THE WELL OF CHACK. 



31 



there was no foliage to hide the view, and they said 

 that in all this space there were no vestiges of build- 

 ings. Close together as we had found the remains 

 of ancient habitations, it seemed hardly possible that 

 distinct and independent cities had existed with but 

 such a little space between, and yet it was harder 

 to imagine that one city had embraced within its 

 hmits these distant buildings, the extreme ones be- 

 ing four miles apart, and that the whole intermedi- 

 ate region of desolation had once swarmed with a 

 teeming and active population. 



Leaving this, we toiled back to our horses, and, 

 returning to the road, passed through the rancho, 

 about a mile beyond which we reached the pozo,or 

 well, the accounts of which we had heard on our 

 first arrival. 



Near the mouth were some noble seybo trees, 

 throwing their great branches far and wide, under 

 which groups of Indians were arranging their cala- 

 bashes and torches, preparing to descend ; others, 

 just out, were wiping their sweating bodies. At 

 one moment an Indian disappeared, and at the next 

 another rose up out of the earth. We noticed that 

 there were no women, who, throughout Yucatan, 

 are the drawers of water, and always seen around a 

 well, but we were told that no woman ever enters 

 the well of Chack ; all the water for the rancho 

 was procured by the men, which alone indicated 

 that the well was of an extraordinary character. 

 We had brought with us a ball of twine, and made 



