"Our latitude and longitude were now 16 deg. 42' N. and 91 deg. 35' W; so that the grand amphitheatre of hills, forming three fourths of an oval outline of jagged summits, a few leagues before us, most probably inclosed the mysterious object of our anxious and uncertain labors. The small groups of Indians through which we had passed, in the course of the day, had evidently been startled by sheer astonishment, into a sort of passive and involuntary hospitality, but maintained a stark apprehensive reserve in most of their answers to our questions. They spoke a peculiar dialect of the Maya, which I had never heard before, and had great difficulty in comprehending, although several of the Maya Indians of our party understood it familiarly and spoke it fluently. From them we learned that they had never seen men of our race before, but that a man of the same race as Senor Hammond, who was of a bright-florid complexion, with light hair and red whiskers, had been sacrificed and eaten by the Macbenachs, or priests of Iximaya, the great city among the hills, about thirty moons ago. Our interpreters stated that the word "Iximaya" meant the "Great Centre," and that "Macbenach" meant the "Great Son of the Sun." I at once resolved to make the most of my time in learning as much as possible of this dialect from these men, because they said it was the tongue spoken by the people of Iximaya and the surrounding region. It appeared to me to be merely a provincial corruption, or local peculiarism, of the great body of the Maya language, with which I was already acquainted; and, in the course of the next day's conversation, I found that I could acquire it with much facility." To this circumstance the writer is probably indebted for his life. In another day, the determined explorers had come within the circuit of the alpine district in which Iximaya is situated, and found it reposing, in massive grandeur, in the centre of a perfectly level plain, about five leagues in diameter, at a distance of scarcely two from the spot they had reached. At the base of all the mountains, rising upon their sides, and extending nearly a mile inward upon the plain, was a dark green forest of colossal trees and florid shrubbery, girding it around; while the even valley itself exhibited large tracts of uncultivated fields, fenced in with palisades, and regular, even to monotony, both in size and form. "Large herds of deer, cattle, and horses, were seen in the openings of the forest, and dispersed over the plain, which was also studded with low flat-roofed dwellings of stone, in small detached clusters, or hamlets. Rich patches of forest, of irregular forms, bordered with gigantic aloes, diversified the landscape in effective contrast with bright lakes of water which glowed among them."