272 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



never adopted from caprice or w^ithout cause. In 

 my opinion, this sign was intended to represent what 

 would most clearly distinguish a large place with- 

 out a church from those in which churches had 

 been erected, the characteristic ornaments on the 

 fronts of the aboriginal buildings, as now seen at 

 TJxmal. It is the same obvious character or sym- 

 bol which might serve at this day to indicate on 

 a map a city hke Uxmal, and to my mind the con- 

 clusion is irresistible that at the time when the 

 Judge Don Felipe Manriques arrived at Uxmal and 

 arrived from Uxmal, it was an existing inhabited ab- 

 original town. Farther, in the scanty light that we 

 have on this subject, the slightest incidental circum- 

 stance is not to be disregarded. In each reference to 

 his arrival at or from Uxmal, it is mentioned that he 

 was accompanied by his interpreter. He would not 

 need an interpreter if the place was desolate, or if 

 it was a hacienda, or a Spanish town. He could 

 need an interpreter only when the place was occu- 

 pied by the aborigines, whose language he did not 

 understand, and such, I cannot help believing, was 

 actually the case. I can easily believe, too, that its 

 depopulation and desolation within the hundred and 

 forty years preceding the royal^grant for the purpo- 

 ses of a hacienda, were the inevitable consequence 

 of the poHcy pursued by the Spaniards in their sub- 

 jugation of the country. I would remark that there 

 is no doubt of the authenticity of these documents. 

 They are true records of events which occurred at 

 that early period of the conquest. To this day the 



