254 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



pendant caciques, who, in concert with this chief, 

 determined to make a great wild-boar hunt, osten- 

 sibly to fete the ambassadors. Under this pretext, 

 they enticed them from the inhabited parts of the 

 country into a dense forest, and feasted them three 

 days. On the fourth they assembled to eat be- 

 neath a large sapote tree, and the last act of the 

 feast was to cut the throats of the ambassadors, 

 sparing but one, whom they charged to inform Tutul 

 Xiu of their reception of his embassy, and to re- 

 proach him with his cowardice ; but though they 

 spared the hfe of this one, they put out his eyes with 

 an arrow, and sent him, under the charge of four 

 captains, to the territory of Tutul Xiu, where they 

 left him and returned to their own country. 



Such were the unfortunate circumstances under 

 which Mani became known to the Spaniards. It 

 w^as the first interior town that submitted to their 

 power, and by referring to the map, the reader will 

 see that after our long, irregular, and devious route, 

 we are at this moment but four leagues from Ti- 

 cul, and but eleven from Uxmal by the road of the 

 country, while the distance is much less in a 

 straight line. 



Among the wonders unfolded by the discovery of 

 these ruined cities, what made the strongest impres- 

 sion on our minds was the fact that their immense 

 population existed in a region so scantily supplied 

 with water. Throughout the whole country there 

 is no stream, or spring, or living fountain, and, but for 



