Besides Lucio our crew consisted of his half-brother, a handsome black-eyed lad of sixteen, who looked far older and rejoiced in the girlish name of Dolores, and a middle-aged Yucatecan sailor whose name was Pedro Paz. With a new stock of provisions, and with a welcome addition of elbow-room compared with the "cabined, cribbed confinement" of the tiny "Esperanza," we made our start in the highest spirits. The run across took less than an hour, and opposite a sandy bay a mile north of the ruins we anchored. The coast for the most part here is shelving coral rock, and even small sailing-boats dare not go right in; landing always being a matter of wading. We could see the main ruin, a pyramid, showing above the woods some little way inland, and as there are no paths hereabouts, and we knew we should have to cut our way, we were all armed with machetes. We stopped under a clump of cocoa palms on the beach--one of our sailors shinning up for the green fruit--and had a delightful drink of the water; and then tramped down the rocky shore till we came opposite the ruins. But we had no sooner plunged into the woods than we discovered we had not got them to ourselves. They were thickly populated, and the natives were the most savage and inhospitable we had yet met. The air was simply filled with mosquitoes, which evidently regarded our arrival as the occasion for a "_dia de fiesta_," and started stinging our faces, hands, and arms till their pestilent persistence nearly maddened us. If there is anything to urge you to work in such a spot where the least movement causes the sweat to run down you in rivulets, it is mosquitoes. While your machete is at work and the bush tops and branches fall around you, the midget fiends keep off a bit. Thus goaded into frenzied activity, we were not long in reaching El Meco.