We landed at last, and had a hard scramble up the steep, muddy bank, as many of the palms were armed with spines like needles (_Acrocomia sp._), and there was little else to catch by. I was on the watch for snakes, and had my machete in my hand; but the first living denizen of the forest that met me was a fine blue butterfly (_Morpho_), nearly eight inches across. I could not, and Guillermo would not, catch it, because he said it was _mala por los ojos_ (bad for the eyes). It was a “sight for sair e’en.” I found this curious superstition about butterflies common all through the country, and I confess that following their brilliantly colored wings in their rapid flight, under a blazing sun, does give one’s eyes a very tired feeling that may explain the origin of the popular belief. I will not compel any one to follow me through the forest, nor up the steep limestone ridges where the corroded rock was worn into fantastic forms and partly covered with begonias, lycopodiums, and other plants. We found several circular valleys among those ridges drained by sink-holes, and often I heard water running beneath my feet. In some places were little wells, like the _cenotes_ of Yucatan, containing fish, which pass from one to another by underground aqueducts. Again and again I mistook for serpents the huge, green, scaly creepers that flattened themselves against the trees or swung from the branches. Sluggish and insignificant centipedes were not uncommon on the trees; but nothing except tracks of wild hogs, peccaries, jaguars, and tapirs indicated that the forest was the resort of troublesome animals. The entire absence of any fallen or decaying trees or dead branches was a marked feature of this forest. The insects had eaten all this unpleasant matter; and in one place we saw a cavity as large as a barrel, where the ants had eaten a palm-stump, leaving only the fibrous roots to keep the earth in place about the large hole.