283 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



path was for their especial benefit, and at first they 

 made it a point to be on the spot at the same hour 

 with us. Upon one occasion we were so annoyed 

 by the presence of two ladies of that village, who 

 seemed determined not to go away, that we were 

 obliged to come to an amicable understanding by 

 means of a peremptory notice that all persons must 

 give us the benefit of their absence at that hour ; 

 and every day, when the sun was vertical and 

 scarely endurable on the surface of the earth, we 

 bathed in this deep senote. 



We returned to the hut well satisfied with our 

 first day at Chichen; and there was another circum- 

 stance which, though painful in itself, added mate- 

 rially to the spirit with which we commenced our 

 labours at this place. The danger apprehended 

 from the rainy season was coming to pass, and un- 

 der the anticipation of a failure of the next crop, 

 corn had risen from two reales to a dollar the load. 

 The distress occasioned in this country by the fail- 

 ure of the corn crop cannot well be imagined. In 

 1836 this calamity occurred, and from the same 

 cause that threatened to produce it now. Along 

 the coast a supply was furnished from the United 

 States, but it would not bear the expense of trans- 

 portation into the interior, and in this region corn 

 rose to four dollars a load, which put the staff of 

 life completely beyond the reach of the Indians. 

 Famine ensued, and the poor Indians died of star- 

 vation. At the time of our arrival, the criados, or 



