alls it one of the chapels,
offerings of cacao and marks of copal, used by the Indians as incense,
_burned there but a short time before_; an evidence, he says, _of some
superstition or idolatry recently committed by the Indians of that
place_. He piously adds, "God help those poor Indians, for the devil
deceives them very easily."

While in Merida I procured from Don Simon Peon the title papers to this
estate. They were truly a formidable pile, compared with which the
papers in a protracted chancery or ejectment suit would seem a
billet-doux, and, unfortunately, a great portion of them was in the
Maya language; but there was one folio volume in Spanish, and in this
was the first formal conveyance ever made of these lands by the Spanish
government. It bears date the twelfth day of May, 1673, and is entitled
a testimonial of royal favour made to the Regidor Don Lorenzo de Evia,
of four leagues of land (desde los edificios de Uxmal) from the
buildings of Uxmal to the south, one to the east, another to the west,
and another to the north, for his distinguished merits and services
therein expressed. The preamble sets forth that the Regidor Don Lorenzo
de Evia, by a writing that he presented to his majesty, made a
narrative showing that at sixteen leagues from Merida, and three from
the sierra of the village of Ticul, were certain meadows and places
named Uxmalchecaxek, Tzemehan-Cemin-Curea-Kusultzac, Exmuue-Hixmon-nec,
uncultivated and belonging to the crown, which the Indians could not
profit by for tillage and sowing, and which could only serve for horned
cattle; that the said regidor had a wife and children whom it was
necessary for him to maintain for the service of the king in a manner
conforming to his office, and that he wished to stock the said places
and meadows with horned cattle, and praying a grant of them for that
purpose in the name of his majesty, since no injury could result to any
third person, but, "_on the contrary, very great service_ to God our
Lord, _because with that establishment it would prevent the Indians in
those places from worshipping the devil in the ancient buildings which
are there, having in them their idols, to which they burn copal, and
performing other detestable sacrifices, as they are doing every day
notoriously and publicly._"

Following this is a later instrument, dated the third of December,
1687, the preamble of which recites the petition of the Captain Lorenzo
de Evia, setting fo