220 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



In the account which I had received of this Laby- 

 rinth, no mention had been made of any rains, and 

 probably, when on the ground, I should have heard 

 nothing of them, but from the top of this mound I 

 saw two others, both of which, with a good deal of 

 labour, I reached under the guidance of the Indians, 

 crossing a patch of beans and milpa. I ascended them 

 both. On the top of one was a building eighty or 

 a hundred feet long. The front wall had fallen, and 

 left exposed the inner part of the back wall, with 

 half the arch, as it were, supporting itself in the air. 

 The Indians then led me to a fourth mound, and 

 told me that there were others in the woods, but all 

 in the same ruinous condition; and, considering 

 the excessive heat and the desperate toil of clam- 

 bering, I did not think it worth while to visit them. 

 I saw no sculptured stones, except those I have 

 before mentioned, dug out like troughs, and called 

 pilas, though the Indians persisted in saying that 

 there were such all over, but they did not know ex- 

 actly where to find them. 



At three o'clock I resumed my journey toward 

 Uxmal. For a short distance the road lay along the 

 ridge of the sierra, a mere bed of rock, on which the 

 horse's hoofs clattered and rang at every step. Com- 

 ing out upon the brow of the sierra, we had one of 

 those grand views which everywhere present them- 

 selves from this mountain range ; an immense wood- 

 ed plain, in this place broken only by a small spot 

 like a square on a chess-board, the clearing of the 



