258 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



Mani. I had heard of this place on my first visit to 

 Uxmal, of rehcs and heirlooms in the hands of the 

 cacique, and of ruins, w^liich, however, w^e were ad- 

 vised were not worth visiting. The morning, nev- 

 ertheless, did not open with much promise. On 

 first emerging we found about the door of the casa 

 real a crowd of loungers, of that mixed race who 

 might trace their ancestry to the subjects of Tutul 

 Xiu and the conquerors, possessing all the bad qual- 

 ities of both, and but few of the good traits of either. 

 Some of them were intoxicated, and there were 

 many half-grown, impudent boys, who kept close 

 to us, watching every movement, and turning aside 

 to laugh when they could do so unobserved. 



We set out to look at the ruins, and the crowd 

 followed at our heels. At the end of a street lead- 

 ing to the well we saw a long building, pierced in 

 the middle by the street, and part still standing pn 

 each side. We saw at a glance that it was not the 

 work of the antiguos, but had been erected by the 

 Spaniards since the conquest, and yet we were con- 

 ducted to it as one of the same class with those we 

 had found all over the country ; though we did meet 

 with one intelligent person, who smiled at the igno- 

 rance of the people, and said that it was a palace of 

 El Rey, or the king, Montejo. Its true history is 

 perhaps as much unknown as that of the more an- 

 cient buildings. In its tottering front were inter- 

 spersed sculptured stones taken from the aboriginal 

 edifices, and thus, in its own decay, it publishes the 



