PERPLEXITIES. 



161 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Perplexities. — Household Wants. — Indian Mode of boiling Eggs. 

 — Clearings. — A valuable Addition. — Description of the Ruins. 

 — Casa del Gobernador. — Hieroglyphics. — Ornaments over the 

 Doorways. — Ground Plan. — Doorways. — Apartments. — Great 

 Thickness of the back Wall. — A Breach made in the Wall. — 

 Prints of a Red Hand. — Sculptured Beam of Hieroglyphics. — 

 Wooden Lintels. — Loss of Antiquities by the Burning of Mr. 

 Catherwood's Panorama. — Terraces. — A curious Stone. — Cir- 

 cular Mound. — Discovery of a Sculptured Monument. — Square 

 Stone Structure. — Sculptured Heads. — Staircase. — House of 

 the Turtles. 



Morning brought with it other perplexities. We 

 had no servant, and wanted breakfast, and altogeth- 

 er our prospects were not good. We did not expect 

 to find the hacienda so entirely destitute of persons 

 with whom we could communicate. The mayoral 

 was the only one who spoke a word of Spanish, and 

 he had the business of the hacienda to attend to. 

 He had received special orders from his master to 

 do everything in his power to serve us, but the pow- 

 er of his master had limits. He could not make the 

 Indians, who knew only the Maya, speak Spanish. 

 Besides this, the power of the master was otherwise 

 restricted. In fact, except as regards certain obliga- 

 tions which they owed, the Indians were their own 

 masters, and, what was worse for us, their own mis- 



Vol. I. — X 



