dded to our larder several kinds
of ducks, wild turkeys, chachalachas, quails, pigeons, doves, parrots,
jays, and other smaller birds. Besides these, we received from time to
time a present from the Dona Joaquina or Don Simon, and altogether our
living was better than we had ever known in exploring ruins. Latterly,
however, on account of the thickness of the woods. Doctor Cabot had
become disgusted with sporting; having no dog, it was sometimes
impossible to find one bird out of six, and he confined his shooting to
birds which he wanted for dissection. At this time, too, we received
intelligence that the fowls at the hacienda were running short, and the
eggs gave out altogether.

There was no time to be lost, and we forthwith despatched Albino with
an Indian to the village of Moona, twelve miles distant, who returned
with a back-load of eggs, beans, rice, and sugar, and again the sun
went down upon us in the midst of plenty. A pig arrived from Don Simon,
sent from another hacienda, the cooking of which enlisted the warmest
sympathies of all our heads of departments, Albino, Bernaldo, and
Chaipa Chi. They had their own way of doing it, national, and derived
from their forefathers, being the same way in which those respectable
people cooked men and women, as Bernal Dias says, "dressing the bodies
in their manner, which is by a sort of oven made with heated stones,
which are put under ground." They made an excavation on the terrace,
kindled a large fire in it, and kept it burning until the pit was
heated like an oven. Two clean stones were laid in the bottom, the pig
(not alive) was laid upon them, and covered over with leaves and
bushes, packed down with stones so close as barely to leave vent to the
fire, and allow an escape for the smoke.

While this bake was going on I set out on a business close at hand, but
which, in the pressure of other matters, I had postponed from day to
day. On a line with the back of the Casa del Gobernador rises the high
and nameless mound represented in the frontispiece, forming one of the
grandest and most imposing structures among all the ruins of Uxmal. It
was at that time covered with trees and a thick growth of herbage,
which gave a gloominess to its grandeur of proportions, and, but for
its regularity, and a single belt of sculptured stones barely visible
at the top, it would have passed for a wooded and grass-grown hill.
Taking some Indians with me, I ascended this mound, and began cl