98 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



the site of the convent ; and, more than all this, even 

 in the incidental way in which these mounds are 

 referred to, there is one circumstance which shows 

 clearly that they were not at that time disused and 

 in ruins, hut, on the contrary, were then in the ac- 

 tual use and occupation of the Indians ; for Cogol- 

 ludo mentions j^articularly and with much detail 

 one that completely obstructed the running of a par- 

 ticular street, which, he says, was called El grande 

 de los Kues, adoratorit que era de los idolos. Now 

 the word " Kues," in the Maya language, as spoken 

 by the Indians of Yucatan at the present day, means 

 their ancient places of worship, and the word " ad- 

 oratorio," as defined in the Spanish dictionary, is 

 the name given by the Spaniards to the temples of 

 idols in America. So that when the historian de- 

 scribes this mound as El grande de los Kues el ad- 

 oratorio de los idolos, he means to say that it was 

 the great one, or the greatest among the places of 

 worship of the Indians, or the temples of their 

 idols. 



It is called the "great one" of their places of 

 worship, in contradistinction to the smaller ones 

 around, among which was that now occupied by 

 the Franciscan convent. In my opinion, the soh- 

 tary arch found in this convent is very strong, if not 

 conclusive, evidence that all the ruined buildings 

 scattered over Yucatan were erected by the very 

 Indians who occupied the country at the time of 

 the Spanish conquest, or, to fall back upon my old 



