14 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



mile under ground, and so steep that it was reached 

 only by descending nine different staircases. 



This account saved them from all imputation of 

 churlishness in not giving our horses water. It 

 seemed strange that any community should be will- 

 ing to live where this article of primary necessity 

 was so difficult to be obtained, and we asked them 

 why they did not break up their settlement and go 

 elsewhere ; but this idea seemed never to have oc- 

 curred to them ; they said their fathers had lived 

 there before them, and the land around was good 

 for niilpas. In fact, they were a peculiar people, 

 and I never before regretted so much my ignorance 

 of the Maya language. They are under the civil 

 jurisdiction of the village of Nohcacab, but the right 

 of soil is their own by inheritance. They consider 

 themselves better off than in the villages, where the 

 people are subject to certain municipal regulations 

 and duties, or than on the haciendas, where they 

 would be under the control of masters. 



Their community consists of a hundred labra- 

 dores, or working men ; their lands are held and 

 wrought in common, and the products are shared by 

 all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every 

 family sends for its portion, which explained a sin- 

 gular spectacle we had seen on our arrival ; a pro- 

 cession of women and children, each carrying an 

 earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot 

 broth, all coming down the same road, and disper- 

 sing among the different huts. Every member be- 



