R A N C n O OF P U U T. 



221 



We found among our carriers another youthful 

 example of blighted affections, but recovering. He 

 was a lad of about Bernaldo's age, to wit, sixteen, 

 but had been married two years before, was a father, 

 a widower, and about to be married again. The 

 story was told us in his hearing, and, from his smiles 

 at different parts of it, it was difficult to judge which 

 he considered the most amusing ; and we had still 

 another interesting person, being a runaway Indian, 

 who had been caught and brought back but a few 

 days before, and upon whom the major domo 

 charged all the others to keep a good look-out. 



Our road lay through the same great forest in 

 which the ruins stood. At the distance of a league 

 we descended from the high ground, and reached a 

 small aguada. From this place the road for some 

 distance was hilly until we came out upon a great 

 savanna covered with a growth of bushes, which 

 rose above our heads so thick that they met across 

 the path, excluding every breath of air, without 

 shielding us from the sun, and exceedingly difficult 

 and disagreeable to ride through. At one o'clock 

 we reached the suburbs of the rancho of Puut, 

 The settlement was a long line of straggling huts, 

 which, as we rode through them under the blaze of 

 a vertical sun, seemed to have no end. Mr. Cather- 

 wood stopped at one of them for a cup of water, and 

 I rode on till I reached an open plain, forming a sort 

 of square with thatched houses, and on one side a 

 thatched church, I inquired of a woman peeping 



