ridor and arch, and on the wall were prints of the red
hand. The whole country was so overgrown that it was impossible to form
any idea of what its extent had been, but one thing was certain, a
large city had once stood here, and what its name was no man knew.

At this time my visit was merely intended as preliminary, for the
purpose of judging whether there were any subjects for Mr. Catherwood's
pencil, and it was now about one o'clock. The heat was intense, and
sweating and covered with briers and burrs, which stuck to every part
of my clothes, I came out into the open road, where my Indium was
waiting for me with the horses. We mounted immediately, and continued
on a gallop to the hacienda of Tankuche, two leagues distant.

This hacienda was a favourite with Don Simon, as he had created it out
of the wilderness, and the entire road from the village he had made
himself. It was a good logwood country, and here he had erected
machinery for extracting the dye. In general, it was the most busy
place of all his haciendas, but this day it seemed as if a desolating
scourge had swept over it. The huts of the Indians were closed and
locked up; no barebodied children were playing around them, and the
large gate was locked. We tied our horses by one of the panels, and,
ascending by a flight of stone steps, entered the lane and walked up to
the house. Every door was locked, and not a person in sight. Moving on
to the high stone structure forming the platform of the well, I saw a
little boy, dressed in a straw hat, dozing on an old horse, which was
creeping round with the well-beam, drawing in broken buckets a slow
stream of water, for which no one came. At sight of me he rose from the
neck of his horse, and tried to stop him, but the old animal seemed so
used to going round that he could not stop, and the little fellow
looked as if he expected to be going till some one came to take him
off. All had gone to the fiesta, and were now swelling the great crowd
I had left in the village. It was an immense change from the thronged
fair to the solitude of this desolate hacienda. I sat down under a
large seybo tree overshadowing the well, and ate a roll of bread and an
orange, after which I strolled back to the gate, and, to my surprise,
found only one horse. My guide had mounted his and returned to his
hacienda. I walked into the factory, returned to the well, and
attempted speech with the boy, but the old horse started forward and
carr