The next day I resumed my occupation of superintending the Indians. It was, perhaps, the hardest labour I had in that country to look on and see them work, and it was necessary to be with them all the time; for if not watched, they would not work at all.

The next day opened with a drizzling rain, the beginning of the prevailing storm of the country, called El Norte. This storm, we were told, rarely occurred at this season, and the mayoral said that after it was over, the regular dry season would certainly set in. The thermometer fell to fifty-two, and to our feelings the change was much for the better. In fact, we had begun to feel a degree of lassitude, the effect of the excessive heat, and this change restored and reinvigorated us.

This day, too, with the beginning of the storm, Don Simon arrived from Jalacho, according to promise, to pay us a visit. He was not in the habit of visiting Uxmal at this season, and though less fearful than other members of his family, he was not without apprehensions on account of the health of the place. In fact, he had suffered much himself from an illness contracted there. At the hacienda he found the mayoral, who had just returned with me from Jalacho, ill with calentura or fever. This, with the cold and rain of the Norther, did not tend to restore his equanimity. We insisted on his becoming our guest, but agreed to let him off at night on account of the moschetoes. His visit was a fortunate circumstance for us; his knowledge of localities, and his disposition to forward our views, gave us great facilities in our exploration of the ruins, and at the same time our presence and co-operation induced him to satisfy his own curiosity in regard to some things which had not yet been examined.

Throughout the ruins circular holes were found at different places in the ground, opening into chambers underneath, which had never been examined, and the character of which was entirely unknown. We had noticed them, at the time of our former visit, on the platform of the great terrace; and though this platform was now entirely overgrown, and many of them were hidden from sight, in opening a path to communicate with the hacienda we had laid bare two. The mayoral had lately discovered another at some distance outside the wall, so perfect at the mouth, and apparently so deep on sounding it with a stone, that Don Simon wished to explore it.

The next morning he came to the ruins with Indians, ropes, and candles, and we began immediately with one of those on the platform before the Casa del Gobernador. The opening was a circular hole, eighteen inches in diameter. The throat consisted of five layers of stones, a yard deep, to a stratum of solid rock. As it was all dark beneath, before descending, in order to guard against the effects of impure air, we let down a candle, which soon touched bottom. The only way of descending was to tie a rope around the body, and be lowered by the Indians. In this way I was let down, and almost before my head had passed through the hole my feet touched the top of a heap of rubbish, high directly under the hole, and falling off at the sides. Clambering down it, I found myself in a round chamber, so filled with rubbish that I could not stand upright. With a candle in my hand, I crawled all round on my hands and knees. The chamber was in the shape of a dome, and had been coated with plaster, most of which had fallen, and now encumbered the ground. The depth could not be ascertained without clearing out the interior. In groping about I found pieces of broken pottery, and a vase of terra cotta, about one foot in diameter, of good workmanship, and having upon it a coat of enamel, which, though not worn off, had lost some of its brightness. It had three feet, each about an inch high, one of which is broken. In other respects it was entire.

The discovery of this vase was encouraging. Not one of these places had ever been explored. Neither Don Simon nor any of the Indians knew anything about them, and, entering them now for the first time, we were excited by the hope that we had discovered a rich mine of curious and interesting fabrics wrought by the inhabitants of this ruined city. Besides this, we had already ascertained one point in regard to which we were doubtful before. This great terrace was not entirely artificial. The substratum was of natural rock, and showed that advantage had been taken of a natural elevation, so far as it went, and by this means some portion of the immense labour of constructing the terrace had been saved.

On the same terrace, directly at the foot of the steps, was another opening of the same kind, and, on clearing around, we found near by a circular stone about six inches in thickness, which fitted the hole, and no doubt had served as a cover. This hole was filled up with dirt to within two feet of the mouth, and setting some Indians at work to clear it out, we passed on in search of another.

Descending the terrace, and passing behind the high and nameless mound which towers between the Casa del Gobernador and Casa de Palomos, the Indians cleared away some bushes, and brought us to another opening, but a few feet from the path we had cut through, entirely hidden from view until the clearing was made. The mouth was similar to that of the first; the throat about a yard deep, and the Indians lowered me down, without any obstruction, to the bottom.

