368 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



lord or senor, and this is all the information I was 

 able to collect about this ancient city. If we had 

 met with it on our former journey we should have 

 planted ourselves, and given it a thorough explora- 

 tion. The mounds and vestiges of buildings were 

 perhaps as numerous as those of Uxmal, but they 

 were all ruined. The day was like the finest of Oc- 

 tober at home, and, as a relief from the heat of the 

 sun, there was a constant and refreshing breeze. 

 The country was open, or studded with trees barely 

 enough to adorn the landscape, and give picturesque 

 beauty to the ruins. It was cut up by numerous 

 paths, and covered with grass like a fine piece of 

 upland at home, and for the first and only time in 

 the country we found pleasure in a mere ramble 

 over fields. Bernaldo came out from the village 

 with a loaded Indian at the precise moment when 

 we wanted dinner, and altogether it was one of the 

 most agreeable and satisfactory days that we passed 

 among the relics of the antiguos. 



The next day, being the eighth of January, we set 

 out for the ruins of Kabah. Our direction was 

 south, on the camino real to Bolonchen. The de- 

 scent from the great rocky table on which the con- 

 vent stands was on this side rough, broken, and pre- 

 cipitous. We passed through a long street having 

 on each side thatched huts, occupied exclusively by 

 Indians. Some had a picturesque appearance, and 

 the engraving which follows represents one of them. 

 At the end of the street, as well as at the ends of 



