— Details of Hacienda Life. — A delicate 

 Case. — Illness of Mr. Catherwood. — Breaking up. 



At daybreak the next morning, with new Indians 

 and a guide on horseback from the hacienda, we resu- 

 med our journey. The surface of the country was the 

 same, limestone with scrub trees. There was not soil 

 enough to absorb the water, which rested in puddles in 

 the hollows of the stones. At nine o'clock we reached 

 another hacienda, smaller than the last, but still having 

 a lordly appearance, where, as before, the women were 

 drawing water by a wheel. The major-domo expressed 

 his sense of the honour conferred upon him by our visit, 

 and his anxiety to serve us, gave us a breakfast of milk, 

 tortillas, and wild honey, and furnished us with other 

 Indians and a guide. We mounted again ; very soon 

 the sun became intensely hot ; there were no trees to 

 shade us, and we suffered excessively. At half past 

 twelve we passed some mounds of ruins a little off the 

 road, but the sun was so scorching that we could not 

 stop to examine them, and at two o'clock we reached 

 Uxmal. Little did I think, when I made the acquaint- 

 ance of my unpretending friend at the Spanish hotel in 

 Fulton-street, that I should ride upward of fifty miles 

 on his family estates, carried by his Indians, and break- 

 fasting, dining, and sleeping at his lordly haciendas, 

 while the route marked out for our return would bring 

 us to others, one of which was larger than any we had 