The Indians looked upon our entering these places as senseless and foolhardy, and, besides imaginary dangers, they talked of snakes, scorpions, and hornets, the last of which, from the experience we had had of them in different parts of the ruins, were really objects of fear; for a swarm of them coming upon a man in such a place, would almost murder him before he could be hauled out.

It did not, however, require much time to explore this vault. It was clear of rubbish, perfect and entire in all its parts, without any symptoms of decay, and to all appearances, after the lapse of unknown years, fit for the uses to which it was originally applied. Like the one on the terrace, it was dome-shaped, and the sides fell in a little toward the bottom, like a well-made haystack. The height was ten feet and six inches directly under the mouth, and it was seventeen feet six inches in diameter. The walls and ceiling were plastered, still in a good state of preservation, and the floor was of hard mortar. Don Simon and Dr. Cabot were lowered down, and we examined every part thoroughly.

Leaving this, we went on to a third, which was exactly the same, except that it was a little smaller, being only five yards in diameter.

The fourth was the one which had just been discovered, and which had excited the curiosity of the mayoral. It was a few feet outside of a wall which, as Don Simon said, might be traced through the woods, broken and ruined, until it met and enclosed within its circle the whole of the principal buildings. The mouth was covered with cement, and in the throat was a large stone filling it up, which the mayoral, on discovering it, had thrown in to prevent horses or cattle from falling through. A rope was passed under the stone, and it was hauled out. The throat was smaller than any of the others, and hardly large enough to pass the body of a man. In shape and finish it was exactly the same as the others, with perhaps a slight shade of difference in the dimensions. The smallness of this mouth was, to my mind, strong proof that these subterraneous chambers had never been intended for any purposes which required men to descend into them. I was really at a loss how to get out. The Indians had no mechanical help of any kind, but were obliged to stand over the hole and hoist by dead pull, making, as I had found before, a jerking, irregular movement. The throat was so small that there was no play for the arms, to enable me to raise myself up by the rope, and the stones around the mouth were insecure and tottering. I was obliged to trust to them, and they involuntarily knocked my head against the stones, let down upon me a shower of dirt, and gave me such a severe rasping that I had no disposition at that time to descend another. In fact, they too were tired out, and it was a business in which, on our own account at least, it would not do to overtask them.

We were extremely disappointed in not finding any more vases or relics of any kind. We could not account for the one found in the chamber under the terrace, and were obliged to suppose that it had been thrown in or got there by accident.

These subterraneous chambers are scattered over the whole ground covered by the ruined city. There was one in the cattle-yard before the hacienda, and the Indians were constantly discovering them at greater distances. Dr. Cabot found then continually in his hunting excursions, and once, in breaking through bushes in search of a bird, fell into one, and narrowly escaped a serious injury; indeed, there were so many of them, and in places where they were so little to be expected, that they made rambling out of the cleared paths dangerous, and to the last day of our visit we were constantly finding new ones.

That they were constructed for some specific purpose, had some definite object, and that that object was uniform, there was no doubt, but what it was, in our ignorance of the habits of the people, it was difficult to say. Don Simon thought that the cement was not hard enough to hold water, and hence that they were not intended as cisterns or reservoirs, but for granaries or store-houses of maize, which, from our earliest knowledge of the aborigines down to the present day, has been the staff of life to the inhabitants. In this opinion, however, we did not concur, and from what we saw afterward, believe that they were intended as cisterns, and had furnished, in part at least, a supply of water to the people of the ruined city.

We returned to our apartments to dine, and in the afternoon accompanied Don Simon to see the harvest of the maize crop. The great field in front of the Casa del Gobernador was planted with corn, and on the way we learned a fact which may be interesting to agriculturists in the neighbourhood of those numerous cities throughout our country which, being of premature growth, are destined to become ruins. The debris of ruined cities fertilize and enrich land. Don Simon told us that the ground about Uxmal was excellent for milpas or corn-fields. He had never had a better crop of maize than that of the last year; indeed, it was so good that he had planted a part of the same land a second time, which is a thing unprecedented under their system of agriculture; and Don Simon had another practical view of the value of these ruins, which would have done for the meridian of our own city. Pointing to the great buildings, he said that if he had Uxmal on the banks of the Mississippi, it would be an immense fortune, for there was stone enough to pave every street in New-Orleans, without sending to the North for it, as it was necessary to do; but, not to be outdone in sensible views of things, we suggested that if he had it on the banks of the Mississippi, easy of access, preserved from the rank vegetation which is now hurrying it to destruction, it would stand like Herculaneum and Pompeii, a place of pilgrimage for the curious; and that it would be a much better operation to put a fence around it and charge for admission, than to sell the stone for paving streets.

