It is to this shrine of the Maya Venus that as far down as the Spanish conquest, pilgrims repaired yearly to offer their prayers and votive presents to propitiate that divinity. Cogolludo tells us that it was on her altar that the priest who accompanied the adventurers who first landed at the island, after destroying the effigies of the Goddess and of her companions and replacing them by a picture of the Virgin Mary, celebrated mass for the first time on those coasts in presence of a throng of astonished natives. They gave to the island the name of Mugeres (women). I was told that formerly many of the votive offerings had been disinterred from the sand in front of the building. The soil at that place is profusely strewn with fragments of images wrought in clay, representing portions of the human body. I was myself so fortunate as to fall in with the head of a priestess, a beautiful piece of workmanship, moulded according to the most exact proportions of Grecian art. It had formed part of a brazier that had served to burn perfumes on the altar near which I found it. I happened to use part of that vase to hold some live coals, and notwithstanding the many years that had elapsed since it had last served, a most sweet odor arose and filled the small building. I had read in Cogolludo that in olden times, on the main land, opposite to the island of Mugeres, was the city of _Ekab_. I was desirous of visiting its ruins, but no one could indicate their exact position. They did not even know of the name. They spoke of Meco, of Nisucté, of Kankun, of extensive ruins of buildings in that place, where they provide themselves with hewn stones. After much delay I was able to obtain a boat and men. We set sail for Meco, the nearest place situated on another island close to the shores of the main land. There I found a ruined edifice surrounded by a wall forming an inclosure, adorned with rows of small columns. In the centre of the inclosure an altar. The edifice, composed of two rooms, is built on a graduated pyramid composed of seven _andenes_. This building is without a doubt an ancient temple. We next visited Nisucté. There we found the same sort of monuments but built on a large scale. These places have merely been shrines visited by the pilgrims on their way to and from the altar of Venus. The main point of importance gained in visiting these ruins was that this whole coast had been inhabited by a race of dwarfs and that these edifices were their work. We had seen their portraits carved on the pillars of the fortress at Chichen-Itza. We had seen also their pictures among the several paintings. We had heard of the Indian tradition, very current among the natives, that many of the monuments of Yucatan had been constructed by the _Alux-ob_.