The padre is a young man, quite sociable, and he occasionally preaches. When this happens, it is in the Maya language. The town is small, and has nothing particularly to recommend it to the stranger. It is built upon a shelving rock, a customary site for towns in this province. [Illustration: _Plan of the Ruins of Uxmal._] At nine o’clock we were again in our saddles for Uxmal,[8] distant about four leagues. I saw at a distance the ruins of Nohpat; but my haste to reach Uxmal would not allow us to stop. I passed several fine estates on the way before reaching that place. The road was a path cut through the bushes, but easy to travel. I arrived at noon at the hacienda owned by a gentleman at Merida, before mentioned, who kindly had furnished me with a letter to his major-domo; which gave me every facility required to visit the extraordinary ruins in the vicinity. The house of the hacienda had just gone through a complete repair and cleaning, and held out many inducements for me to make my quarters there; but, preferring to be near to the place where I intended to spend my time, I ordered our trappings to be removed to the ruins, distant about one mile, whither I followed. I was at a loss which of the splendid structures to appropriate to my use; but the governor’s house had the appearance of being more tenable than all the rest, or perhaps more conspicuous. I chose that for my future place of residence, so I wended my way towards it—passing a grand and lofty pyramid on the right—and scrambled up the broken steps of the southeast angle of my prospective domicile. The governor not being at home, I took quiet possession of three rooms: one for my kitchen, the others for my parlor and bed, or rather, sleeping-room. The rubbish was cleared away, and my furniture, consisting of a table and a chair, with which the major-domo had kindly supplied me, was duly arranged; and some corn, dried pork, lard, sundry eggs, &c., were carefully provided. José selected the most finely finished pieces of ornamented stones which were lying about the door, and silently disposed them around the parlor as seats for the accommodation of company. We then felt ourselves perfectly at home, and ready to receive our friends as soon as they might be pleased to wait upon us. From our door we could see, on our right, beautiful hills undulating like the ground-swell of the sea; on the left, the Cordilleras, looking down with an air of great complaisance upon the plain beneath. Nature is renewing the fields far as the eye can reach; while in the foreground are the time-defying monuments of other days, garlanded with luxuriant shrubs and flowers, to sustain which they had been compelled to give up their own symmetry and beauty. It was nature in her second childhood.