When we emerged from this well other business offered. Having little or no intercourse with the capital, this village was the first which Doctor Cabot's fame had not reached, and our host took me aside to ask me in confidence whether Doctor Cabot was a real medico; which fact being easily established by my evidence, he wanted the medico to visit a young Indian whose hand had been mangled by a sugar-mill. Doctor Cabot made some inquiries, the answers to which led to the conclusion that it would be necessary to cut off the hand; but, unluckily, at the last reduction of our luggage he had left his amputating instruments behind. He had a hand-saw for miscellaneous uses, which would serve in part, and Mr. Catherwood had a large spring-knife of admirable temper, which Doctor Cabot said would do, but the former flatly objected to its conversion into a surgical instrument. It had been purchased at Rome twenty years before, and in all his journeyings had been his travelling companion; but after such an operation he would never be able to use it again. Strong arguments were urged on both sides, and it became tolerably manifest that, unless amputation was necessary to save the boy from dying, the doctor would not get the knife. Reaching the house, we saw the Indian sitting in the sala, the hand torn off to within about an inch of the wrist, and the stump swollen into a great ball six inches in diameter, perfectly black, and literally alive with vermin. At the first glance I retreated into the yard, and thence into the kitchen, when a woman engaged in cooking ran out, leaving her vessels boiling over the fire. I superintended her cooking, and dried my damp clothes, determined to avoid having anything to do with the operation; but, fortunately for me and M., Catherwood's knife, Doctor Cabot considered that it was not advisable to amputate. It was ten days since the accident happened, and the wound seemed to be healing. Doctor Cabot ascribed the lad's preservation to the sound and healthy state of the blood, arising from the simple diet of the Indian. At this place we determined to separate; Mr. Catherwood to go on direct to Peto, a day and a half's journey distant, and lie by a few days to recruit, while Doctor Cabot and I made a retrograde and circuitous movement to the village of Mani. While speaking of our intention, a by-stander, Don Joaquin Sais, a gentleman of the village, told us of ruins on his hacienda of Saccacal, eight leagues distant by a milpa road, and said that if we would wait a day, he would accompany us to visit them; but as we could not, he gave us a letter to the major domo.