INDIAN RELICS. 



?41 



From this edifice there is a calzada, or paved road, 

 of ten or twelve yards in w^idth, running to the 

 southeast to a hmit that has not been discovered 

 with certainty, but some aver that it goes in the di- 

 rection of Chichen Itza." 



The most interesting part of this, in our eyes, 

 was the calzada, or paved road, but the information 

 from others in the village did not increase our in- 

 terest. The cura himself had never visited these 

 ruins ; they were all buried in forest ; there was no 

 rancho or other habitation near ; and as our time 

 was necessarily to be much prolonged by the change 

 we were obliged to make, we concluded that it would 

 not be advisable to go and see them. 



But the cura had much more interesting infor- 

 mation. On his own hacienda of Kantunile, sixteen 

 leagues nearer the coast, were several mounds, in 

 one of which, while excavating for stone to be used 

 in building, the Indians had discovered a sepulchre 

 containing three skeletons, which, according to the 

 cura, were those of a man, a woman, and a child, 

 but all, unfortunately, so much decayed that in at- 

 tempting to remove them they fell to pieces. 



At the head of the skeletons were two large va- 

 ses of terra cotta, with covers of the same material. 

 In one of these was a large collection of Indian or- 

 naments, beads, stones, and two carved shells, which 

 are represented in the following engraving. The 

 carving on the shells is in bas-rehef, and very perfect ; 

 the subject is the same in both, and the reader will 



