This account saved them from all imputation of churlishness in not giving our horses water. It seemed strange that any community should be willing to live where this article of primary necessity was so difficult to be obtained, and we asked them why they did not break up their settlement and go elsewhere; but this idea seemed never to have occurred to them; they said their fathers had lived there before them, and the land around was good for milpas. In fact, they were a peculiar people, and I never before regretted so much my ignorance of the Maya language. They are under the civil jurisdiction of the village of Nohcacab, but the right of soil is their own by inheritance. They consider themselves bitter off than in the villages, where the people are subject to certain municipal regulations and duties, or than on the haciendas, where they would be under the control of masters. Their community consists of a hundred labradores, or working men; their lands are held and wrought in common, and the products are shared by all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family sends for its portion, which explained a singular spectacle we had seen on our arrival; a procession of women and children, each carrying an earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot broth, all coming down the same road, and dispersing among the different huts. Every member belonging to the community, down to the smallest pappoose, contributed in turn a hog. From our ignorance of the language, and the number of other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not learn all the details of their internal economy, but it seemed to approximate that improved state of association which is sometimes heard of among us; and as theirs has existed for an unknown length of time, and can no longer be considered merely experimental, Owen or Fourier might perhaps take lessons from them with advantage.