By this time we had reached the foot of the terrace, and a few steps brought us into the corn-field. The system of agriculture in Yucatan is rather primitive. Besides hemp and sugar, which the Indians seldom attempt to raise on their own account, the principal products of the country are corn, beans, and calabazas, like our pumpkins and squashes, camotes, which are perhaps the parent of our Carolina potatoes, and chili or pepper, of which last an inordinate quantity is consumed, both by the Indians and Spaniards. Indian corn, however, is the great staple, and the cultivation of this probably differs but little now from the system followed by the Indians before the conquest. In the dry season, generally in the months of January and February, a place is selected in the woods, from which the trees are cut down and burned. In May or June the corn is planted. This is done by making little holes in the ground with a pointed stick, putting in a few grains of corn and covering them over. Once in the ground, it is left to take care of itself, and if it will not grow, it is considered that the land is not worth having. The corn has a fair start with the weeds, and they keep pace amicably together. The hoe, plough, and harrow are entirely unknown; indeed, in general neither of the last two could be used, on account of the stony face of the country: the machete is the only instrument employed.

The milpa around the ruins of Uxmal had been more than usually neglected; the crop turned out badly, but such as it was, the Indians from three of Don Simon’s adjoining haciendas, according to their obligation to the master, were engaged in getting it in. They were distributed in different parts of the field; and of those we came upon first, I counted a small group of fifty-three. As we drew near, all stopped working, approached Don Simon, bowed respectfully to him, and then to us as his friends. The corn had been gathered, and these men were engaged in threshing it out. A space was cleared of about a hundred feet square, and along the border of it was a line of small hammocks hanging on stakes fixed in the ground, in which the Indians slept during the whole time of the harvest, each with a little fire underneath to warm him in the cool night air, and drive away the moschetoes.

Don Simon threw himself into one of the hammocks, and held out one of his legs, which was covered with burrs and briers. These men were free and independent electors of the State of Yucatan; but one of them took in his hand Don Simon’s foot, picked off the burrs, pulled off the shoe, cleaned the stocking, and, restoring the shoe, laid the foot back carefully in the hammock, and then took up the other. It was all done as a matter of course, and no one bestowed a thought upon it except ourselves.

On one side of the clearing was a great pile or small mountain of corn in the ear, ready to be threshed, and near by was the threshing machine, which certainly could not be considered an infringement of any Yankee patent right. It was a rude scaffold about eighteen or twenty feet square, made of four untrimmed upright posts for corners, with poles lashed to them horizontally three or four feet from the ground, and across these was a layer of sticks, about an inch thick, side by side; the whole might have served as a rude model of the first bedstead ever made.

The parallel sticks served as a threshing floor, on which was spread a thick layer of corn. On each side a rude ladder of two or three rounds rested against the floor, and on each of these ladders stood a nearly naked Indian, with a long pole in his hand, beating the corn. The grains fell through, and at each corner under the floor was a man with a brush made of bushes, sweeping off the cobs. The shelled corn was afterward taken up in baskets and carried to the hacienda. The whole process would have surprised a Genesee farmer; but perhaps, where labour was so little costly, it answered as well as the best threshing machine that could be invented.

The next day we had another welcome visiter in our fellow-passenger, Mr. Camerden, who was just from Campeachy, where he had seen New-York papers to the third of November. Knowing our deep interest in the affairs of our country, and postponing his own curiosity about the ruins, he hastened to communicate to us the result of the city elections, viz., a contest in the sixth ward and entire uncertainty which party was uppermost.

Unfortunately, Mr. Camerden, not being in very good health at the time, was also infected with apprehensions about Uxmal, and as El Norte still continued, the coldness and rain made him uneasy in a place of such bad reputation. Having no ill feelings against him and no spare moscheto-net, we did not ask him to remain at night, and he accompanied Don Simon to the hacienda to sleep.

