CONDITION OF THE INDIANS. 207 



their all ; the ball was larger and gayer of whites and 

 those in whose veins white blood ran, while outside, 

 leaning upon the railing, looking in, but not presu- 

 ming to enter, were close files of Indians, and beyond, 

 in the plaza, was a dense mass of them — natives of 

 the land and lords of the soil, that strange people in 

 whose ruined cities I had just been wandering, sub- 

 mitting quietly to the dominion of strangers, bound 

 down and trained to the most abject submission, and 

 looking up to the white man as a superior being. 

 Could these be the descendants of that fierce people 

 who had made such bloody resistance to the Span- 

 ish conquerors 1 



At eleven o'clock the ball broke up, and fireworks 

 were let off from the balustrade of the church. 

 These ended with the national piece of El Castillo, 

 and at twelve o'clock, when we went away, the 

 plaza was as full of Indians as at midday. At no 

 time since my arrival in the country had I been so 

 struck with the peculiar constitution of things in 

 Yucatan. Originally portioned out as slaves, the 

 Indians remain as servants. Veneration for mas- 

 ters is the first lesson they learn, and these masters, 

 the descendants of the terrible conquerors, in cen- 

 turies of uninterrupted peace have lost all the fierce- 

 ness of their ancestors. Gentle, and averse to la- 

 bour themselves, they impose no heavy burdens upon 

 the Indians, but understand and humour their ways, 

 and the two races move on harmoniously together, 

 with nothing to apprehend from each other, form- 



