In half an hour we came into a clear and open country, and at ten we entered the camino real for Jalacho, a broad and open road, passable for calesas. Up to this time we had not seen a single habitation or met a human being, and now the road was literally thronged with people moving on to the fair, with whose clean garments my mud-stained clothes contrasted very unfavourably. There were Indians, Mestizoes, and white people on horseback, muleback, and on foot, men, women, and children, many carrying on their backs things to sell, in petaquillas, or long baskets of straw; whole families, sometimes half a village moving in company; and I fell in behind a woman perched on a loaded horse, with a child in her arms, and a little fellow behind, his legs stretched out nearly straight to span the horse's flanks, and both arms clasping her substantial body to keep himself from slipping off. We passed parties sitting in the shade to rest or eat, and families lying down by the roadside to sleep, without any fear of molestation from the rest. At half past eleven we reached the village of Becal, conspicuous, like all the others, for a large plaza and church with two towers. In the suburbs the mayoral and I interchanged sentiments about breakfast, and, after making a circle in the plaza, he struck off direct for the house of the cura. I do not think the cura could have been expecting me, but if so, he could not have provided a better breakfast, or at shorter notice. Besides the breakfast, the cura told me of ruins on his hacienda which he had never visited, but which he promised to have cleared away and be ready to show me on my return. Circumstances occurred to prevent my returning by the same road, but the cura, having had the ruins cleared away, visited them himself and I afterward heard that I had lost something by not seeing them. I took leave of him with the buoyancy of old times, breakfast secured, and a prospect of another ruined city. In an hour I reached Jalacho, where I met Don Simon and two of his brothers, with whom I was not yet acquainted; Don Lorenzo, who had a hacienda in that neighbourhood, and Don Alonzo, then living in Campeachy, who was educated in New-York, and spoke English remarkably well. The village of Jalacho lies on the main road from Merida to Campeachy, and, next to that of Yzamal, its fair is the greatest in Yucatan, while in some respects it is more curious. It is not attended by large merchants with foreign goods, nor by the better classes from Merida, but it is resorted to by all the Indians from the haciendas and villages. It is inferior in one respect: gambling is not carried on upon so large a scale as at Yzamal.