Departure from Labphak.--Sugar Ranchos.--Hacienda of Jalasac.--Cultivation of Sugar.--Another Rancho.--Its neat Appearance.--Senor Trego's Establishment.--A Well.--Seybo Trees.--Journey resumed.--Village of Iturbide.--Its Settlement and rapid Growth.--An Acquaintance.--Oppressive Attentions.--Lunar Rainbow.--Appearance of the Village.--Mound of Ruins.--Visit to the Ruins of Zibilnocac.--A Well.--A long Edifice.--Lazy Escort.--An anxious Host.--Return to the Village.--A prosperous Emigrant.--A Dinner.--Medical Practice.--Deplorable Condition of the Country in regard to Medical Aid.--Second Visit to the Ruins.--Front of an Edifice.--Square Structures.--Interesting Painting.--An ancient Well.--Mounds.--Vestiges of a great City. On Thursday, the twenty-fourth of February, we broke up and left the ruins. A narrow path brought us out into the camino real, along which we passed several small ranchos of sugar-cane. At eleven o'clock we reached the hacienda of Jalasac, the appearance of which, after a few days' burial in the woods, was most attractive and inviting; and here we ventured to ask for water for our horses. The master made us dismount, sent our horses to an aguada, and had some oranges picked from the tree, sliced, and sprinkled with sugar, for ourselves. He told us that his establishment was nothing compared with Senor Trego's, a league distant, whom, he said, we, of course, knew, and would doubtless stop with a few days. Not remembering ever to have heard of Senor Trego before, we had not formed unalterably any such intention, but it was manifest that all the world, and we in particular, ought to know Senor Trego; and we concluded that we would do him the honour of a visit as we passed through. This gentleman had forty criados, or servants, engaged in making sugar. And, on entering the sugar region, I may suggest that Yucatan seems to present some advantages for the cultivation of this necessary; not in the interior, on account of the expense of transportation, but along the coast, the whole line from Campeachy to Tobasco being good for that purpose, and within reach of a foreign market. The advantages are, first, that slave labour is dispensed with, and, secondly and consequently, no outlay of capital is necessary for the purchase of slaves. In Cuba or Louisiana the planter must reckon among his expenses the interest upon the capital invested in the purchase of slaves, and the cost of maintaining them. In Yucatan he has to incur no outlay of capital; Indian labour is considered by those who have examined into the subject in Cuba, as about the same with that of the negroes; and by furnishing them constant employment, Indians can be procured in any numbers at a real per day, which is less than the interest upon the cost of a negro, and less than the expense of maintaining him if he cost nothing.