The next day Doctor Cabot had a professional engagement at the hacienda. In both my expeditions into that region of country our medical department was incomplete. On the former occasion we had a medicine-chest, but no doctor, and this time we had a doctor, but no medicine-chest. This necessary appendage had been accidentally left on board the ship, and did not come to our hands till some time afterward. We had only a small stock purchased in Merida, and on this account, as well as because it interfered with his other pursuits, the doctor had avoided entering into general practice. He was willing to attend to cases that might be cured by a single operation, but the principal diseases were fevers, which could not be cut out with a knife. The day before, however, a young Indian came to the ruins on an errand to Don Simon, who had a leg swollen with varicose veins. He had a mild expression, meek and submissive manners, and was what Don Simon called, in speaking of his best servants, muy dócil, or very docile. He stood at that time in an interesting position, being about to be married. Don Simon had had him at Merida six months, under the care of a physician, but without any good result, and the young man was taking his chance for better or worse, almost with the certainty of becoming in a few years disabled, and a mass of corruption. Doctor Cabot undertook to perform an operation, for which purpose it was necessary to go to the hacienda; and, that we might return with Mr. Camerden, we all went there to breakfast.

Under the corridor was an old Indian leaning against a pillar, with his arms folded across his breast, and before him a row of little Indian girls, all, too, with arms folded, to whom he was teaching the formal part of the church service, giving out a few words, which they all repeated after him. As we entered the corridor, he came up to us, bowed, and kissed our hands, and all the little girls did the same.

Don Simon had breakfast ready for us, but we found some deficiencies. The haciendas of that country never have any surplus furniture, being only visited by the master once or twice a year, and then only for a few days, when he brings with him whatever he requires for his personal comfort. Uxmal was like the rest, and at that moment it was worse off, for we had stripped it of almost every movable to enlarge our accommodations at the ruins. Our greatest difficulty was about seats. All contrived to be provided for, however, except Don Simon, who finally, as it was an extreme case, went into the church and brought out the great confessional chair.

Breakfast over, the doctor’s patient was brought forward. He was not consulted on the subject of the operation, and had no wish of his own about it, but did as his master ordered him. At the moment of beginning, Doctor Cabot asked for a bed. He had not thought of asking for it before, supposing it would be ready at a moment’s notice; but he might almost as well have asked for a steamboat or a locomotive engine. Who ever thought of wanting a bed at Uxmal? was the general feeling of the Indians. They were all born in hammocks, and expected to die in them, and who wanted a bed when he could get a hammock? A bed, however (which means a bedstead), was indispensable, and the Indians dispersed in search, returning, after a long absence, with tidings that they had heard of one on the hacienda, but it had been taken apart, and the pieces were in use for other purposes. They were sent off again, and at length we received notice that the bed was coming, and presently it appeared advancing through the gate of the cattleyard in the shape of a bundle of poles on the shoulder of an Indian. For purposes of immediate use, they might as well hare been on the tree that produced them, but, after a while, they were put together, and made a bedstead that would have astonished a city cabinet-maker.

In the mean time the patient was looking on, perhaps with somewhat the feeling of a man superintending the making of his own coffin. The disease was in his right leg, which was almost as thick as his body, covered with ulcers, and the distended veins stood out like whipcords. Doctor Cabot considered it necessary to cut two veins. The Indian stood up, resting the whole weight of his body on the diseased leg, so as to bring them out to the fullest, and supporting himself by leaning with his hands on a bench. One vein was cut, the wound bound up, and then the operation was performed on the other by thrusting a stout pin into the flesh under the vein, and bringing it out on the other side, then winding a thread round the protruding head and point, and leaving the pin to cut its way through the vein and fester out. The leg was then bound tight, and the Indian laid upon the bed. During the whole time not a muscle of his face moved, and, except at the moment when the pin was thrust under the vein, when his hand contracted on the bench, it could not have been told that he was undergoing an operation of any kind.

