| such facility that they covered their buildings with deeply | | chiselled ornamentation. Mr. Woolner said that he thought it | | probable that the Indians may have been acquainted with some | | strong acids, and that they may have used these to soften the | | stone and make it more workable. | | | | We were looking at some photographs exhibited by Mr. Maudslay, | | who had lately returned from Palenque, and the question of the | | method of carving the outlines of the figures on the stone slabs | | of the courts came under consideration. Mr. Woolner thought that | | the subject was very difficult, but that it was possible that the | | figures had been previously traced and then worked with acid as he | | had already suggested. | | | | [93] When I heard of this Indian practice my thoughts went far away | | from the forests of Palenque. Memories of the Eton playing fields | | were recalled and an old Eton Latin grammar, and the familiar | | line, “Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque | | turres.” With Indians, as with others, the fatal footstep cannot | | be turned aside. | | | | [94] For a description of this ceremony see Landa, chap. xxvi. | | “Manner of baptism in Yucatan. How it was celebrated.” | | | | [95] See “Historia de la Guerra de Castas de Yucatan,” p. 77. | | Merida, 1866. | | | | [96] As the little Aguinaga was timidly seeking for an anchorage, I | | remembered a far different scene in which I had taken part in | | 1853, seventeen years earlier. | | | | The Vestal, a twenty-six gun frigate in which I was then serving, | | had captured three slavers off the north coast of Cuba. One of | | them was a fast sailing vessel called the Venus. She had become | | notorious for her success in evading our cruisers and landing | | large cargoes of slaves. | | | | When we arrived off the mouth of the port of Havannah we formed | | our fleet of prizes into line and passed between the castles in | | triumph: our movements being watched by thousands of the Spanish | | inhabitants as we took up our anchorage in the centre of the |