This is a pleasant town, having a fine square, neatly laid out, with much regularity, and well built. While we were at breakfast, seated on a long wooden bench (the usual table of the Casa-real) saddle-wise, with our customary company, ten to twenty Indians squatted (after their manner) about us, we were waited upon by the curious of the place. They wished to know who we were, and where we were going? To which we gave satisfactory answers. They offered us their best services, as usual, and left us. Soon after they left, the curate called, and was so kind as to offer us his house, and all the appurtenances thereto appertaining, of which, however, owing to our limited stay, I did not think it worth my while to accept. Knowing that I wished to see all that was interesting in his curacy, he, the dear soul, carried me a league, through a burning sun, to see what he called “las ruinas.” I walked to them cheerfully enough, for I anticipated something of an exciting nature. On reaching them, they proved to be merely the walls of a badly built house, which had pertained to a hacienda, and which was not over fifty years of age. When he first called my attention to them, I thought he was playing off a practical joke; but it was not so; it was a sincere desire to please. Short-sighted mortal! his day-dreams had never been disturbed by a knowledge of the pyramids, palaces, and castles of Chi-Chen! By a visit to the convent, however, on my return, I was fully indemnified for all my disappointment, by the good things which appear always to concentrate in these places; and I soon forgot our fatiguing walk to “las ruinas,” by a swing in the hammock. While I was here enjoying myself, during the heat of the day, an Indian brought in a bundle, containing a shroud, intended for some deceased person. The curate apologized; ordered his robes, in which he was soon enveloped; had a candle lighted, to which was affixed a silver cross; gave it to me to hold; took his book, and read over a benediction, occasionally sprinkling water upon the cloth intended for the dead. This was done in an off-hand style, and the Indian was quickly dismissed. It was with some difficulty that I was enabled to tear myself away from my kind host; and it was late before we started for Cantamayec, four leagues distant, where we intended to sleep. Before sundown, however, we bade him adieu, and passing over a rocky path through the woods, we arrived at our stopping-place at nine o’clock.