This over, we set out on our return with Mr. Camerden to the ruins, but had hardly left the gate of the cattle-yard, when we met an Indian with his arm in a sling, coming in search of Doctor Cabot. A death-warrant seemed written in his face. His little wife, a girl about fourteen years old, soon to become a mother, was trotting beside him, and his case showed how, in those countries, human life is the sport of accident and ignorance. A few days before, by some awkwardness, he had given his left arm a severe cut near the elbow with a machete. To stop the bleeding, his wife had tied one string as tightly as possible around the wrist, and another in the hollow of the arm, and so it had remained three days. The treatment had been pretty effectual in stopping the bleeding, and it had very nearly stopped the circulation of his blood forever. The hand was shrunken to nothing, and seemed withered; the part of the arm between the two ligatures was swollen enormously, and the seat of the wound was a mass of corruption. Doctor Cabot took off the fastenings, and endeavoured to teach her to restore the circulation by friction, or rubbing the arm with the palm of the hand, but she had no more idea of the circulation of the blood than of the revolution of the planets.

The wound, on being probed, gave out a foul and pestilential discharge, and, when that was cleared away, out poured a stream of arterial blood. The man had cut an arterial vein. Doctor Cabot had no instruments with him with which to take it up, and, grasping the arm with a strong pressure on the vein, so as to stop the flow of blood, he transferred the arm to me, fixing my fingers upon the vein, and requesting me to hold it in that position while he ran to the ruins for his instruments. This was by no means pleasant. If I lost the right pressure, the man might bleed to death; and, having no regular diploma warranting people to die on my hands, not willing to run the risk of any accident, and knowing the imperturbable character of the Indians, I got the arm transferred to one of them, with a warning that the man’s life depended upon him. Doctor Cabot was gone more than half an hour, and during all that time, while the patient’s head was falling on his shoulder with fainting fits, the Indian looked directly in his face, and held up the arm with a fixedness of attitude that would have served as a model for a sculptor. I do not believe that, for a single moment, the position of the arm varied a hair’s breadth.

Doctor Cabot dressed the wound, and the Indian was sent away, with an even chance, as the doctor considered, for life or death. The next that we heard of him, however, he was at work in the fields; certainly, but for the accidental visit of Doctor Cabot, he would have been in his grave.

After this there were some delicate cases among the women of the hacienda; and these multifarious occupations consumed the whole of the morning, which we had intended to devote to Mr. Camerden and the ruins. It was a cold and cheerless day; the Norther was increasing in force, and he saw malaria and sickness all around him. In the afternoon he left us to return to New-York by the same vessel which had brought us out. Unfortunately, he carried away with him the seeds of a dangerous illness, from which he did not recover in many months.

The next day Don Simon left us, and we were again alone. Sickness was increasing on the hacienda, and two days afterward we received notice that Doctor Cabot’s leg patient was ill with fever, and also that a woman had died that day of the same disease, and was to be buried the next morning. We ordered horses to be sent up to the ruins, and early in the morning Dr. Cabot and myself rode to the hacienda, he to visit his patient, and I to attend the funeral, in the expectation that such an event, on a retired hacienda, without any priest or religious ceremonies, would disclose some usage or custom illustrative of the ancient Indian character. Leaving my horse in the cattle-yard, in company with the mayoral I walked to the campo santo. This was a clearing in the woods at a short distance from the house, square, and enclosed by a rude stone fence. It had been consecrated with the ceremonies of the church, and was intended as a burial-place for all who died on the estate; a rude place, befitting the rude and simple people for whom it was designed. When we entered we saw a grave half dug, which had been abandoned on account of the stones, and some Indians were then occupied in digging another.

Only one part of the cemetery had been used as a burial-place, and this was indicated by little wooden crosses, one planted at the head of each grave. In this part of the cemetery was a stone enclosure about four feet high, and the same in diameter, which was intended as a sort of charnel-house, and was then filled with skulls and bones, whitening in the sun. I moved to this place, and began examining the skulls.

The Indians, in digging the grave, used a crowbar and machete, and scooped out the loose earth with their hands. As the work proceeded, I heard the crowbar enter something with a cracking, tearing sound: it had passed through a human skull. One of the Indians dug it out with his hands, and, after they had all examined and commented upon it, handed it to the mayoral, who gave it to me. They all knew whose skull it was. It was that of a woman who had been born and brought up, and who had died among them, and whom they had buried only the last dry season, but little more than a year before. The skull was laid upon the pile, and the Indians picked out the arms and legs, and all the smaller bones. Below the ribs, from the back downward, the flesh had not decayed, but dried up and adhered to the bones, which, all hanging together, they lifted out and laid upon the pile. All this was done decently and with respect.

