ignited. Our uncertainty was at an end. The whole pile was in a blaze, and all four of us went busily to work gathering fuel. There was no necessity for dry wood; we cut down bushes, and carried them in green; all burned together; the flames extended, and the heat became so great that we could not approach to throw on more. In our satisfaction with the result we did not stop to read the moral of the lesson taught us by the Indian boy. The flames were fast rectifying the damp, unwholesome atmosphere, and inducing more warm and genial sensations. Very soon, however, this bettering of our house's condition drove us out of doors. The smoke rolled through the long apartment, and, curling along the roof, passed into the front sala, where, dividing, it rushed through the doors in three dense bodies, and rolled up the front of the palace. We sat down outside, and watched it as it rolled away. While this was going on, the mayoral crawled along the same path by which we had ascended, and told us that the luggage had arrived. How it could be got to us seemed a problem. The slight clearing on the upper terrace gave us a view of the lower one, which was an unbroken mass of bushes and weeds ten or twelve feet high. Perhaps half an hour had elapsed, when we saw a single Indian ascend the platform of the second terrace, with his machete slowly working his way toward us. Very soon the top of a long box was seen rising above the same terrace, apparently tottering and falling back, but rising again and coming on steadily, with an Indian under it, visible from time to time through the bushes. Toward the foot of the terrace on which we were it disappeared, and after a few minutes rose to the top. Holding on with both hands to the strap across his forehead, with every nerve strung, and the veins of his forehead swelled almost to bursting, his face and his whole body dripping with sweat, he laid his load at our feet. A long line followed; staggering, panting, and trembling, they took the loads from their backs, and deposited them at the door. They had carried these loads three leagues, or nine miles, and we paid them eighteen and three quarter cents, being at the rate of a _medio_, or six and a quarter cents, per league. We gave them a medio extra for bringing the things up the terrace, and the poor fellows were thankful and happy. In the mean time the fire was still burning, and the smoke rushing out. We set the Indians at work on the terrace with their machetes, and as the smoke rolled away we directed them to sweep out the apartments. For brooms they had merely to cut a handful of bushes, and to shovel out the dirt they had their hands. This over, we had our luggage carried in, set up our beds in the back sala, and swung our hammocks in the front. At nightfall the Indians left us, and we were again alone in the palace of unknown kings.