We returned to the hut well satisfied with our first day at Chichen; and there was another circumstance which, though painful in itself, added materially to the spirit with which we commenced our labours at this place. The danger apprehended from the rainy season was coming to pass, and under the anticipation of a failure of the next crop, corn had risen from two reales to a dollar the load. The distress occasioned in this country by the failure of the corn crop cannot well be imagined. In 1836 this calamity occurred, and from the same cause that threatened to produce it now. Along the coast a supply was furnished from the United States, but it would not bear the expense of transportation into the interior, and in this region corn rose to four dollars a load, which put the staff of life completely beyond the reach of the Indians. Famine ensued, and the poor Indians died of starvation. At the time of our arrival the criados, or servants, of the hacienda, always improvident, had consumed their small stock, and, with no hope from their milpas, with the permission of the master were about moving away to regions where the pressure would be less severe. Our arrival, as the major domo told us, arrested this movement; instead of our being obliged to hunt them up, the poor Indians crowded round the door of our hut, begging employment, and scrambling for the reales which Albino distributed among them; but all the relief we could afford them was of short duration, and it may not be amiss to mention that at the moment of writing the calamity apprehended has come to pass; the ports of Yucatan are thrown open and begging for bread, and that country in which, but a few short months since, we were moving so quietly and experiencing continual acts of kindness, is now groaning under famine superadded to the horrors of war. CHAPTER XVII.