444 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



was such plenty through the Country, and the People 

 multiplied so much, that old Men said the whole Prov- 

 ince looked like one Town, and then they applied them- 

 selves to build more Temples, which produced so great 

 a number of them." 



Of the natives he says, " They flattened their Heads 

 and Foreheads, their Ears bor^d with Rings in them. 

 Their Faces were generally good, and not very brown, 

 but without Beards, for they scorched them when young ? 

 that they might not grow. Their Hair was long like 

 Women, and in Tresses, with which they made a Gar- 

 land about the Head, and a little Tail hung behind" 

 H The prime Men wore a Rowler eight Fingers broad 

 round about them instead of Breeches, and going sev- 

 eral times round the Waste, so that one end of it hung 

 before and the other behind, with fine Feather-work, and 

 had large square Mantles knotted on their Shoulders, and 

 Sandals or Buskins made of Deer's Skins." ,The read- 

 er almost sees here, in the flatted heads and costumes 

 of the natives, a picture of the sculptured and stuccoed 

 figures at Palenque, which, though a little beyond the 

 present territorial borders of Yucatan, was perhaps once 

 a part of that province. 



Besides the glowing and familiar descriptions given 

 by Cortez of the splendour exhibited in the buildings 

 of Mexico, I have within my reach the authority of but 

 one eyewitness. It is that of Bernal Diaz de Castillo, 

 a follower and sharer in all the expeditions attending 

 the conquest of Mexico. 



Beginning with the first expedition, he says, " On 

 approaching Yucatan, we perceived a large town at the 

 distance of two leagues from the coast, which, from its 

 size, it exceeding any town in Cuba, we named Grand 

 Cairo." Upon the invitation of a chief, who came off 



