ies,
excused it. There was no man in the country whom we were so well
pleased to meet, and as it was a rare thing for him to associate with
persons who took the slightest interest in his hobby, he mourned that
he could not throw up all his business and accompany us in our
exploration of the ruins.

It is worthy of remark, that even to a man so alive to all subjects of
antiquarian interest, the history of the building of this convent is
entirely unknown. In the pavement of the great corridor, in the
galleries, walls, and roof, both of the church and convent, are stones
from ancient buildings, and no doubt both were constructed with
materials furnished by the ruined edifices of another race, but when,
or how, or under what circumstances, is unknown. On the roof the cura
had discovered, in a situation which would hardly have attracted any
eyes but his own, a square stone, having roughly engraved on it this
inscription:

26
Marzo,
1625.

Perhaps this had reference to the date of the construction, and if so,
it is the only known record that exists in relation to it; and the
thought almost unavoidably occurs, that where such obscurity exists in
regard to a building constructed by the Spaniards but little more than
two hundred years ago, how much darker must be the cloud that hangs
over the ruined cities of the aborigines, erected, if not ruined,
before the conquest.

Daring the first days of my convalescence I had a quiet and almost
mournful interest in wandering about this venerable convent. I passed,
too, some interesting hours in looking over the archives. The books had
a time-worn aspect, with parchment covers, tattered and worm-eaten. In
some places the ink had faded, and the writing was illegible. They were
the records of the early monks written by their own hands, and
contained a register of baptisms and marriages, including, perhaps, the
first Indian who assented to these Christian rites. It was my hope to
find in these archives some notice, however slight, of the
circumstances under which the early fathers set up the standard of the
cross in this Indian town, but the first book has no preamble or
introduction of any kind, commencing abruptly with the entry of a
marriage.

This entry bears date in 1588, but forty or fifty years after the
Spaniards established themselves in Merida. This is thirty-eight years