As I stood by the enclosure of bones, I took up different skulls, and found that they were all known and identified. The campo santo had been opened but about five years, and every skull had once sat, upon the shoulders of an acquaintance.

The graves were all on one side, and on the other no dead had been buried. I suggested to the mayoral, that by beginning on the farther side, and burying in order, every corpse would have time to decay and become dust before its place was wanted for another, which he seemed to think a good idea, and communicated it to the Indians, who stopped their work, looked at him and at me, and then went on digging. I added, that in a few years the bones of the friend they were about burying, and his own, and those of all the rest of them, would be pulled and handled like those on the pile, which, also, he communicated to them, and with the same effect. In the mean time I had overhauled the skulls, and placed on the top two which I ascertained to be those of full-blooded Indians, intending to appropriate and carry them off at the first convenient opportunity.

The Indians worked as slowly as if each was digging his own grave, and at length the husband of the deceased came out, apparently to hurry them. He was bare-headed, had long black hair hanging down over his eyes, and, dressed in a clean blue flannel shirt, he seemed what he really was, one of the most respectable men on the hacienda. Sitting down by the side of the grave, he took two sticks which were there for that purpose, with one of which he measured the length, and with the other the breadth. This, to say the least of it, was cool, and the expression of his face was of that stolid and unbending kind, that no idea could be formed of his feelings; but it was not too much to suppose that a man in the early prime of life, who had fulfilled well all the duties of his station, must feel some emotion in measuring the grave of one who had been his companion when the labours of the day were over, and who was the mother of his children.

The grave was not large enough, and he took his seat at the foot, and waited while the Indians enlarged it, from time to time suggesting an improvement. In the mean time Doctor Cabot arrived on the ground with his gun, and one of the grave-diggers pointed out a flock of parrots flying over. They were too far off to kill; but as the Indians were always astonished at seeing a shot on the wing, and all seemed anxious to have him shoot, he fired, and knocked out some feathers. The Indians laughed, watched the feathers as they fell into the graveyard, and then resumed their work. At length the husband again took the sticks, measured the grave, and finding all right, returned to the house. The Indians picked up a rude barrow made of two long poles with crosspieces, which had been thrown down by the side of the last corpse it had carried, and went off for the dead body. They were gone so long that we thought they wished to wear out our patience, and told the mayoral to go and hurry them; but presently we heard a shuffling of feet, and the sound of female voices, heralding a tumultuous procession of women. On reaching the fence of the cemetery they all stopped, and, seeing us, would not come in, except one old Beelzebub, who climbed over, walked directly to the foot of the grave, leaned down, and, looking into it, made some exclamation which set all the women outside laughing. This so incensed the old woman that she picked up a handful of stones, and began pelting them right and left, at which they all scattered with great confusion and laughter, and in the midst of this, the corpse, attended by an irregular crowd of men, women, and children, made its appearance.

The barrow was lifted over the fence and laid down beside the grave. The body had no coffin, but was wrapped from head to foot in a blue cotton shawl with a yellow border. The head was uncovered, and the feet stuck out, and had on a pair of leather shoes and white cotton stockings, probably a present from her husband on his return from some visit to Merida, which the poor woman had never worn in life, and which he thought he was doing her honour by placing in her grave.

The Indians passed ropes under the body; the husband himself supported the head, and so it was lowered into the grave. The figure was tall, and the face was that of a woman about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. The expression was painful, indicating that in the final struggle the spirit had been reluctant to leave its mortal tenement. There was but one present who shed tears, and that was the old mother of the deceased, who doubtless had expected this daughter to lay her own head in the grave. She held by the hand a bright-eyed girl, who looked on with wonder, happily unconscious that her best friend on earth was to be laid under the sod. The shawl was opened, and showed a white cotton dress under it; the arms, which were folded across the breast for the convenience of carrying the body, were laid down by the sides, and the shawl was again wrapped round. The husband himself arranged the head, placed under it a cotton cloth for a pillow, and composed it for its final rest as carefully as if a pebble or a stone could hurt it. He brushed a handful of earth over the face; the Indians filled up the grave, and all went away. No romance hangs over such a burial scene, but it was not unnatural to follow in imagination the widowed Indian to his desolate hut.

We had been disappointed in not seeing any relic of Indian customs, and, as it was now eleven o’clock and we had not breakfasted, we did not consider ourselves particularly indemnified for our trouble.