198 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



We have, then, accounts of visits by the padres 

 sixty years after the subjugation of Yucatan, and a 

 detailed account of the conquest of Itza, one hun- 

 dred and fifty-five years afterward ; and what did 

 they find on the island ? The monks say that, 

 when taken to look over the city, they went to the 

 middle and highest part of the island to see the kues 

 and adoratorios of the heathen idols, and that 

 *' there were twelve or more of the size of the lar- 

 gest churches in the villages of the Indians in the 

 province of Yucatan, each one of which was capa- 

 ble of containing more than one thousand persons/' 



The Spanish soldiers, too, almost before they 

 had time to sheath their blood-stained swords, were 

 seized with holy horror at the number of adorato- 

 rios, temples, and houses of idolatry. The idols 

 were so numerous, and of such various forms, that 

 it was impossible to give any description of them, or 

 even to count them ; and in the private houses of 

 these barbarous infidels, even on the benches on 

 which they sat, were two or three small idols. 



According to the historical account, there were 

 twenty-one adoratorios, or temples. The principal 

 one was that of the great false priest duin-canek, 

 first cousin of the king Canek. It was of square 

 form, with handsome breastwork, and nine steps, all 

 of wrought stone, and each front was about sixty 

 feet, and very high. It is again mentioned as being 

 in the form of a castiflo, and this name, perhaps, 

 makes a stronger impression on my mind from the 



