Our road lay through the same great forest in which the ruins stood. At the distance of a league we descended from the high ground, and reached a small aguada. From this place the road for some distance was hilly until we came out upon a great savanna covered with a growth of bushes, which rose above our heads so thick that they met across the path, excluding every breath of air, without shielding as from the sun, and exceedingly difficult and disagreeable to ride through. At one o'clock we reached the suburbs of the rancho of Puut. The settlement was a long line of straggling huts, which, as we rode through them under the blaze of a vertical sun, seemed to have no end. Mr. Catherwood stopped at one of them for a cup of water, and I rode on till I reached an open plain, forming a sort of square with thatched houses, and on one side a thatched church. I inquired of a woman peeping out of a door for the casa real, and was directed to a ruined hut on the same side, at the door, or, rather, at the doorway of which I dismounted, but had hardly crossed the threshold when I saw my white pantaloons speckled with little jumping black insects. I made a hasty retreat, and saw a man at the moment moving across the plaza, who asked me to his house, which was clean and comfortable, and when Mr. Catherwood came up the women of the house were engaged in preparing our dinner. Mr. Catherwood had just experienced the same kind of good feeling at an Indian hut. Water, in the Maya language, is expressed by the word _ha_, but, being that morning rather out of practice, Mr. Catherwood had asked for _ka_, which means fire, and the woman brought him a lighted brand. He motioned that away, but still continued asking for _ka_, fire. The woman went in, sat down, and made him a straw cigar, which she brought out to him. Sitting in the broiling sun, and perishing with thirst, he dropped his Maya, and by signs made her understand what he wanted, when she brought him water. Our host, who was a Meztizo and ex-alcalde, procured for us another empty hut, which, by the time our carriers arrived, we had swept out and made comfortable. The situation of this rancho was on a fine open plain; the land was good, and water abundant, though not very near at hand, the supply being derived from an aguada, to which we sent our horses; and they were gone so long that we determined the next morning, as the aguada lay but little out of our road, to ride by it and water them ourselves.