268 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



regard to a building constructed by the Spaniards 

 but little more than two hundred years ago, how 

 much darker must be the cloud that hangs over the 

 ruined cities of the aborigines, erected, if not ruined, 

 before the conquest. 



During the first days of my convalescence I had 

 a quiet and almost mournful interest in wandering 

 about this venerable convent. I passed, too, some 

 interesting hours in looking over the archives. The 

 books had a time-worn aspect, with parchment cov- 

 ers, tattered and worm-eaten. In some places the 

 ink had faded, and the writing was illegible. They 

 were the records of the early monks, written by their 

 own hands, and contained a register of baptisms and 

 marriages, including, perhaps, the first Indian who 

 assented to these Christian rites. It was my hope 

 to find in these archives some notice, however slight, 

 of the circumstances under which the early fathers 

 set up the standard of the cross in this Indian town, 

 but the first book has no preamble or introduction 

 of any kind, commencing abruptly with the entry of 

 a marriage. 



This entry bears date in 1588, but forty or fifty 

 years after the Spaniards established themselves in 

 Merida. This is thirty-eight years anterior to the 

 date on the stone before referred to, but it is reasona- 

 ble to suppose that the convent was not built until 

 some time after the beginning of the archives. The 

 monks doubtless commenced keeping a register of 

 baptisms and marriages as soon as there were any to 



