ied up in a napkin, being the remains of one buried within
and taken out to make room for another corpse. On one of them were the
skull and bones of a lady of the village, in a basket; an old
acquaintance of the cura, who had died within two years. Among the
bones was a pair of white satin shoes, which she had perhaps worn in
the dance, and with which on her feet she had been buried.

At one corner of the cemetery was a walled enclosure, about twenty feet
high and thirty square, within which was the charnel-house of the
cemetery. A flight of stone steps led to the top of the wall, and on
the platform of the steps and along the wall were skulls and bones,
some in boxes and baskets, and some tied up in cotton cloths, soon to
be thrown upon the common pile, but as yet having labels with the names
written on them, to make known yet a little while longer the
individuals to whom they had once belonged. Within the enclosure the
earth was covered several feet deep with the promiscuous and
undistinguishable bones of rich and poor, high and low, men, women, and
children, Spaniards, Mestizoes, and Indians, all mingled together as
they happened to fall. Among them were fragments of bright-coloured
dresses, and the long hair of women still clinging to the skull. Of all
the sad mementoes declaring the end to which all that is bright and
beautiful in the world is doomed, none ever touched me so affectingly
as this--the ornament and crowning charm of woman, the peculiar subject
of her taste and daily care, loose, dishevelled, and twining among dry
and mouldering bones.

We left the campo santo, and walked up the long street of the village,
the quiet, contented character of the people impressing itself more
strongly than ever upon my mind. The Indians were sitting in the yards,
shrouded by cocoanut and orange trees weaving hammocks and platting
palm leaves for hats; the children were playing naked in the road, and
the Mestiza women were sitting in the doorways sewing. The news of our
digging up the bones had created a sensation. All wanted to know what
the day's work had produced, and all rose up as the cura passed; the
Indians came to kiss his hand, and, as he remarked, except when the
crop of maize was short, all were happy. In a place of such bustle and
confusion as our own city, it is impossible to imagine the quiet of
this village.

CHAPTER XIV.

Departure from Ticul.--The Sierra.--Nohcacab.-