The name of Chichen is another instance added to those already given, showing the importance attached in that dry country to the possession of water. It is compounded of the two Maya words _chi_, mouth, and _chen_, well, and signifies the mouth of the well. Among the ruins are two great senotes, which, beyond doubt, furnished water to the inhabitants of the ancient city. Since the establishment of a hacienda and the construction of a well, these had fallen into disuse. Doctor Cabot had undertaken to open a path in one of them down to the water, for the purpose of bathing, which, in that hot climate, was as refreshing as food. We came upon him just as he had finished, and, besides his Indian workmen, he had the company of a large party of Mestizo boys from the village of Piste, who were already taking advantage of his labours, and were then swimming, diving, and perched all about in the hollows of the rocks. On our journey from Peto, the particulars of which I was obliged to omit, we had entered a region where the sources of the supply of water again formed a new and distinctive feature in the face of the country, wilder, and, at first sight, perhaps creating at stronger feeling of admiration and wonder than even the extraordinary cuevas, aguadas, and senotes we had formerly encountered. These, too, are called senotes, but they differ materially from those before presented, being immense circular holes, from sixty to two hundred feel in diameter, with broken, rocky, perpendicular sides from fifty to one hundred feet deep, and having at the bottom a great body of water, of an unknown depth, always about the same level, supposed to be supplied by subterranean rivers. We had seen ranchos of Indians established near these senotes, with a railing on one side, over which Indian women were drawing up water in little bark buckets; probably the two great senotes at this place were the inducements to the foundation of the ancient city.