As Lopez did not know the country beyond Ocosingo, it was settled that he should return to Comitan. I was sorry to part with him. He had carried the luggage and provisions, and although a part of the journey must have been extremely fatiguing to him he never complained. He also showed the utmost zeal in obtaining forage for the mule, and was willing and attentive. Don Remigio hired for me a guide named Bito, who spoke Spanish and knew the paths as far as Chilon, about eleven leagues distant. Bito brought with him a horse, and thus we were able to travel at a fair speed. After riding through several leagues of pine forests we reached Bachajon in the afternoon. Bachajon was a strictly Indian village, for the natives objected to any white people or Ladinos settling amongst them. In the Plaza we found numbers of Indians congregated together. They differed greatly from those that I had hitherto seen both in appearance and dialect. The men wore a white cloth folded round the head, and white frocks and trousers. The women wore a white frock cut open and square over the shoulders, and below this a blue skirt reaching nearly to the feet. Their thick black hair was tied back with a strip of bright red cotton. Many of the younger women were handsome, but their figures were spoilt and bent by the custom of carrying large water jars on the hip. The men were of a larger stature than the natives on the Pacific side of the Cordilleras, and their skin was of a dark copper colour. Their faces were broad, but the cheek bones were not so high as is usual with the North American Indians. Their hair was long, black and very thick, and their eyes were dark, large, round and restless. With all of them the nostrils were very wide. The church was in ruins, the roof had entirely disappeared, and only the porch and outer walls remained standing. I remained for several hours in the Plaza, and my attention was directed to a remarkable observance. The Indians, when returning from their fields upon the completion of their day’s work, invariably, before going to their huts, went to the front of the ruined porch. There they knelt down and prayed for some minutes. I was deeply interested in observing the practice of this custom. There was something that appealed strongly to the imagination in witnessing the simple and earnest devotion of these wild, ignorant and uncivilised people. It was impossible to conjecture what was present in their minds, as one by one they, in their solitary manner, knelt devoutly before these ruined walls. Possibly they worshipped in their memory the images that, many years before, had been enshrined within.