The next day we made a valuable addition to our household. Among the Indians who came out to work was a lad who spoke Spanish. He was the puniest, lankest, and leanest of any we had seen on the hacienda, and his single garment was the dirtiest. His name was Bernaldo. He was but fifteen, and he was already experiencing the vicissitudes of fortune. His education had been neglected; and for confounding some technical distinctions in the laws of property, he was banished from a hacienda near Merida to the deserts of Uxmal. We were in such straits for want of an interpreter, and, except during the short visit of the mayoral, so entirely destitute, that we overlooked entirely Bernaldo's moral weakness, withdrew him from the workmen, and led him to the sala of the palace, where, in the course of conveying some instructions to Chaipa Chi, he showed such an interest in the subject that Doctor Cabot immediately undertook to give him a lesson in cookery. In his first essay he was so apt that we forthwith inducted him as ruler over the three stones that composed our kitchen fireplace, with all the privileges and emoluments of sipping and tasting, and left Chaipa Chi to bestow all her energies upon the business that her soul loved, the making of tortillas. [Engraving 8: Plan of Uxmal] [Transcriber's Note: Text included above in Engraving. General Plan of the Ruins at Uxmal. 1842 A. _Collection of Buildings called Casa de Las MONJAS or House of the NUNS_. B. _House of the DWARF also called CASA de ADIVINO_. C. _Casa del GOBERNADOR or House of the GOVERNOR_. D. _High and nameless MOUND_. E. _Casa de PALOMAS or PIGEON HOUSE_. F. _High Mound and Building without name_. G. _Casa de la VIEJA or House of the OLD WOMAN_. H. _Casa de las Tortugas or House of the Tortoises_.] Being now domesticated, I shall introduce the reader without preface to the ruins of Uxmal. In the account of my former visit I endeavoured to give a brief description of these ruins. Hurried away, however, without plans or drawings, it was impossible to present any definite idea of their character. The plate opposite represents the plan of this ancient city, as indicated by the remaining edifices. The ranges were all taken with the compass, and the distances measured, and the dimensions of the buildings and their distances from each other can be ascertained by means of the scale at the foot of the plate. The first ruin which I shall present is that in which we lived, called the Casa del Gobernador. The engraving which forms the frontispiece of this volume represents its front, with the three great terraces on which it stands. This front is three hundred and twenty-two feet long. Large as the engraving is, it can serve only to give some idea of the general effect; the detail of ornament cannot be shown.