We had risked much to visit the island; but archæologically it was not worth it. Here it was that the Spaniards in 1517 got their very first sight of those stone buildings of Central America which were as much a marvel to them as they are to us to-day. The historians of the Conquest describe a temple of stone, surrounded by fruit trees and sweet-scented shrubs, and approached by well-laid steps. Within, the air was heavy with the smell of incense which burnt in stone and earthenware vessels before female idols clothed in cotton petticoats with the bosoms "decently covered." Before these images were well-ordered files of women-ministrants, who served in the temple. Hence Cordoba called the island Isla de Mujeres--Isle of Women. But all this old-time glory has disappeared. The only village edges with its whitewashed huts, their doors painted a light blue or green, the shallow semicircle of sand which forms the islet's only anchorage; behind this row of cottages the tiny cross-streets are almost knee-deep in its pale yellow glitter. Away southward stretches a barren waste, six miles long and never much more than a mile wide, of rock and sand, over which clambers a coarse-leafed sea-vine, a coarser thistly plant, with here and there a clump of fan-palms. Only at the extreme southern end on a rocky bluff stands a relic of the dead people. It is a solid-built structure about 18 feet square on the outside, and containing two rooms 14 feet by 6 each. There is no ornamentation or hieroglyphics on it, but outside, facing east, are two stone ledges, like plinths for statues, upon which, local rumour has it, once stood two gigantic statues of women. Near at hand is a small Spanish watch-tower, all to pieces, a contrast to the well-preserved Indian stone-work.