Our act of taking possession was unusually exciting. It was an immense relief to escape from the confinement of the canoa. The situation commanded a view of the sea, and, barely distinguishable, in the distance was the coast of Yucatan. On the bank were large forest trees which had been spared in the clearing, and orange and cocoanut trees planted by Molas. The place had a sort of piratical aspect. In the hut were doors and green blinds from the cabin of some unlucky vessel, and reeving blocks, tar buckets, halliards, drinking gourds, fragments of rope, fishing nets, and two old hatches were scattered on the ground. Above all, the first object we discovered, which would have given a charm to a barren sand bank, was a well of pure and abundant water, which we fell upon at the moment of landing, and were almost like the Spanish soldier in the expedition of Cordova, who drank till he swelled and died. And, besides the relief of a pressing want, this well had a higher interest, for it assured us that our visit was not bootless. We saw in it, at the first glance, the work of the same builders with whose labours on the mainland we were now so familiar, being, like the subterranean chambers at Uxmal, dome shaped, but larger both at the mouth and in the interior. This well was shaded by a large cocoanut tree. We hauled up under it one of the hatches, and, sitting around it on blocks, had served up the turtle which had been accomplishing its destiny on board the canoa. With our guns resting against the trees, long beards, and canoa costume, we were, perhaps, as piratical-seeming a trio as ever scuttled a ship at sea. In the afternoon we walked over the clearing, which was covered with a fine plantation of cotton, worth, as the patron said, several hundred dollars, with the pods open and blowing away, indicating that the rancho had been abandoned in haste, without regard to the preservation of property. Toward evening we strolled for a great distance along the shore, picking up shells, and at night we had a luxurious swing in our hammocks. CHAPTER XX.