AN INTERESTING WELL. 



259 



sad story that it had risen upon the ruins of anoth- 

 er race. 



Near this building, and at the corner of the street, 

 is the well referred to in the conclusion of my le- 

 gend of the House of the Dwarf at Uxmal. " The 

 old woman (the mother of the Dwarf) then died, 

 but at the Indian village of Mani there is a deep 

 well, from which opens a cave that leads under 

 ground an immense distance to Merida. In this 

 cave, on the bank of a stream, under the shade 

 of a large tree, sits an old woman, with a serpent by 

 her side, who sells water in small quantities, not for 

 money, but only for a criatura, or baby, to give the 

 serpent to eat ; and this old woman is the mother 

 of the Dwarf" The entrance to the well was un- 

 der a great shelf of overhanging rock, forming the 

 mouth of a magnificent cavern, wild enough to sus- 

 tain the legend. The roof was high, and the villa- 

 gers had constructed steps, by which, walking erect, 

 we reached a large pool of water, whence women 

 were filling their cantaros. At one side was an open- 

 ing in the rock above, which should have been, and 

 was intended to be, made directly over the water, 

 for the purpose of drawing it up in buckets ; and as 

 this mistake occurred in a cave where the water is 

 but a short distance from the mouth, and the pas- 

 sage is wide, it shows the difficulty, without any 

 knowledge of the use of instruments, of fixing on 

 the surface the precise point over the water in the 

 other caves, which have long, narrow, and winding 

 passages. 



