There is some reason to believe that this idol was in the form of the tapir, in Maya called "_tzimin_." There is no doubt that the queer "pig-deer," which is still found in the southern forests of Yucatan and in Chiapas, held an important place in Mayan mythology; and the account of this idol of pottery at Zaci worshipped as Ah-Zakik-ual, "Lord of the East Wind," which is described as being shaped like a huge vase moulded in front into an ugly face, suggests that there was here a temple dedicated to that tapir god replicas of whose image have been found moulded in vase form in many parts of Southern Yucatan, and especially in Guatemala. The interior of the huge vase was not probably used for the burning of copal, the figure thus being, as appears to have been so often the case, idol and altar in one. We had left Chichen, as we had reached it, in the dark. But this time it was the darkness before dawn, and, with no moon, the Castillo looked gloomy and awesome in its setting of black woods. With our pockets full of oranges from the hospitable trees of the hacienda and our hearts full of wonder at the ruins amid which we had spent so many interesting days, we turned our horses' heads once more towards Citas, where we were due to catch another early train. It was perilous work picking your way in the gloom amid the boulders of the "camino real," as the Spaniards euphemistically call these execrable highroads. One wonders what a sham "camino" would be like, if this is a "real" one. But the dawn was worth seeing in those dark woods, dripping with the heavy tropical dew. The glorious sun came, and the slate-greys and blacks turned to silvers and lustrous greens, and the dank sodden boughs changed to fairy wands, trimmed with diamonds as the sun touched them. And the sombre sky turned into such a blue, and the reds and ambers, the azures and the greens, of birds and butterflies as they woke for another day were so wonderful, that one caught the infection of it, the magic of God's tropic woodland, and we forgot the troubles of boulder-strewn roads and horn-pommelled Mexican saddles.