Returning to the casa real, we found a new guarda, who came into office rather more intoxicated than their predecessors in going out. Albino had inquired of the cacique for the ancient relics of which we had heard accounts, and the Indians brought a copy of Cogolludo, wrapped up and treasured with great care in the casa real. This did not astonish us much, and they opened the book and pointed out a picture, the only one in it, being a representation of the murder of the ambassadors of Tutul Xiu; and while we were looking at it they brought out and unrolled on the floor an old painting on cotton cloth, being the original from which Cogolludo had the engraving made. The design was a coat of arms bordered with the heads of the murdered ambassadors, one of which has an arrow fixed in the temple, intended to represent the ambassador who had his eyes put out with this weapon. In the centre is a tree growing out of a box, representing the sapote tree at Zotuta, under which the murder was committed, and which, the Indians say, is still standing. This tree I shall have occasion to mention again hereafter. The painting had evidently been executed by an Indian, and probably very near the time of the occurrence which it was intended to commemorate. Cogolludo refers to it as an ancient and interesting relic in his time, and, of course, it is much more so now. It is an object of great reverence among the Indians of Mani. In fact, throughout our whole journeyings, either in Central America or Yucatan, it was the first and only instance in which we met with any memorial in the hands of the Indians, tending to keep alive the memory of any event in their history; but this must not be imputed to them as a reproach. History, dark as it is on other points, shows clearly enough that this now abject and degraded race did cling with desperate and fatal tenacity to the memory of those ancestors whom they know not now; the records of their conquerors show the ruthless and savage policy pursued by the Spaniards to root this memory from their minds; and here, in this very town of Mani, we have a dark and memorable instance. In 1571, twenty-nine years after the foundation of Merida, some Indians of Mani relapsed and became idolaters, practising in secret their ancient rites.