The disappointment and reaction after the high excitement, co-operating with the fatigue and heat, prostrated all my strength. I felt a heaviness and depression, and was actually sick at heart, so that, calling off the Indians, I was fain to give over and return to our quarters. In descending the mound my limbs could scarcely support me. My strength and elasticity were gone. With great difficulty I dragged myself to our apartments. My thirst was unquenchable. I threw myself into my hammock, and in a few moments a fiery fever was upon me. Our household was thrown into consternation. Disease had stalked all around us, but it was the first time it had knocked at our door. On the third day, while in the midst of a violent attack, a gentleman arrived whose visit I had expected, and had looked forward to with great interest. It was the cura Carillo of Ticul, a village seven leagues distant. A week after our arrival at the ruins the mayoral had received a letter from him, asking whether a visit would be acceptable to us. We had heard of him as a person who took more interest in the antiquities of the country than almost any other, and who possessed more knowledge on the subject. He had been in the habit of coming to Uxmal alone to wander among the ruins, and we had contemplated an excursion to Ticul on purpose to make his acquaintance. We were, therefore, most happy to receive his overture, and advised him that we should anxiously expect his visit. His first words to me were, that it was necessary for me to leave the place and go with him to Ticul. I was extremely reluctant to do so, but it was considered advisable by all. He would not consent to my going alone, or with his servant, and the next morning, instead of a pleasant visit to the ruins, he found himself trotting home with a sick man at his heels. In consequence of some misunderstanding, no coche was in readiness, and I set out on horseback. It was my interval day, and at the moment the bare absence of pain was a positively pleasant sensation. In this humour, in the beginning of our ride, I listened with much interest to the cura's exposition of different points and localities, but by degrees my attention flagged, and finally my whole soul was fixed on the sierra, which stood out before us at a distance of two leagues from San Jose. Twice before I had crossed that sierra, and had looked upon it almost with delight, as relieving the monotony of constant plains, but now it was a horrible prospect. My pains increased as we advanced, and I dismounted at the hacienda in a state impossible to be described. The mayoral was away, the doors were all locked, and I lay down on some bags in the corridor. Rest tranquillized me. There was but one Indian to be found, and he told the cura that there were none to make a coche. Those in the neighbourhood were sick, and the others were at work more than a league away. It was impossible to continue on horseback, and,