CURA OF XUL. 



83 



in general, good for maize, but, like all the rest of 

 that region, it was destitute of water, or, at least, but 

 badly supplied. His first object had been to remedy 

 this deficiency, to which end he had dug a well two 

 hundred feet deep, at an expense of fifteen hundred 

 dollars. Besides this, he had large and substantial 

 cisterns, equal to any we had seen in the country, for 

 the reception of rain-water ; and, by furnishing this 

 necessary of life in abundance, he had drawn around 

 him a population of seven thousand. 



But to us there was something more interesting 

 than this creation of a village and a population in 

 the wilderness, for here, again, was the same strange 

 mingling of old things with new. The village stands 

 on the site of an aboriginal city. In the corner of 

 the plaza now occupied by the cura's house, the 

 yard of which contains the well and cisterns, once 

 stood a pyramidal mound with a building upon it. 

 The cura had himself pulled down this mound, and 

 levelled it so that nothing was left to indicate even 

 the place where it stood. With the materials he 

 had built the house and cisterns, and portions of the 

 ancient edifice now formed the w^alls of the new. 

 With singular good taste, showing his practical turn 

 of mind, and at the same time a vein of antiquarian 

 feeling, he had fixed in conspicuous places, when 

 they answered his purpose, many of the old carved 

 stones. The convent and church occupied one side 

 of the plaza ; along the corridor of the former was 

 a long seat of time-polished stones taken from the 



