I trust the reader has not forgotten this fine hacienda. It was the same to which, on our former visit, we had been borne on the shoulders of Indians, and in which we had taken a bath in a senote, never to be forgotten. We were once more on the hands of our old friend Don Simon Peon. The whole hacienda, horses, mules, and Indians, were at our disposal. It was but ten o'clock, and we intended to continue our journey to Uxmal, but first we resolved upon another bath in the senote. My first impression of the beauty of this fancy bathing-place did not deceive me, and the first glance satisfied me that I incurred no risk in introducing to it a stranger. A light cloud of almost imperceptible dust, ascribed to the dripping of the waters of the rainy season, or perhaps made visible by the rays of the midday sun, rested on the surface, but underneath were the same crystal fluid and the same clear bottom. Very soon we were in the water, and before we came out we resolved to postpone our journey till the next day, for the sake of an evening bath. [Engraving 7: A Senote] As the reader is now on ground which I trust he has travelled before, I shall merely state that the next day we rode on to the hacienda of San Jose, where we stopped to make some preparations, and on the fifteenth, at eleven o'clock, we reached the hacienda of Uxmal. It stood in its suit of sombre gray, with cattleyard, large trees, and tanks, the same as when we left it, but there were no friends of old to welcome us: the Delmonico major domo had gone to Tobasco, and the other had been obliged to leave on account of illness. The mayoral remembered us, but we did not know him; and we determined to pass on and take up our abode immediately in the ruins. Stopping but a few minutes, to give directions about the luggage, we mounted again, and in ten minutes, emerging from the woods, came out upon the open field in which, grand and lofty as when we saw it before, stood the House of the Dwarf; but the first glance showed us that a year had made great changes. The sides of the lofty structure, then bare and naked, were now covered with high grass, bushes, and weeds, and on the top were bushes and young trees twenty feet high. The House of the Nuns was almost smothered, and the whole field was covered with a rank growth of grass and weeds, over which we could barely look as we rode through. The foundations, terraces, and tops of the buildings were overgrown, weeds and vines were rioting and creeping on the facades, and mounds, terraces, and ruins were a mass of destroying verdure. A strong and vigorous nature was struggling for mastery over art, wrapping the city in its suffocating embraces, and burying it from sight. It seemed as if the grave was closing over a friend, and we had arrived barely in time to take our farewell.